Do big districts or little districts do a better job of supporting their clubs? There’s a logical argument going either way; big districts have more resources and depth in talent, and small districts allow more focused attention. I ran the numbers.

Roughly, for every additional 100 clubs in the district base, there’s 11% higher level of distinguished clubs, e.g., from 100 clubs at 38% to 200 clubs at 49% to 300 clubs at 60%.

The performance base is the last 5 years across all districts, spreadsheet attached with graphs to make the story clear. Stratifying the data into deciles of performance makes the trend even more apparent.

Once you get past the 200 clubs level, it’s VERY unusual for the percent of distinguished clubs to drop below 40%.

I think the reason is that while areas and divisions are all about the same size regardless of the district, the trio candidates come from a much larger pool in big districts, resulting in better trios and better better club performance.

My own district (originally 30) has ranged in size from nearly 250 (2013-17, pre-split) to 80-odd clubs (post split, and still shrinking). We often had multiple good candidates for LGM/CGD before — and now we struggle to get one decent candidate and a weak placeholder candidate to meet the required two minimum. We’re recycling past PDGs/PDDs into the trio again more often as well (which we NEVER did as a large district).

So the action? When splitting, I mean REFORMING districts, I think we should set a higher threshold, like 120 clubs in the resulting districts. Let bigger districts get a little bit bigger before splitting if necessary. Close/consolidate districts sooner than a low end of 60, maybe set a minimum of 100.