Big Squads with Few Helpers

[CHA-LEE]

I have been helping one of our local clubs host their matches for a while now. We shoot two different USPSA matches per month and regularly pull in 60 – 80 shooters per match in the summer time. The range we shoot at only gives us four berms to run the match on, so we use three for field courses and one for the classifier and speed shoot stage. We do a good job of balancing the stage sizes so the timing of squads switching berms is pretty good with minimal squad log jams. I think that we have perfected the match flow as well as we can but I am confused by a common happening and maybe you guys can provide some kind of solution.

When we have a bigger match and end up with 17+ shooters on a squad it almost always ends up where we are short handed in resetting the stage. Shooters are standing everywhere, lounging in chairs, flapping their gums but not Brassing, Taping, or resetting steel/movers.

If we have squads with 16 or less shooters on a squad we rarely run into this “Slacker” problem. But due to our range limitations we can only have 4 squads per match and they end up being big squads. If we had more berms to shoot on we would simply make more squads to keep them below 16 shooters per squad.

I am usually ROing the majority of the time and if I am not ROing I am shooting or reloading my mags after shooting. If I am not ROing I am taping, brassing, setting steel, etc. So I see first hand how the work ethic degrades as the match goes on.

Usually when I am ROing and see that one or two guys out of 20 others on the squad is the only ones resetting the stage I start yelling out to the rest of the squad to get working. But really, why should I have to do this? When I badger the squad to get working I know that some take offense to being “Bossed around” but what else can I do?

We have brought it up in the shooter meetings before the match that we need everyone on the squad to help reset the stage after each shooter. But it seems to fall on deaf ears as we always end up in the same boat at some point during the match.

What else can I do to keep these big squads focused on the task at hand? I have resisted the urge to assign stage resetting tasks to specific people as this seems a little overboard. Especially when we have 15+ shooters standing around doing nothing but waiting for their turn to shoot. But maybe we need to do just that.

[Merlin Orr]

Curse them like the lazy currs they are. Out loud and Loud......

It makes you no friends but who needs friends like that anyway...?

[High Lord Gomer]

I liked the way one MD put it during the shooters meeting...

If you're not going to help paste targets and reset steel...leave now.

[Strick]

I have threatened that I would give people FTDR at our IDPA matches for not helping. No reason for some shooters to be able to lounge around while others are working to get stuff set up.

The problem you are talking about seems to show it self with bigger squads. I think people see that many people and figure "they don't need me sine there are 15 other people".

[Chills1994]

it is a social psychology phenomenon called "social loafing". sociologists have their own term for it "diffusion of responsibility". there was brutal attack or rape case that happened in 60's on the east coast I think. the woman was screaming her head off and nobody lifted a finger to help or to call police. sad, really.

anywhooo...that's how the sociologists came up with their "diffusion of responsibilty" term. people just thinking they could fade away into the rest of the group and not have to do anything.

you can try reading up on it here:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_loafing?wasRedirected=true

there are some solutions there.

my two solutions right off the top of my head are:

1. have staggered start times which should reduce the squad size.

2. increase the match fee...which might also reduce the squad size

what day is your match on...Saturday or Sunday?

are there other USPSA clubs in your area?

my guess is if gasoline goes to 4 or maybe even 5 bucks a gallon this year especially this summer you are going to see fewer people anyway.

having dedicated RO's / scorekeepers for each stage might help.

instead of squadding with your buddies, having people there at the stages permanently will clue in the shooters that the RO/SK is there to do just that. NOT paste NOR reset steel. the RO/SK is there to work NOT to be buddy buddy with his squadmates.

I don't know that yelling at them will help.

after I give "the range is clear!" command I will usually call out "PASTERS! WE NEED PASTERS!" just automatically. regardless if there are 5 guys with pasters set to go or just one.

then after all the scoring is complete, I will usually say "scoring is complete. paste 'em up!" as another hint.

years ago I had an RO throw me a box of pasters and he said something like "your turn!" but it was done in such away as to guilt me to this day to be one of the first ones out there with pasters already lined up on my fingertips.

you could go with a no chair rule. that whole inertia thing a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

it is cool that your match brings in that many people.

I am the MD for a new club, and I would be happy if I had just half that many people show up.

one thing I have found out so far....you can't please everybody.

[Chills1994]

I reckon that 5 to 7 shooters is a good/efficient squad size.

around here it is pretty rare to see anybody picking up brass during the match.

as soon as they are done with their last stage, some people will immediately drop to the ground and start brass whoring . others will start tearing down the stages.

[Jim Norman]

Walk up to those that are warming the bench and hand them a roll of tape or a can of spray paint or a brass bag. In a soft voice reminiscent of R. Lee Ermey ask them what part of getting up off their asses and helping that they don't understand. If they tell you that they are there to shoot and not work. Make sure that when they are up to shoot, none of the targets are taped and none of the steel is set. They may not get the picture right away, but their friends, assuming they have them just might push them into either helping or not coming back. Either way it's likely a win for you.

