I honestly don't know what the TCA can do that would actually help. I think the best thing it can do to help promote the hobby is make the York Meet the best it can be. When I got back into this hobby in the late '90s I saw articles about York which made want to attend York. The interactions I had with people there and the information I got there fueled my interest and passion for this hobby. I get it though, things are different now and people can get what I got at York back then from their home computer.
There is a very interesting article in the Sep/Oct O Scale Resource magazine. You can read it for free. https://oscaleresource.com/WP/C I realize this is a O scale 2 rail publication but what it says applies to York and many other groups. Go to Page 5 (Publishers Desk) and go down to where it says Dave Stewart's thoughts on the future of O scale (2 rail). Dave Stewart is the owner of the famous Appalachian & Ohio O scale 2 rail railroad. I really think he hit the nail on the head with his thoughts. One thing he says is that [I don't know if I am allowed to copy and paste it here so I will paraphrase] the attendance and decline issues are as much a societal change as any of the other issues/challenges put forth for events like York. The internet and social media has left its footprint on everything and now a person can get information and interaction, the exact things I got from my first York in 2001, immediately and for free from their laptop. The internet is an endless entree without any cost or commitment.
As a perfect example I belong to a small car club called The Slant Six Club based here in NJ. It's open to anyone who has interest in the Chrysler Slant Six. I joined because I knew a couple of people who were members. I no longer own a Slant Six but I am very interested in Chrysler vehicles. The club once had almost 60 dues paying members when I joined but now they are down to about 40. The decline is mainly due to people aging out or unfortunately passing away. The dues are $16 per year and all you get is a newsletter but I also get a small discount on my classic car insurance so being a member is very affordable. Anyway, some years ago the President of the Club decided to start a club page on Facebook in the hopes that people would join the Facebook page and then eventually become a dues paying member and attend the events the club puts on. Well we did get people to join the Facebook page. We have 20,804 members on the Facebook page but here are a few statistics.
- The number of people who joined the Facebook page and became dues paying members: 0
- The number of people who joined the Facebook page and attended any of our events: 0 (Granted many of those 20,804 people may live too far away but I bet a small percentage like in the NJ area)
- The number of people who joined the Facebook page and then attended our Winter Meeting (which is also held virtually over the computer: 0
I would have been happy if we got 2 people to join the club but in every category we got ZERO! In my opinion this is very telling.
What Dave Stewart said in that article is spot on because it matches what I have seen with my car club and York. The question is what can be done to change the decline of membership and decline of attendance to events in various groups? The answer may well be that nothing can be done to change these things. As Dave says it is societal change. Dave also mentions the decline of marriages and birth rates as social data reveal an increasingly lonely and isolated populace. This is strange to me because in my opinion is one of the greatest or most fun things about the hobby of model railroading or classic cars is attending an event and seeing in person cars or trains and meeting the people in person who built them. It seems to me some people look to the TCA and say "fix this" as it pertains to York but this is a very difficult problem to fix and I don't think it is fair to lay it all on the TCA. While the TCA should do what it can to promote membership and York but maybe just making the TCA (and York) the best association/meet it can be will help in getting new members. This may mean making some changes if the changes will be to the benefit of the majority of the members.
