HELP WITH MATCHES

[mlm]

 

[mlm]

Saw this on Facebook. Do not know if I should have put here, but it is a start. I have seen this quite a bit in the last few years. Have shot USPSA for 30 years. Have shot IDPA for at least 15 years.  So I know this is a definite problem all over the county. But Mr. Rob Cook has a very good point. The young bloods up and coming need to be able to give back to the sport. Do not know if this should happen, but if anyone is near this club and can help, please let Mr. Cook you will help out. Would not want to see a club die on the vine because someone will not help just want to shoot.

IMVHO

Thanks,

Mike

[teros135]

Yep, that email is sure to motivate the local shooters (it's a fairly small community, isn't it?) to come out and pitch in. 

[rowdyb]

Rob gives a ton of himself to what he loves. Geography is always going to be against him.

[ATLDave]

If I were the MD and 8 people showed up to shoot the match, I would ask myself some questions:

1.  Was there something about the scheduling of the match that made it near-impossible for people to attend?  For instance, did you try to hold a match Mother's Day morning?  If so, give some thought to whether having a completely fixed schedule is sensible or if you need to consider those kind of conflicts.

2.  Am I in an area where USPSA is, for whatever reason, just not a game of interest?  (Maybe the population is declining and there just aren't people around, or maybe everyone is completely fixated on Precision Rifle or something else such that USPSA is just not going to be viable as anything but a very small endeavor for the amusement of me and my buddies.)

3.  Is it me and/or the match?  Am I designing stages that just are not fun to shoot?  Am I personally fascinated with some particular shooting task that others just don't want to do much of?  Am I filling matches with lots of long range weak hand only shots?  Or, on the other end of the spectrum, am I just offering a bunch of 5-yard hoser targets that are pretty much the same, stage after stage, match after match?  

4.  Is it the match administration?  Is there something uniquely onerous about the way the match is run from a participant's standpoint?  Is it exceedingly expensive relative to the value provided?  Is the match widely scattered over distant bays with lots of mud in between them?

5.  Is it the "culture" of the match?  Do the most regular attendees of the match make other shooters feel unwelcome?  Are they driving other shooters away?  

 

As someone who MD's and sets up a weekly match, I sympathize with the frustration of having insufficient assistance.  But if overall attendance at the match is weak, some serious, critical evaluation of the match and those running it is in order.  A temper tantrum on the 'net seems unlikely to fix things, and may make things worse (see #5).  

[mosher]

13 hours to setup holy cow.

[Sarge]

Kind of like me starting a deep sea fishing club in Cincinnati. That's not how any of this works!

[davsco]

i'd try to get an email list of folks that shot at that match venue and others relatively nearby (and i guess via facebook etc) and ask for feedback.  what is keeping folks from attending this match.  maybe even uspsa could give you a list of shooters within x miles and poll them.  assuming you have a nice venue for uspsa, a shame you're not getting more activity.  i sure wish i had more uspsa options near me.

[OPENB]

I wonder if nearby clubs are pulling bigger numbers. That would indicate a problem at that club.

[Steve RA]

Population isn't very dense in that part of country - Population of Cody around 10K and it's the County Seat - so possibly not many USPSA shooters in the nearby area.

[motosapiens]

2 hours ago, mosher said:

13 hours to setup holy cow.

 

that was the first thing that caught my eye. we set up in an hour, on match morning, then register and shoot. If there aren't enough people to set up 6 stages, we set up fewer. i would get burned out pretty quickly if I had to spend a few hours the day before setting up.

[Husker95]

I have family in Powell (close to Cody) that hunt and shoot A LOT.  When I talk to them about the USPSA stuff that I do in Southern CO I sort of get a blank stare.  They think its cool (sort of) but they have no visibility on the sport up there.  My impression is that if its not about shooting an elk/deer/antelope/bear/lion or precision long range rifle they just don't get it.  From seeing the list of ages of participants at your match it probably wasn't always that way - but it is now. 

 

We have a thriving USPSA/3-Gun/Steel Challenge/NSSF/etc., community in SoCo and participation at club matches and help setting up/tearing down is almost never an issue.  We do have really good MDs and club leadership......but we also have a population base in the front range somewhere north of 2 million and a lot of prior/former military types who still love to shoot.  I know the Cody area pretty well.......there just may not be the base of folks to drive steady participation.

[DukeEB]

We have a thriving uspsa community in the Puget sound, but even then, it's still very difficult to get people to help with setup.

[CHA-LEE]

Every portion of the country has a different demographic of shooters who choose to participate or volunteer to help host USPSA matches. USPSA clubs need to balance their "Product" to meet the demand of their customers along with their available resources to run the match. I looked at the prior match attendance on practiscore for this club over the past two years and their maximum attendance was in the low 20's with most of the average attendance being in the high teens. This is less than 2 "full" squads of shooters worth of attendance. I have attended a Level 2 match hosted by Rob Cook and his understaffed crew at this range. Given their limited amount of volunteer help I was amazed at how well they were able to pull the match off. I can verify that they put a crap ton of work into setting up fun and challenging stages. When I attended their level 2 match I did my best to pitch in and help out with whatever I could. But that is just my personality as I can't simply sit around and watch people flounder around when they need help. Unfortunately there are a lot of competitors that feel like their entry fee entitles them to do NOTHING but shoot when its their turn. I have also seen this "Consumerism" trend grow steadily in my own section since I started this game in 2008.

