Increasing participation

[ChuckS]

And the last few posts shows the issue. Instead of a blind push to "grow the sport" for the sake of numbers USPSA should first examine ways to make things better at our current levels (both numbers of shooters and level of growth). Increasing numbers with the same problems we run into with current numbers is what really causes issues.

Anyone have Foley's email?

PM me ....

No need for PM... president@uspsa.org

[Nimitz]

I guess that one works now as well ....

[Chills1994]

Do MD's and RO's/setter up'ers who get paid and/or comp'ed match fees ever get burnt out?

[Sandbagger123]

i have seen this sport and the other one grow like crazy in my area of the PNW. in the summer most of the clubs will get 60-80 shooters for 6 stages. the unfortunate thing is that growth has not brought more volunteers to help out setup. 99% of the people just want to pay the fee and shoot. sure they will stay for tear down as they are already there, but most won't come a day ahead to setup.

I don't know how it works in other part of the country but the only ones that benifit from more people shooting is the range, section and uspsa. here we give all the proceeds to to the range and fee to uspsa are paid from it.

i feel the uspsa is a unsubstainable business model. no one wants to work for free. maybe once but long term nada. if uspsa want to grow the sport start paying MD's to put on matches and compensate setup crews. why should they only be the beneficiary of other peoples work.

[Ultimo-Hombre]

i feel the uspsa is a unsubstainable business model. no one wants to work for free. maybe once but long term nada. if uspsa want to grow the sport start paying MD's to put on matches and compensate setup crews. why should they only be the beneficiary of other peoples work.

So where does the money to pay these previously voulenteer positions come from. I mean if we pay set up staff, then we have to pay match director, section coordinator, area director right?

Labor costs can be astronomical. Who has looked at the USPSA budget and can say where our money goes, and how much could be allocated to new payroll?

I am guessing it's just not there.

[Chills1994]

There was or is a local gun club where it was rumored that the MD got $250 for each match he put on. I was nosey enough, so I went to guidestar.org to look at their IRS Form 990's. The overall gun club/range president gets paid $50,000 a year. All the other clubs/ranges in this area the club presidents are all volunteers.

[Ultimo-Hombre]

There was or is a local gun club where it was rumored that the MD got $250 for each match he put on. I was nosey enough, so I went to guidestar.org to look at their IRS Form 990's. The overall gun club/range president gets paid $50,000 a year. All the other clubs/ranges in this area the club presidents are all volunteers.

So was the club president also the USPSA match director?

I'm all for paying a professional to have the full time responsibility of protecting and overseeing a range.

Totally different topic.

[Sandbagger123]

i feel the uspsa is a unsubstainable business model. no one wants to work for free. maybe once but long term nada. if uspsa want to grow the sport start paying MD's to put on matches and compensate setup crews. why should they only be the beneficiary of other peoples work.

So where does the money to pay these previously voulenteer positions come from. I mean if we pay set up staff, then we have to pay match director, section coordinator, area director right?

Labor costs can be astronomical. Who has looked at the USPSA budget and can say where our money goes, and how much could be allocated to new payroll?

I am guessing it's just not there.

have someone that is a paid rep for uspsa negotiate with ranges to get a more equitable distribution of the fees. Right now we charge $22 a head to shoot. take out the classifier fees and section fees and the rest goes to the range. right now it up to the MD to do the negotiation with the range and there is no incentive to do so. with the present model more shooters just means more work for the volunteers. doing it out of the goodness of your heart get old real quick

[Neomet]

Larger participation?? I have serious qualms about this. Logistics are my issues. We had 112 shooters at our local club match last Saturday. Four bays. We run rolling squads and a 2 hour start window that Richard described. I still rolled up on two stages with over 28 shooters in front of me. When everything went smoothly we took about 3.5 min to run a shooter and reset. That is 98 min of wait time to shoot a stage. (actual time for me was an hour 45 min, some claimed 2 hours when a prop died). Several people left because of the wait times.

