2005 Area 7 Championship

[Bruno]

Prepare yourself to have a great time.

I helped out at the range today and the match looks like a lot of fun. bring your sunscreen and lots of water. It's hot.....Africa hot.

Thank the match workers when you meet them, they're working their asses off.

[BSeevers]

I am coming as a late entry. It looks like a great match. Thanks

I bet you guys are sweating. Its 95 here.

[L1011]

Sestock,

Read post number 24.

To everyone else. Time is short We've been working 12-15 hours a day (in the

heat) since Monday. If I don't get to back to you on future questions, we will

answer them when you get here.

Traffic Note; The Honeyoe Falls #6 road is under construction east of the club.

As you approach the club from the West (I390 and Rt 15) you will see a road

closed sign 2.5 miles ahead. Disregard the sign as the club is only a mile from the

intersection where the sign is.

Good Luck to All . . . Have fun and STAY COOL ! ! !

Mike (Bay 4)

[Jake Di Vita]

Am I going to have any problems being 20 and driving there with my gear???

[driver8M3]

bring your sunscreen and lots of water. It's hot.....Africa hot.

you guys will have water available, right????

[IPSCDRL]

They usually have water on the stages but be prudent and bring something to drink. It looks to be a scorcher! I'm flying home (MA) from the coast on the red-eye tonight. I'll unpack/repack and grab my gear for the ride to Rochester tomorrow . Hope to see some of you there. Look for the squad wearing these shirts and say hello.

[Mooney]

Happy flying ya darn RL... Chris, Brian and I are heading up at 0700. Nextel when you arrive!

-your friendly HHH revo shooter

[Rob Boudrie]

To answer Jake's question -

First, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, blah, blah, blah.

A few years ago, NY passed a law which made it illegal for anyone under 21 to get a handgun permit, or to handle a handgun.

I subsequently spoke to the NY State Police firearms licensing unit about this, and was told that:

1. This is in general, correct, but...

2. The exemption provided under NY penal code 265.20 paragraph 13 did indeed cover juniors visiting NY from out of state to shoot a match (+/- 48 hours around the match, etc.). The licensing unit stated that this meant out of state juniors did not have a problem, but the only in-state juniors who could posess handguns were those persons issued NY pistol licenses before the age was raised to 21.

In general, I suggest locked case; copy of the match program; and don't wave any red flags. The expression of "getting lost in a crowd of one" comes to mind.

To the best of my knowledge, this issue has never been a problem with matches in NY.

Rob

[Jake Di Vita]

Awesome, thanks for the update. See you this weekend.

[L1011]

OK Shooters,

The 2005 Area 7 was our first major match. How'd we do ???

[Chriss Grube]

Great match except for the late start and finish for Sat. afternoon. The on line squading sucks. We sent the apps together and ended up spliting into 2 different groups. Also keep the clowns on the 4 wheelers at a speed where you don't have to dodge out of the way to keep from getting run over or coated in dust. Nice wipe out of the kid screwing around on his. Lucky for him he walked away instead of a life flight call! The RO's were great. The stages fairly wide open with no shooter traps.

[gmshtr]

Hats off to the Rochester Brooks Gun Club for running a very successful Area 7 match. The stages were fun, challenging, and some were deceptively tuff. The results were up before I could even put my stuff away and get on the computer in the club house! Pretty impressive stats keeping and posting with those fancy-shmansy PDA's.

Congrats to Heatseeker on his first Area win. Just another thing we have in common...our first Area wins were A7 in New York. It was fun battling with my buddy. Good job to all of the winners, and to BJ for still finishing 2nd after those 4 bad stages in a row. Ya'll should've seen the fall he took on of those stages. OUCH!

I was happy to finish with a decent % this time. I may actually win a match this year!

Thanks again for a great match. I look forward to being there next year.

Phil

[Jake Di Vita]

The match was fantastic...unfortunantly I didn't bring my A game...or GM game for that matter.

No probs...learned a lot...had fun...and still a decent finish for shooting a bad match.

Must sleep now, goodbye.

[pmd]

I thought this A7 match at the Rochester Brooks Gun Club was run really well.

