I'm wondering what the experience of other people is with the gay sports movement in smaller cities. Is there a minimum population required to foster gay sports in a city? What sports work best in smaller communities? What experiences have people had with starting sports groups in smaller communities?
I've tried starting sports groups in a couple places I've lived including volleyball, bowling, running, and swimming.
The good thing about volleyball was that a lot of people were interested, but difficult because it required a gym and a minimum number of people to play. We had some nights when we had plenty of extra people and nights when we didn't have enough to play but by the end of the year there just weren't enough people showing up often enough for it to work.
Bowling is another sport that a lot of people can play, and things started out well, but again attendence slowly dropped over time.
Running and swimming are good in that you don't need a minimum number of people, but can be difficult if abilities vary greatly. The running and swimming groups carried on for quite a while with small but close-knit groups of people, but both collapsed when my then boyfriend and I moved to another city.
Right now we've got a very small swim team (4 swimmers!) going here in Moncton. We swim with the regular masters swim club and have semi-regular swims on our own, usually with dinner afterward. All four of us went to ACC/Montreal's swim meet in November and a couple of us went to the Rideau Speedeaus meet in Ottawa. We went from two people to four people fairly quickly but haven't had any new members since. With four swimmers we need 100% attendence to enter a relay!
Anyway, I would love to hear about other's experiences with starting and sustaining GLBT sports in smaller communities.