I may be a wimp or a lightweight but after an hour 45 of standing in the same bay taping and resetting some of the excitement and fun of shooting the stage has evaporated. Personally I can't wait for summer and 115 degree heat to thin the crowds.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Neomet

[gino_aki]

Wow, I guess we live in a semi-utopia out here on Maui. I don't think we've ever had 70 shooters at our state match much less the club ones. We fluctuate between 10 and 22 shooters depending on how life is going for any of our group of guys. We still set up just before the match on the 3 or 4 Sundays we have matches a month and usually start shooting around 9 am and everything put away by 2 pm. We have one dedicated bay which we manage to usually set up four stages in and everybody helps. If we had an influx of people who stuck with it we might start seeing some of the problems you guys on the mainland are dealing with but for now we seem to be operating at a pretty comfortable level. When we've had visiting shooters, this wasn't a topic that ever came up and most didn't bat an eye at the way we ran things so I for one would not really have dreamed of the admin stuff you guys run into.

Some interesting ideas here especially the one about pre-registering folks for the "season." With more and more of our personal electronics becoming interconnected I would think that an app for running all the interconnected timers and electronic scorepads should be percolating in someone's brain, perhaps even an idea for a totally integrated scoring system run over a dedicated local wireless network. And regardless of whether we seek out more numbers to add to our ranks, range development and affiliation should always be a priority at the local and national level.

[Chills1994]

There was or is a local gun club where it was rumored that the MD got $250 for each match he put on. I was nosey enough, so I went to guidestar.org to look at their IRS Form 990's. The overall gun club/range president gets paid $50,000 a year. All the other clubs/ranges in this area the club presidents are all volunteers.

So was the club president also the USPSA match director?

I'm all for paying a professional to have the full time responsibility of protecting and overseeing a range.

Totally different topic.

No, the club/range president was NOT the USPSA MD.

Looking over the old Form 990's, it appears the MD got either a W-2 or a 1099 at the end of the year.

[Brooke]

You can not be static. You increase interest or die off. There will not be new ranges and new clubs first. The participation comes first then the facilities catch up.

If there is money to be made, you will see new and improved facilities. The no-new-shooters-because-I don't-want-them concept is ridiculous. That is not how it works!

Participation brings publicity and even TV at some point. That brings sponsors, recognition, and most importantly acceptance. The current image of red necks running with guns will continue to bring poor publicity to gun games. Public acceptance and recognition brings money and all it can buy for us.

[Chills1994]

You can not be static. You increase interest or die off. There will not be new ranges and new clubs first. The participation comes first then the facilities catch up.

If there is money to be made, you will see new and improved facilities. The no-new-shooters-because-I don't-want-them concept is ridiculous. That is not how it works!

Participation brings publicity and even TV at some point. That brings sponsors, recognition, and most importantly acceptance. The current image of red necks running with guns will continue to bring poor publicity to gun games. Public acceptance and recognition brings money and all it can buy for us.

You mean like in 1994/1995 when this actually aired on ESPN:

ESPN Colt Pro Shootout with Rob Leatham, The Jet,…: http://youtu.be/SYl_iMYbIQg

[Dr Mitch]

It all comes down to marketing as far as I'm concerned. 300 million people here, and I bet only 100k-300k have ever heard of USPSA. All 300M know what Coca-Cola is, even if they don't have any interest in drinking it.

With the prevalence of social media, anyone who wants to grow their org and isn't blitzing it daily for FREE VISIBILITY is losing, but it also needs to managed such that we touch new people all the time. We have lots of people in a generally closed loop posting things to each other. Needs to be an open loop. A USPSA brochure in the box of every new gun that is sold. A USPSA display in every gun store. A USPSA ad on every gun website.

We also need more host ranges.

[Strick]

No one has answered the real question. What does increased participation and marketing do for the current USPSA members? Isn't that what the BOD and Pres is supposed to be focusing on? How would the current shooter benefit?

[Nimitz]

Do MD's and RO's/setter up'ers who get paid and/or comp'ed match fees ever get burnt out?

Depends on how much they get paid ... . Shooters who help setup shoot my match for free, don't have any issues there and squads are required to break down the stage they finish on so I just have to drive a trailer around to the front of each bay to put stuff away

[Nimitz]

You can not be static. You increase interest or die off. There will not be new ranges and new clubs first. The participation comes first then the facilities catch up.

