First match is over and done with

[JFD]

My first match as MD seemed to go really well.

The shooters liked the high round count, but I worked hard to insure the stages were fun and interesting, not just a bunch of targets thrown out there.

I'm going to find out if shooters really want challenging stages, or if this is simply talk.  I believe some stages should be a shooting challenges instead of hose-a-thons.  My first stage was a serious challenge with plates, poppers, and hard covered targets at ranges up to 25 yards.  Comments were positive, but who knows if this is how they really feel.  I found plates behind poppers to be a good thing, but was lucky I had some challenging hard covered paper to deal with while they waited for the poppers to drop.  Otherwise this could have been a situation where the top shooters spent time farting around waiting for steel to fall.  I got lucky there.  Seemed to have that speed/accuracy/power thing covered.

Next month will see this stage mainly all steel on that stage, with USP poppers making an appearance.  I'm considering placing no-shoots behind a couple of USP poppers to make things interesting.  I know I'll have to work hard to avoid penalties.  I'm liking plates placed behind big poppers so much that this will be a regular feature unless the popper is used as an activator.  Otherwise these things are just too easy to hit.  I wouldn't even use them if I hadn't put so much time into rebuilding the things.

I had a couple of medium to long field courses that weren't overly difficult, since I figure folks would get sick of every stage involving a lot of difficulty, and I figure  that these covered the "speed" issue pretty well.

Included Speedvision as well since I haven't spent much time with speed course design and wanted at least one proven stage in with my new designs.  This was the only stage I did well on, even beating out a lot of Open and Limited shooters with my SS L-10 gun in our smallest bay.

Went with Times Two as a classifier since I was darn near completely out of target stands and targets by that time.

Next month I'll also be playing with swingers and turners to some degree.

As far as the work goes, I put in a minimum of 10 hours setup time over 3 days, not counting the hours I spent on stage design.  The only thing I hated was breaking everything down at the end of the day and seeing attendance being lower than normal due to really cold weather.

At any rate, the scores have been posted, the reports and a check mailed to USPSA, and the match is now a memory.  I managed to survive and learned some things that will help in future matches.

[Flexmoney]

JFD,

Glad it went well!  

Now, you gotta get the "club" members in on the step-up and tear-down.  

[JFD]

I had a lot of help with setup and tear down from the former MD.  I purposely left him out of the loop as far as weekday setup went just to give him a break.  He still showed up early the morning of the match, and I was glad to see him.

I have a couple of ideas about folks who might help, but after that I'm drawing a blank.  Shooters in this area seem to have a problem with helping out.  Another local match is about to die a natural death for the same reason.

I see recruiting a new batch of shooters as my best hope.  Damned if I want to see USPSA die at our club.  I believe next month I'm going to try and tempt our IDPAer's into falling into my "trap" of freestyle, high round count shooting.  I have another trick in mind as well.

The amount of work involved in this single match certainly indicates why you've been telling me to get help.  Next months match will be even more labor intensive as I introduce a newly designed, nearly 100% steel stage to the mix, with the intent of dazzling the folks who stayed home due to the cold, and hopefully keeping some of the hardcore types who made a rare appearance at the first match just to check it out.

[Flexmoney]

Shooters in this area seem to have a problem with helping out.

I'd flat-out ask the shooters why.  I'd ask them for advice on getting out some help to run "their" match.  Communicate to them all the work that needs to be done.

[shred]

One of the best things one club did to help participation was to institute a "$5 extra to leave early without helping tear down" policy.

The slackers that were already leaving early, not helping, and setting a bad example coughed up the cash (Brewski fund for the tear-downers!), and everybody else got reminded they were supposed to help.

The MD could also issue "Free Early Leave" passes to people that helped with setup.

[JFD]

I'm almost afraid of that idea.  What if my only helper coughed up $5 and skipped out too?  

I'm going to play it by ear for now.  I want to establish that the regular core group of shooters from years past are going to stick around for what I'm offering.  I also want to see if my new recruits I've been working on who were scared off by the weather (several regulars too) will show up next month.  I figure there's always a few brown nosers in any group of new people, and I can use them to help out.

Honestly though, I'd go through all the work even if I was to shoot the match alone.  I'm selfish that way.  I guess it might be hard to RO myself though.  Kinda hard to watch the gun while I'm shooting it.

My main goal is to suck in some of our IDPA shooters.  The problem with that is that so many people are afraid of ISPC, thinking they aren't good enough, and it will cost a fortune to gear up.  IDPA is also so stinking easy that ISPC may be a shock to some of them.  

I get my butt kicked soundly in any IPSC match, but can come in 11th overall out of 50 people in an IDPA match even though I get smacked with procedurals/FTDRs left and right since I tend to speed load at times and do gamey stuff here and there.  BTW:  It's a real pain to figure out overall results in IDPA.