[CHA-LEE]

Great ideas so far. Here are my thoughts on what has been suggested so far….

(1)Making a more stern mandate in the shooters meeting, basically “Pitch in and work or leave now”. - I am liking this and I think I will come up with a more stern statement for the shooters meeting.

(2)Running two start times (Early/Late). – This will not work for our club because we don’t have the berms all day. We need to be packed up and done by around 2 PM so the host club membership can use the berms. Making an 80+ shooter match happen from 7am to 2pm in the same day is a challenge and we have to run it like a well oiled machine.

(3)Raising the entry fee’s. – I don’t think that raising the entry fees for everyone would be in the best interest of our clubs long term viability if its sole purpose was to drive away shooters by making it too expensive. I have been thinking about having two entry fees. The normal entry fee for the people that help out and an exorbitantly higher entry fee (2 – 3 times the cost of the normal entry fee) for people to choose to be slackers up front or have been identified as being habitual slackers.

(4)Standing RO’s – We pretty much have this already. We have at least one club board member dedicated to each squad. This board member is tasked with doing the majority of the ROing and also has a vested interest in keeping the shooters churning through the stages. We don’t have the time or resources to have standing RO’s and score keepers at every stage. Plus at the club match level having standing RO’s is a little excessive. I think this would further detach the shooters from wanting to work at resetting the stage.

The main thing that baffles me is that I can understand having to continually guide children through the process of what needs to be done, but we are talking about adults here. All of them know what their responsibilities are during a club match they just fail to do it. I think that the “Diffusion of Responsibility” explanation really sums up the issue. Once you reach a certain squad size a lot of people think that they don’t have to work as hard or at all because there are so many other people there to do it as well.

I have an idea that I am going to try at the next big match. We usually have 3 – 4 rolls of tape on each stage and these tape rolls are usually held by the shoots while waiting for their turn to shoot. I think I will put 6 – 8 rolls of tape on each stage so twice as many people have a roll of tape in their hand. Maybe having a roll of tape in their hand will be a constant reminder to work the whole match?

[CHA-LEE]

Luckily we don't have issues with people skipping out and not helping with tearing down the stages.

I also wanted to comment on the "No chairs allowed" suggestion. That is a good suggestion but our range has picnic tables at the start of the bays. These are also covered by awnings. We have few well "Seasoned" shooters in their 70's and 80's and these guys tend to be the first to sit down. But then again these guys are also not the ones causing the no working problem. On the contrary I have had to tell one 80+ guy to go rest in the shade this past summer because he was baking in the sun half the day brassing all by himself for the whole squad while they are too busy standing around flapping their gums.

[bbbean]

I marvel at these sorts of posts. Every club I've shot at has a good group of shooters that take care of taping, setting, painting, etc without being asked. On the odd occasion when there are more people socializing than helping, a simple "need some pasters here!" is more than adequate to inspire the temporary loafers to pitch in.

Edited January 7, 2011 by bbbean

[NickJ]

Charlie, we need to go back to assigning duties. I was surprised, when I returned after not shooting for a while, that this no longer happened.

Clipboard person- "Charlie's the shooter, Moe's on deck, Curly's in the hole. Larry brass, Elmer tape, Doofus set steel." If it's a big stage, or there's more steel, call extras. It works, it shouldn't have to be done, but reality is what it is.

[Chills1994]

are these rolls of the cardboard colored masking tape?

if so, man! I hate those. what a PITA.

I don't like pasting with those either.

or are they the target barn paster stickers on a roll?

if they are the target barn pasters, if you have a few guys with those CED paster guns in each squad, the pasting really does go quicker.

the flipside to that of course is you set out too many rolls of paster stickers, your rolls are gonna walk off.

I think each roll is 1,000 stickers.

I usually just tear off a two foot long strip and stick it in my front pocket so it is hanging out.

while a competitor is up shooting I will usually go ahead and load up the four fingertips on my left hand with stickers.

as far as having two different match fees, as far as enforcing that...keeping track of who pastes and resets...I think that is going to be trickey.

I'm curious...how do you guys form up into squads exactly?

if you have a habitual slacker, as mentioned above having his squadmates just stand there and stare and make him paste and reset his own targets would be the most effective. peer pressure is amazingly motivating.

when I was in the Air Force, I heard two different versions of the Primack principle. 10% of the people do 90% of the work.

or

10% of the people give you 90% of your problems.

our match fee for the new club is $20. if people help set up on Friday afternoon/evening, then they only pay $6 for the match fee.

I am still up in the air about having dedicated stay at the stage RO's. everywhere else around the St. Louis area has float with the squad RO's. I started a survey/poll at our St. Louis shooters yahoo group.