If there is money to be made, you will see new and improved facilities. The no-new-shooters-because-I don't-want-them concept is ridiculous. That is not how it works!

Participation brings publicity and even TV at some point. That brings sponsors, recognition, and most importantly acceptance. The current image of red necks running with guns will continue to bring poor publicity to gun games. Public acceptance and recognition brings money and all it can buy for us.

Best post of this entire thread ....

USPSA right now reminds me of where pro beach volleyball was in 1982 when I arrived in LA, except we're actually much better organized then they were at the time. Within a couple of years they got themselves organized, got a TV deal & big sponsors and now the winners of major events split a $50,000 check between the 2 athletes of the winning team.... Of course the US winning the Olympic gold medal in volleyball in 1984 didn't hurt ... The pro beach volleyball athletes were smart and capatialzed on it ... I think Practical shooting would make a great Olympic sport ... It's too bad the politics between the international shooting federation and USPSA currently make that basically impossible ...

Edited January 21, 2016 by Nimitz

[jhgtyre]

That's my idea for getting away from dedicated squads of 15 people who have to likely stay all squadded together because that is how the electronic scoring info got entered into that one Kindle or Blackberry or iPad

for our steel matches, we just don't have squads. nooks and timers stay on the stage. People go wherever the line is shortest (if they are smart). it takes like 4 seconds to find someone in the alphabetized list of 50 shooters while the shooter is making ready.

How well do you think this format would work for a USPSA match?

Let's say with comped match fees for a set up and tear down crew.

It works FANTASTIC... this is exactly how we run all our matches at Rio Salado.

Sadly it also helps out the many people who feel they are on the stage to walk it repeatedly while not helping.

[motosapiens]

You can not be static. You increase interest or die off. There will not be new ranges and new clubs first. The participation comes first then the facilities catch up.

If there is money to be made, you will see new and improved facilities. The no-new-shooters-because-I don't-want-them concept is ridiculous. That is not how it works!

Participation brings publicity and even TV at some point. That brings sponsors, recognition, and most importantly acceptance. The current image of red necks running with guns will continue to bring poor publicity to gun games. Public acceptance and recognition brings money and all it can buy for us.

Best post of this entire thread ....

USPSA right now reminds me of where pro beach volleyball was in 1982 when I arrived in LA, except we're actually much better organized then they were at the time. Within a couple of years they got themselves organized, got a TV deal & big sponsors and now the winners of major events split a $50,000 check between the 2 athletes of the winning team.... Of course the US winning the Olympic gold medal in volleyball in 1984 didn't hurt ... The pro beach volleyball athletes were smart and capatialzed on it ... I think Practical shooting would make a great Olympic sport ... It's too bad the politics between the international shooting federation and USPSA currently make that basically impossible ...

Yeah, as soon as we can get hot athletic chicks in bikinis to start shooting, there will be TV interest. Until then, keep dreaming.

[motosapiens]

i feel the uspsa is a unsubstainable business model. no one wants to work for free. maybe once but long term nada. if uspsa want to grow the sport start paying MD's to put on matches and compensate setup crews. why should they only be the beneficiary of other peoples work.

So where does the money to pay these previously voulenteer positions come from. I mean if we pay set up staff, then we have to pay match director, section coordinator, area director right?

Labor costs can be astronomical. Who has looked at the USPSA budget and can say where our money goes, and how much could be allocated to new payroll?

I am guessing it's just not there.

wait, what? why should uspsa be paying for it? Local clubs get the the benefit of match income, if it's something that needs to be done, then it would make sense to pay some kind of stipend out of the match fees. I'm not talking about minimum wage either, but even a $10 'thank you' to buy lunch after the match would go a long ways. Note that I'm not saying that needs to be done right now, but it might be worth thinking about at some point.

I think volunteers never run out of energy for putting on matches for 20-30 people. The vast majority of people are involved in helping when it's on that scale (at least in my experience). When you get up to 50-70 or more shooters, then there seem to be alot more slackers (or consumers, if you prefer). Personally I *like* being a consumer from time to time, especially at matches I travel to. I just want to pay more, shoot my match, and then go see and do stuff locally with mrs moto, not screw around with setup and teardown.