 

With all that being said, maybe its time to reassess the product being produced verses the customer base its serving. This club is regularly setting up 5 - 6 berms worth of stages for only a handful of shooters to enjoy. Why not build the match in a way that cuts the workload in half while still producing a viable product? For example, they could setup two berms worth of physical stages that can be shot two different ways. This way you only have 2 bays/stages to setup but they can be leveraged to make 4 different stages to shoot. This "2 Bay/Stage" design works well with only 2 squads and results in a lot less setup or tear down effort needed. I have seen several indoor ranges leverage this exact process to make the best use of their limited quantity of bays.

 

As an MD myself, there is no way I am hosting a 5 - 6 stage match with only myself and one other person tasked with making it all happen regardless of the quantity of people attending. If I don't have 4 - 6 people dedicated to making the match happen then its not going to happen. There is no point in trying to force the match to happen and burning yourself out while getting bitter during the process. I can understand and relate to Rob's frustration, but sending an e-mail like that to your potential "Customers" isn't going to fix the problem either. You will always get a more favorable result by motivating people in a positive fashion verses trying to guilt them into doing something. Poll your customer base and ask them what would help them attend the match and make it more viable for them to volunteer. I know a lot of people can't afford to take an extra trip to the range the day before just to setup the stages. Changing up the stage setup policy to make it happen the morning of the match may dramatically increase your volunteer help. If you are designing very prop heavy stages that result in something that looks like a small village then you are setting yourself up for failure. You can setup a tremendous variety of stage designs with only a few walls, barrels, and fault line. A fun, challenging, and fair stage doesn't have to be mega time consuming thing to build. Challenge yourself in stage design to meet your desired practical shooting skills tests while leveraging the least amount of props. Then assess your effectiveness by looking at your stage once its setup to see what props you really didn't need to achieve that goal. I think you will be regularly surprised by how little props you actually need to achieve the practical shooting skills test you are trying to deploy. The less props you need, the easier the setup process is. The easier the setup process is, the more volunteer help you will get. The more volunteer help you get the easier it is to run the match without burning people out.  

[Steve J]

18 hours ago, mosher said:

13 hours to setup holy cow.

If it's one person hauling one piece at a time and he's nearly 60, 13 hours is conservative for a USPSA match.

[Sarge]

35 minutes ago, Steve J said:

If it's one person hauling one piece at a time and he's nearly 60, 13 hours is conservative for a USPSA match.

Hell, if I were 30 and had to set up myself they would still be waiting to shoot because I wouldn't have done a thing without help.

[mosher]

1 hour ago, Steve J said:

If it's one person hauling one piece at a time and he's nearly 60, 13 hours is conservative for a USPSA match.

 

They either have some crazy elaborate stages or are in desperate need of process improvement.  The rule of thumb in my experience is about one man hour per stage. 

[Sarge]

12 minutes ago, mosher said:

 

They either have some crazy elaborate stages or are in desperate need of process improvement.  The rule of thumb in my experience is about one man hour per stage. 

If you read the whole FB rant you will find he really made his own bed. He sets up "nationals quality stages". Club is in a VERY remote part of the country where the majority of his shooters come from 2.5+ hours away. It was mother's Day. If I was that far removed from civilization I would just set up a stage or two THE MORNING OF THE MATCH, shoot them, then change them up a little and shoot again. The whole scenario just seems a bit much to expect carloads of shooters to show up from hours away and help with set up the day before a match.

[Maximis228]

Im 28 and I run most active club in IL (by recent activity counts). Bullshit younger people don't help out. People need to get off that horse.

 

[Hi-Power Jack]

2 minutes ago, Maximis228 said:

I'm 28 and I run most active club in IL 

 

Fantastic   

 

Good for you, and your community.

 

How long have you been running this club?

[Maximis228]

2 minutes ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

How long have you been running this club?

 

Its been about 1.5 years as the MD and Ive been making all the stages in sketch up for them for about 2.5 years now. And I'm considering running for Northern IL Section coordinator. First USPSA match was late 2013.

Edited May 17, 2017 by Maximis228

[motosapiens]

5 hours ago, Maximis228 said:

Im 28 and I run most active club in IL (by recent activity counts). Bullshit younger people don't help out. People need to get off that horse.

 

we have quite a few younger folks helping out at our (very active) club as well, in all disciplines.

[Dr Mitch]

On 5/16/2017 at 4:44 PM, Steve RA said:

Population isn't very dense in that part of country - Population of Cody around 10K and it's the County Seat - so possibly not many USPSA shooters in the nearby area.

Oklahoma City has a larger population than the entire state of Wyoming.

[selecw]

I have shot this match several times. It's in Cody, WY - population 9,000. The range, stages and organization are great. Attendance was 12-20 the times I have been there.

 

The nearest "big" town is Billings, Montana, which is about 1.25 hours drive. Their monthly USPSA matches draw about 50 shooters.

 

Personally I would have NO problem driving that far for a decent match. So, i'd probably focus on that larger catchment area to get the numbers up (and I'm sure Rob is).

 

Setting up is, of course, another issue. Maybe simpler stages built the morning of the match is the way to go. That way the out of town shooters can pitch in.