[CHA-LEE]

I marvel at these sorts of posts. Every club I've shot at has a good group of shooters that take care of taping, setting, painting, etc without being asked. On the odd occasion when there are more people socializing than helping, a simple "need some pasters here!" is more than adequate to inspire the temporary loafers to pitch in.

That is the thing that I don't understand about this. I shoot with the majority of these exact same shooters at other local club matches and since the squads are rarely bigger than 16 shooters due to the range having more than four berms available, thus more squads, its not an issue. Everyone pitches in and helps move the squads through the stages with very minimal if any prodding needed.

We only run into this situation when we have 17+ shooters on the squad.

[225 Fireman]

WE dont have that problem down here with that too much thank goodness. I think part of the reason is everyone is on each other if someone is standing around too much someone will usually say something and that fixes it.It is not just the RO'S job to take care of slackers.

[CHA-LEE]

Chills1994> We do self squadding. We basically set out four paper squad lists and have the shooters put themselves on a squad right before they sign up and then tell the score keeper what squad number they are on when they sign up. This seems to work the best for us as it gives us a good balance of some control over the squadding and also letting shooters squad with who they want to shoot with. After a few stern shooters meeting discussions early on we successfully ingrained that its the shooters responsibility to keep the squads balanced or we will balance them ourselves without a care of who whats to shoot with who. All it took was a couple of incidents where we had to balance the squads manually, and in turn breaking up shooting buddies into different squads, to drive home the fact that if you want to shoot with your buddies, keep the squad population balanced.

Overall we have a great group of shooters. I just don't understand why these same great people break down and fail when the squads get bigger than 17 people?

[CHA-LEE]

Charlie, we need to go back to assigning duties. I was surprised, when I returned after not shooting for a while, that this no longer happened.

Clipboard person- "Charlie's the shooter, Moe's on deck, Curly's in the hole. Larry brass, Elmer tape, Doofus set steel." If it's a big stage, or there's more steel, call extras. It works, it shouldn't have to be done, but reality is what it is.

I think you are right. The next shooters meeting I will give the shooters a choice. They can either pay attention and help reset the stages or we will start to delegate responsibilities. I just hate for it to have to come to an all day babysitting situation where you have to nag the shooters all day long to do the job they should be doing without being nagged.

[Joe4d]

Non confrontational can be tried first, As RO a method I have used in the past with a situation like this is calling out names using the score sheets, As in "BObs the shooter, Bills in the hole, jack , fred and bob, paste and reset. The next shooter the names move up, so every one has three shooters to paste and reset, the on deck shooter can get his mojo on, and the shooter walks with the RO and sees his scores, the extra shooters have official offtime and start expecting there turn to reset.

[Gary Stevens]

I just take my 3-4 workers and go sit down. When someone ask about re-setting the stage, I just reply that "Since we have done all the work so far, for the next 5 shooters, we are on break. If you want to shoot, I suggest you get to work re-setting the stage."

Believe it or not, it works.

Gary

[NickJ]

I just take my 3-4 workers and go sit down. When someone ask about re-setting the stage, I just reply that "Since we have done all the work so far, for the next 5 shooters, we are on break. If you want to shoot, I suggest you get to work re-setting the stage."

Believe it or not, it works.

Gary

Ha! I like that.

[steel1212]

I just take my 3-4 workers and go sit down. When someone ask about re-setting the stage, I just reply that "Since we have done all the work so far, for the next 5 shooters, we are on break. If you want to shoot, I suggest you get to work re-setting the stage."

Believe it or not, it works.

Gary

Its a Ky thing. Wonder why we are usually the fastest squad when we go to away matches. You learn quick and fast to work or we learn to make you work

[Round_Gun_Shooter]

As RO at a sectional match, I went so far as to toss a shooter a roll of tape and say "Thanks for the help". He got the message.

Another match I was at it was announced that ROs would mark on score sheet anyone not helping and scores would not be posted. Since score keeper was doing his/her part, you were expected to do yours.

[Gary Stevens]

As RO at a sectional match, I went so far as to toss a shooter a roll of tape and say "Thanks for the help". He got the message.

Another match I was at it was announced that ROs would mark on score sheet anyone not helping and scores would not be posted. Since score keeper was doing his/her part, you were expected to do yours.

If that was a USPSA match I would like to know what provision (rule) they would quote to delete someone from the match.

[bbbean]

Its a Ky thing. Wonder why we are usually the fastest squad when we go to away matches. You learn quick and fast to work or we learn to make you work

Hell, when I shot with y'all at the SSN last year, I had to sprint down range just to be able to paste one target. You paste faster than I shoot!

[treefarmer]

My suggestion, if the same guys shoot there most of the time, then squad some slackers with some workers, try to even them out. then the slackers can/will see how it is supposed to be done.

[35WLN]

Most of the time around here it is the new shooters and I think it is because they are just shy. There are also the ones that are just lazy. I have yelled out a time or two after a few stages of people not helping that if it continues I will not run them through and have the paper guy move them to the bottom. Usually just saying it gets things done.