[ChuckS]

USPSA right now reminds me of where pro beach volleyball was in 1982 when I arrived in LA,

I am guessing this is what makes you remember PBV?

Edited January 21, 2016 by ChuckS

[Ultimo-Hombre]

^Yeah, I'm with you Moto^

So the last part of my original post asked what else besides just increasing the number of shooters should we be looking at doing to build our sport?

Even if someone capitulates to the argument that bringing in more new shooters is beneficial, we must have a parallel

plan to quickly accommodate the bigger attendance numbers. If we have guys that have invested thousands of dollars and years of training effort into this game who are dismayed by clogged up matches, how likely are those coveted new shooters gonna be to stick around?

Saying the future is new participants without putting an equal effort into accommodating the higher volume is planning to fail.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Ultimo-Hombre

[Sandbagger123]

i feel the uspsa is a unsubstainable business model. no one wants to work for free. maybe once but long term nada. if uspsa want to grow the sport start paying MD's to put on matches and compensate setup crews. why should they only be the beneficiary of other peoples work.

So where does the money to pay these previously voulenteer positions come from. I mean if we pay set up staff, then we have to pay match director, section coordinator, area director right?

Labor costs can be astronomical. Who has looked at the USPSA budget and can say where our money goes, and how much could be allocated to new payroll?

I am guessing it's just not there.

wait, what? why should uspsa be paying for it? Local clubs get the the benefit of match income, if it's something that needs to be done, then it would make sense to pay some kind of stipend out of the match fees. I'm not talking about minimum wage either, but even a $10 'thank you' to buy lunch after the match would go a long ways. Note that I'm not saying that needs to be done right now, but it might be worth thinking about at some point.

I think volunteers never run out of energy for putting on matches for 20-30 people. The vast majority of people are involved in helping when it's on that scale (at least in my experience). When you get up to 50-70 or more shooters, then there seem to be alot more slackers (or consumers, if you prefer). Personally I *like* being a consumer from time to time, especially at matches I travel to. I just want to pay more, shoot my match, and then go see and do stuff locally with mrs moto, not screw around with setup and teardown.

i don't know how it works at your club, but at mines the range get all the money. there will be a budget for consumables etc. there has been talk before of dropping the uspsa affiliation because having one really does not do much other than classifiers. but that a whole nother can of worms

tell me where a sport has 25k paying members that is run off the backs of volunteers. maybe kids sports,but this is a more adult oriented sport.

[motosapiens]

i don't know how it works at your club, but at mines the range get all the money. there will be a budget for consumables etc. there has been talk before of dropping the uspsa affiliation because having one really does not do much other than classifiers. but that a whole nother can of worms

tell me where a sport has 25k paying members that is run off the backs of volunteers. maybe kids sports,but this is a more adult oriented sport.

If there's a budget for consumables, there can be a budget for other expenses. Sounds like your range is profiting off of volunteers.

fwiw, it seems to me that many sports are run by part time volunteers at the grass roots level. For sure offroad motorcycle racing is. Clubs put on races with volunteers working them.

fwiw, if a club here dropped their uspsa affiliation, I probably wouldn't consider attending their matches. I like knowing what the ground rules are. USPSA affiliation gives us consistency. It means I can travel hours in any direction and know the rules and procedures will be the same.

[Strick]

The more I think about it the more I don't get the divisions "increasing participation" or "growing the sport". I would say the vast majority of shooters that would be targeted don't have a slide mounted dot or a PCC, they have a regular ole duty sized handgun with a mag that holds a lot of rounds. When you tell them they can shoot Prod and load to 10 or shoot limited and get scored lowered that is when most say.....screw it.

Want those shooters to stay, have 6 divisions

Open

-minor

-major

Limited

-minor

-major

Prod

SSTK

Score the major minor divisions separate but also award an overall division award that way people can decide if they think shooting major is worth winning the overall division. Your average range guy, plinker will have a gun that can be competitive in any division and doesn't need to worry about PF to do so. Sure purists may not like that as much but I think that is where the growth would happen.