Miniature Horse World Magazine | Page 12

treasurer’s report by Frank Lupton D uring August of 2015, the AMHA needed to collect demographic information to support the efforts of a member working towards securing corporate sponsors for the association. It was decided that the easiest way to collect the needed data was to do a quick, single purpose survey of the members. The survey was completed and the information furnished to the member seeking sponsors. Apparently some members had trouble with the electronic format of the survey and complained on a facebook page. In an effort to help, another member ran a survey using the online tool called Survey Monkey. There are similarities and differences between the two surveys. One important distinction is that the AMHA survey went only to members. The Survey Monkey survey was open to anyone, whether they owned horses or not, were AMHA members or not, but each respondent could only complete the survey once. At the time of this writing, both surveys had an almost identical number of respondents, the AMHA survey having one more response than the SM survey. As the data is presented, I will identify it as the AMHA survey, or the Survey Monkey survey. I am not presenting every question from either survey, due to space limitations, but am including the information I feel is most likely to be of interest to the broadest segment of members. I encourage you to obtain the complete results of the surveys if you have a further interest. It is probable that each of us, as we read the survey results, would take away different meanings or ideas. What follows is my list of garnered facts from looking at the results as AMHA treasurer. 1. As a group, we are reasonable well educated and make good incomes. We have expendable income and use it to support our lifestyles. 2. We are land owners and we invest significantly in the structures and tools necessary to care for our land. 3. We are not young. With the average age for acquiring our first Miniature horse is 41.6 years of age, it is people who are entering their peak earning years who get into miniature horses. Since 38% (AMHA) and 55% (SM) of the respondents also own full size horses, it seems logical that many first time Miniature owners come to us from the large breeds at an age where falling off or getting stepped on aren’t as much fun as it used to be. This has important implications for the AMHA. We always say that youth is our future and this may not be completely true. I am not in any way suggesting that the association should back off from supporting our youth programs, but perhaps we should be looking at some of the full sized horse breeds as a source of new members. 4. Once a person acquires a Miniature horse, they tend to stay involved with Miniatures for a good long time. According to the AMHA survey, the average length of time respondents had owned Miniatures was 16 years. Also, as we all know, no one owns just one Miniature horse. The average number owned by the survey respondents is 20. 5. Those who own Miniatures tend to use them as more than pets. With over 70% of the respondents active in breeding and showing (AMHA Survey), it shows we like doing things with our horses. It also shows that those who took the surveys are among the more active people in our association. If 70% of all the AMHA members showed, our shows would be far larger than they are. 6. When it comes to what we think a Miniature should look like we are very divided. In the AMHA survey, 38.9% thought the perfect Miniature should look like an Arabian and 43.8% picked one of the four stock breeds (Paint, Quarter, Appaloosa or Thoroughbred). The loud and clear message to the AMHA is that it should value and find a place for more than one type of Miniature horse. We, as an association, need to work hard at being inclusive rather than exclusive as to what type makes a good Miniature horse. 10 Miniature Horse World D E C E M B E R 2 0 15