Robert Snyder Posted July 31, 2004 Share Posted July 31, 2004 Thanks Gear Head. I forgot to mention in my Post that even tho I am disabled I am a very safe shooter, NRA Certified RO, NRA Classed Shooter, USPSA Member, USPSA classified, NRA Life Member and Life Member of the Disabled American Vetrans. I am also VP of our Local club as well as Match Director of our Speed Steel Matches. Along with a group of Friends we travel 2 to 3 hrs to shoot IPSC Matches which also Takes it's toll on all of us especially the guy driving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 ASK! A simple plan to increase participation in setting up and running local matches. I suppose that we are etrememly lucky in our area. We have enough people show up in the morning to build 7 stages and a sidematch. True a couple of people do the initial legwork to decide the stages and to print scoresheets and then someone does the scores and other reports after the match as well as the web. But come match morning, rain or shine we have people showing up. How? We ask people to be a part of the process. Design a stage, Please. Can you show up and help out? We cajole a bit with the ever popular, "ou all like the match we have, we need your help to make it keep happening. We cross clubs to do this, several of our cadre build design and stages for another club so we get more involvement. We ade it clear that matches don't happen, they are planned and built and that without member support they stop. At eth shooters meeting ever month we remind shooters that they are to check with the MD after they finish their last stage to make sure the match is over and then to tear it down, put the walls and braces away, pile the sticks, targets, stands and spikes for pick-up and make sure that everything is ready to put away. A few people that are not regulars orr that travel long distances are excused, but surprisinly most everyone stays for pahse one, byt he time everything is in the trailers and locked down, we are ususally down to 8-10 people. ASK for help from the people that come to your match. Expect them to help, let them know you expect them to help. Amazing as it may seem, a lot of people just don't realize that they can help or that they should. Ask and be prepared to be surprised. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhgtyre Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 ASK!A simple plan to increase participation in setting up and running local matches.... ....ASK for help from the people that come to your match. Expect them to help, let them know you expect them to help. Amazing as it may seem, a lot of people just don't realize that they can help or that they should. Ask and be prepared to be surprised. Jim What a concept! I have heard a LOT of the "other" method of gaining helpers and the proponents of that plan seem to lack help. -ld Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 ASK!A simple plan to increase participation in setting up and running local matches.... ....ASK for help from the people that come to your match. Expect them to help, let them know you expect them to help. Amazing as it may seem, a lot of people just don't realize that they can help or that they should. Ask and be prepared to be surprised. Jim What a concept! I have heard a LOT of the "other" method of gaining helpers and the proponents of that plan seem to lack help. -ld Same here. It has been working well for us this year. Our local club has been putting on some great matches...all due to the help of the shooters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ankeny Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 The problem is our club is really small. A good turn out is 15 shooters and 4-6 of those will be out of town. In our case we have asked, but people seem to be too busy to get there early. I'll design the stages and get stuff ready, I just need a gopher. Asking folks to help only to have them turn a deaf ear is what totally pissed off one of the club's co-founders and it is bugging me too. I hate to say it, but I'll shut the doors and hit the road to shoot before I'll beg people to step forward to do what obviously needs to be done. At the last match two guys who have shot with us for years showed up about 30 minutes early. They stopped at my bay and I told them Steve was at the upper bay alone setting up a field course and a classifier. I asked them to go give him a hand. They went to the other bay and stood around and shot the bull with a couple of other shooters instead of digging in to help. Frankly, I don't think the sport benefits one bit from people like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 I also think we need to actively bring in new shooters...and groom them as new help while we are at it. I won't waste too much energy on the guys that know, but won't. Without new blood, we are dead. I try to build the team one shooter at a time. Each one counts a lot. Also, those lazy guys, as mentioned, I try to give them at least a little job. Even if it is just to go paint all the steel. Once they see they are needed, sometines they will pitch in. But, as Steve Anderson says, being a Match director is having to be prepared to do it all by yourself. That is the final answer. Build the matches for yourself, but expect, ask for, and groom the "help". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrettone Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 AMEN Brother Flex...."Grooming" is the best answer. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you can train a puppy from the get. Whether you do it by positive reinforcement, or with the newspaper and rubbing of the nose can be debated until the cows come home, but the newbie can at least be trained. I , however, agree with positive reinforcement. My .02 YMMV Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted August 2, 2004 Share Posted August 2, 2004 Sorry if that sounded like I was on my "soap box", just sharing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted August 2, 2004 Share Posted August 2, 2004 Run informal "practice matches" and couple them with a tutorial. Don't go full bore and try to turn out the next GM in three weeks. Give a bit of history, a bit of scoring and mostly explain the rules of a dynamic shooting sport and how and why they differ from a static sport like bullseye. Then couple those new people with a good C class shooter or maybe a B. Don't over whelm them. Most will start to come along and will if nurtured, provide the releif you are looking for in helping out at matches. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidwiz Posted August 2, 2004 Share Posted August 2, 2004 Regarding shooters designing stages, there are a few match directors that I've come across that have "Not Invented Here" syndrome. If they didn't think of it, create it, write it, design it, buy it, etc. they want nothing to do with it. That is very frusturating. As for people not helping out at a match w/ pasting, resetting steel, etc. there are usually 1 or 2 people at every match who think that they don't have to work. Most of the time, the MDs knows who these people are, but just let it slide b/c the non-helper is usually a big P.I.T.A. Other times I've seen it is the new person who doesn't help out, usually b/c they don't know any better and hadn't been told. Another problem is MD burnout. One of the local clubs in my area hasn't been shooting for a couple of months b/c no one who lives close to the club will step up and be MD. The old MD had been doing it for something like 15 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFD Posted August 13, 2004 Share Posted August 13, 2004 "The likelyhood of "not having a match b/c noone wants to help" is slim to nil. It is great to talk about, but I've never heard of it happening." After being the MD for 2 years designing and setting up all the stages, and very little help tearing down, I shut my match down a couple of months ago. Yes it does happen... