What Benefit Do Clubs Get For Affiliation?

[Gary Stevens]

My club charges 15 dollars to shoot a match. After USPSA fee's the rest goes to insurance, utilities, yearly range payment to our home club for use of their property, road repair, range repair and upgrades, props, targets, pasters, paint, and a multitude of other expenses.

We are also in the process of buying an AED which old guys like me appreciate:)

[sundevil827]

No thanks....

When I hear a USPSA Club, then I go into the match with the impression that all USPSA rules are going to be followed, and my experience will be consistent across the board. When I moved from IL to TX, it was nice to jump into matches that followed the exact same ruleset I was used to. I didn't have to worry what rules people would pick and choose from, I did not have to wonder if stages would have radical changes, I felt like I was getting exactly what I expected. The classification system is secondary benefit, because like anything else, if you can measure your performance you can improve it. Could a club offer the same things and not affiliate? Sure, but I'd pass on shooting the matches.

Interestingly enough, I knew an "IDPA Club" who ran stages that were not IDPA legal, and when I asked about it, was told that they do it because the members like it. Last IDPA match I ever went to, but when clubs want to do things differently, and enforce only rules that they feel like, then the experience is diminished for me. I've never had that experience at a USPSA match, which to me says a lot about the quality of the clubs who are running the matches. Damn good people across the board in multiple states. I'd take my chance just about anywhere in the country on a club advertising a USPSA match.

[Nimitz]

It's like going to McDonald's ... no matter where I am in the country, if I roll up on the Golden Arches I know exactly what I'm going to get for my money, even though I may have nver been there before. No matter what a range says, if it's not a sanctioned match you might be in for a big surprize when you start shooting ... ala ... "we don't allow an optic here in Open division" say What????

Edited August 22, 2015 by Nimitz

[g.willikers]

I've attended many non sanctioned matches and found most to be just fine.

Most haven't been nearly as elaborate as the genuine ones, partialy due to the lack of equipment.

But it was still a good day shooting.

One of them was run by the same folks who had been in charge of the sanctioned matches at another club that was having too many internal problems.

So they all moved to another location and didn't bother joining USPSA, mostly because nobody wanted to mess with the paperwork.

Those matches were run exactly like the sanctioned ones, with the same equipment at 2/3s the entry fee.

Not a thing wrong or different there.

So, it all depends on who's running them.

[sfinney]

I shot at a match for a few years where there was no USPSA club, and IDPA was not as big either, and the only match in town was outlaw.

This area of the state for whatever reason just struggled with being a solid club many years before as USPSA.... same 2 or 3 guys doing all the work, burnout, etc. Then IDPA came to town....... split the local shooter pool up a little..... but still pretty friendly with each other.

Next, there was big disagreement between match directors of which days on the calendar each wanted to have Sat vs Sun, which weekends, etc.

All those clubs went away.

Fast forward 10 or 12 years and the only real game in town was an IDPA match and "tactical" match (which was supposed to be the USPSA substitute).... the tactical match no real written rulebook. Sorta USPSA like, but with IDPA overtones. Some extra stuff like "we want to keep round count up so we do 3 shots per target. Unless we don't". more scenario driven stages, and some stages required cover or a specific order of engagement. Sometimes cover garments, usually not. You had guys with $3K limited guns vs. stock Berettas. If you moved to fast you got spoken too for not being tactical enough, sometimes penalized. Other stages were straight up speed shoots.

The matches were fun, if not a little frustrating for just being non-consistent from week to week. I went with the flow, and had fun, mostly.

But if people drove in from hours around, they usually only did once or twice, as the comments were usually "I did not know the rules.... brought the wrong equipment.... thought this was a "XXXX" match"..... etc.

People are more likely to make a drive to attend a sanctioned USPSA or IDPA match vs a random non-affiliated match.... its just the case of knowing what to expect. Not to say you can't have a wildly successful outlaw match.... but it will be tougher to get from the 10 or 15 people range to 50+. IMHO.

Edited August 22, 2015 by sfinney

[Nimitz]

So, it all depends on who's running them.

and that's exactly the problem .... I'm not doing all the prep the night before a match, drive an hr+ one way, only to discover when I get there that things are not exactly what I was expecting because it was one on THOSE people running it. My time is too valuable to take those kinds of chances and end up frustrated .... I'd rather spend that same time at my home range training & wait for a sanctioned match where I know what I'll be getting when I show up ...

Edited August 22, 2015 by Nimitz

[Sarge]

So, it all depends on who's running them.

and that's exactly the problem .... I'm not doing all the prep the night before a match, drive an hr+ one way, only to discover when I get there that things are not exactly what I was expecting because it was one on THOSE people running it. My time is too valuable to take those kinds of chances and end up frustrated .... I'd rather spend that same time at my home range training & wait for a sanctioned match where I know what I'll be getting when I show up ...

Same goes for local rules. If a club isn't sanctioned they could have all kinds of crazy rules like reloading over a berm or as has been said, no optics in open. That made me laugh out loud really.

[Sarge]

So they all moved to another location and didn't bother joining USPSA, mostly because nobody wanted to mess with the paperwork.

And that shows an unwillingness to stick to a solid set of rules and procedures in my opinion. These matches may work for some but there is no way I would go to an outlaw match. Our matches are very safe because of strict adherence to a written set of rules. Not wanting to mess with a little paperwork could lead to not wanting to mess with pissing a buddy off by DQing him. It seems it could snowball quite easily.

[Chills1994]

Is it so hard to email the match director to ask him what to expect at his matches?

Was Phil Strader's Pro Am (falling steel) match essentially an outlaw match (with no governing "umbrella" organizatio )?

I think it was a success for how many years in a row now???

[Thomas H]

However, with regard to scoring, results uploaded to Practiscore are almost as good to me. I like that you can see combined overall results on Practiscore. The only negative is the lack of seeing how many A's, B's, C's, etc you shot. I hear there is a way to do it in Practiscore but I haven't seen it.

With more and more clubs using Practiscore, it seems like it's quite the hassle getting scores uploaded to the USPSA site using EZWinScore at the back end.

Practiscore can now output the entire file needed for upload to USPSA. You don't need to port out to EZWin anymore at all.

(At the moment, the only really useful thing that EZWin does right now has to do with printing stage stickers for scoresheets. You don't need it for anything else.)