Comments on: ALA Council Patterns and Churn http://aaron.thelibrarian.org/blog/2010/12/08/ala-council-patterns-and-churn/ Mon, 21 May 2012 07:55:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: AaronTheLibrarian http://aaron.thelibrarian.org/blog/2010/12/08/ala-council-patterns-and-churn/#comment-19462 AaronTheLibrarian Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:51:02 +0000 http://aaron.thelibrarian.org/blog/?p=180#comment-19462 I managed to not include my actual noodling -- here are the numbers ... There are likely statistical misunderstandings throughout my calculations below - feel free to double-check and reinterpret :) With the following assumptions (for simpler calculations) for Council: * 190 seats (which I know is slightly off, depending on the year) * 3.5 year terms (I think the 4 year terms were phased out about halfway through the 19 years on record) * 707 people (the straight count of rows in the spreadsheet) 707 people into 190 seats is 3.72 people elected to each available Council Seat over 19 years or 707 people into 19 years is 37.21 new people per (now 3-year) full election cycle (the partial terms should cancel out at either end of the record) or 707 people into 19 years at 3.5 year term is 10.6 new Councilors per election. So, the annual "churn" for Council is about 5% Phrased another way, an average of about five percent of Council is replaced with new blood every year. Exec Board was a little trickier... 13 positions (but only 11 in calculation as Treasurer & Exec Dir is not indicated in spreadsheet) 34 people 34 people into 11 seats is 3.09 people elected to each available Executive Board Seat over 19 years or 34 people into 19 years is 1.79 new people elected to ExBd each year So the annual churn of ExBd is ~16% Phrased the other way, about 16% of ExBd is replaced with new blood every year. I managed to not include my actual noodling — here are the numbers … There are likely statistical misunderstandings throughout my calculations below - feel free to double-check and reinterpret :)

With the following assumptions (for simpler calculations) for Council:
* 190 seats (which I know is slightly off, depending on the year)
* 3.5 year terms (I think the 4 year terms were phased out about halfway through the 19 years on record)
* 707 people (the straight count of rows in the spreadsheet)

707 people into 190 seats is 3.72 people elected to each available Council Seat over 19 years
or
707 people into 19 years is 37.21 new people per (now 3-year) full election cycle (the partial terms should cancel out at either end of the record)
or
707 people into 19 years at 3.5 year term is 10.6 new Councilors per election.

So, the annual “churn” for Council is about 5%
Phrased another way, an average of about five percent of Council is replaced with new blood every year.

Exec Board was a little trickier…

13 positions (but only 11 in calculation as Treasurer & Exec Dir is not indicated in spreadsheet)
34 people

34 people into 11 seats is 3.09 people elected to each available Executive Board Seat over 19 years
or
34 people into 19 years is 1.79 new people elected to ExBd each year

So the annual churn of ExBd is ~16%
Phrased the other way, about 16% of ExBd is replaced with new blood every year.

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