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.40AET Posted August 14, 2004 Share Posted August 14, 2004 We finished up early last month, and I was amazed at how many guys just threw their bags on their back and went home. The stages were broken down and put into neat piles by the last squad to shoot on them, and then everyone split. Out of 30 guys, 5 of us stayed and loaded everything into a truck and then unloaded it into the storage shed. Too many guys just don't get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted August 14, 2004 Share Posted August 14, 2004 ASK! When you do the shooters meeting, spend as much time on cajoling the shooters about staying till it is put away as you do talking about the stages. When you and the others in your group finsh, spread out amongst the stages to "direct traffic' so that the rest don't get the chance to fade out, make it so they have to leave their friends while they are working. It is much harder to do. If they tear it all down and no one is there to get the next phase started, they can think "we did our part" and leave, if you are right there and trying to load stuff on a truck or carry walls over to the storage pile, it is a lot harder to just walk away. During the shooters meeting use the many hands make light work speech. Jim Norman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted August 14, 2004 Share Posted August 14, 2004 Ditto. What Jim said. It works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ankeny Posted August 14, 2004 Share Posted August 14, 2004 "The likelyhood of "not having a match b/c noone wants to help" is slim to nil. It is great to talk about, but I've never heard of it happening." I just sent out an e-mail informing our shooters that this month's match is cancelled because of lack of help. After three years of sweat, it makes me sad to see the club go down the toilet because the vast majority of our shooters don't care enough about the sport to keep IPSC alive in central Wyoming. Then again, we are a very small club with an average turn out of 12-15 shooters and half a dozen of those are out of town. With such small numbers, at least half of the guys need to get off of their collective asses and help. Unfortunately, most of our guys are only shooting because we make it available and they really don't care if the club survives. Bummer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ankeny Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 Well we reconsidered and held our match yesterday. I took Jim and Kyle's advice. I was packing walls and crap alone at 7:30 and no help in sight. At 7:45 one guy showed up. By 8:15 I had more help than I could handle. In fact, every one shooting the match showed up at least 40 minutes early to help, including out of town guests. Yeah, we started late, but it was one of the best matches we have had in a long time. Looks like we are back in business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 That is fantastic news! Glad to hear your people responded so well. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Di Vita Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 I help during the match as much as I can. But as long as I pay to shoot, no one is going to require me to do anything else. That may sound selfish, but my time is quite valuable to me as I have very little of it. That's not to say if I have the time I won't help, because I will. I greatly appreciate all volunteer work done, I know a match wouldn't be run without it. I however can't do it...I have too many other prior committments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 Jake I get what you are saying, but really this is a voluteer sport. The guys running the matches don't make money, they use your fee to pay for targets, props, range maintance, insurance, IPSC fees, water, porta-potties, and whatever else. When Those folks get tiered of showing up 3 hours before and leaving 2 hours after, you will not have a match to go to. Vlad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 No one has said anything about requiring anyone to do anything, but if no one did anything you'd have precious few places to shoot. If everyone felt that way, we'd either pay many times as much as we do now so that professionals would build and teardown our stages or we'd shoot a lot less since there'd be no one to do the work. As a general rule, I feel if it is your home club, you should either show up early or stay late, if it is an away club you have more freedom to shoot and scoot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ankeny Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 Jake: Yeah, that does sound selfish. That might fly in your club, but around here if you at least don't stick around until the props are stored, you would probably get a lecture from one of the old farts. The money you pay to shoot means nothing to us, we don't need it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackdragon Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 At my former club in Colorado we had about three guys doing most of the work. I was MD for about three years, when I moved to Vegas my buddy tryed to continue the club but it was down to two. As far as I know it is done. Ivan SCS Vegas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve223 Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 WE have a couple guys around here that think the same way Jake. Our match fees barely cover targets range fees and USPSA mission counts.New props Score sheets and that kind of thing comes out of someones pokets. Those same guys never help with anything and are the frist ones to bitch about anything!!! IM with Ron we dont need it or them IMO. Most of our shooters come from out of town and i understand That they have a hard time geeting here early enough to help set up,But at least help tear down. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Di Vita Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 Whether the old farts lecture me or not, that doesn't change the fact that I have 5 business to run. I'm sorry, but my livelihood comes first. And if something happens to where the club shuts down because of lack of helping, that sucks, but there isn't much I can do about it. As I said, if I can help, I will. If not, sorry. Steve, FYI, I don't complain when I shoot. I highly recommend you don't put in the same boat as other people from what you ASSUME I am doing. Would you get ticked at the person that is on call and has to leave as soon as he called? The situation is no different. If I don't do the work, it don't get done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve223 Posted August 23, 2004 Share Posted August 23, 2004 (edited) I never said you did jake i was just relateing my Exp with a few people here. I have no problem with those that shoot and leave because of work resposabiltys,But when you do have time please help.I wasent trying to piss you off,And i know most of the people on this board are not a part of the problem. Steve Edited August 23, 2004 by steve223 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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