I was on the Saturday am squad and we flew thru the stages. All the RO's were friendly and seemed to be on the ball. The cold bottled water which was available for the shooters at the pits was a big plus with all the heat.

I thought the stages were laid out well - even thou I did a couple brain farts...

As far as the on line squadding - I thought it was great and hope this system will stay in use.

Prelim results were alao posted very quickly.

C-ya next year.

Thanks.

PMD

[L1011]

Hi Chriss,

Yeah, as an RO, the ATV's bothered my too. This will be a topic on discussion.

The dust and "danger" is why we kept parking above the gate. Thanks for the

feedback.

Mike

[driver8M3]

OK Shooters,

        The 2005 Area 7 was our first major match.  How'd we do ???

i thought it was a really good match. the pda scoring worked better and faster than i expected. the stages were interesting and challenging. thanks to everyone involved for putting on a very entertaining match.

i shot a good match, one of my best (though i did get a little sloppy with points on a few stages...). shooting about the best i can, i didnt even get 75% of sevignys score. that guy will definitely expose your weaknesses! basically, i learned that i need to move faster and more efficiently, shoot faster, and shoot more accurately.

[IPSCDRL]

HOT does not begin to describe it. Temp in the 90's and 100% humidity. I kept after all of my squad members to keep drinking water to avoid dehydration. We shot on the Saturday afternoon squad. We started about an hour after scheduled time due to the morning squads taking a little long to clear. My hats off to the RO's who worked very hard under tough conditions and kept a good attitude. Thanks guys. The stages were good and a few of them offered different ways to shoot them. The X-mas tree stage tempted people to shoot through the trees to avoid movement. I know of many shots that were deflected by the trees. The stage "nothing but trouble" was appropriately named as well. There were thunderstorms each day and we finished shooting just before 9pm on Saturday. Any later and we would have had to line up the cars and shoot by headlights.

I shot the first 7 stages clean and then screwed up the last three winding up with a match percentage very close to my national average so I guess I shot an average match. Still it was a fun match and it was great to see some old friends that I had not seen in several years. I'm sure I'll see many of you up in VT for the AWARE invitational.

Cheers from squad 25.

[Rob Boudrie]

Photos by Jon Whitmore are up at www.uspsa-photos.org/gallery

[Mig]

Excellent match although it was very hot and muggy on Sunday and the rain delay help cool things off. Very friendly ROs with very good stage designs. Having food (very good) available at the range was a very helpful. Also, liked the Palm PDA scoring system, very nice.

Many thanks to all who worked and helped out with the match, especially Bob, Mike and Jeff. Will be back next year.

[gmshtr]

Great pictures...especially of the Alexander crew. Great shirts!

Phil

[Rob Boudrie]

Great match except for the late start and finish for Sat. afternoon. The on line squading sucks. We sent the apps together and ended up spliting into 2 different groups.

I have heard many more positive commments about the on-line squadding than negative ones (two negative comments counting this one - three if you count a shooter and a shooter's family member's comments separately). I do not expect any procedure which is "different" than tradition to meet with 100% acceptance, and if there is an outcry from those who shot the match expressing a similar sentiment, the match committee will seriously consider an alternate approach.

I researched the background of Chris's squadding situation, and came up with some interesting facts:

1. We had 254 competitors shoot the match (269 registered and about 5 withdrew before the match).

2. There were 8 squads per shoot time, with a limit of 200 Sat/Sun slots available on the matrix.

3. Application proccessing started the week ending 1/8/05. All applications were processed promptly, and in the order received.

4. Application #214, Chris Grube, arrived and was processed on the week ending 5/1/05. Many of those registering after #214 were staff shooting on Thursday or Friday - staff did not register early as they knew they would not be looking for "prime time" weekend slots.

I don't think it is fair to blame the on-line squadding system for the inability to provide a contiguous block of 4 slots to a group which signs up 4 months after the match registration opens, and after 200 other shooters have already registered. In general, the larger the group of people who what to shoot together, the earlier they need to register.

There is always the chance the "hand juggling" could do a bit more optimization - but then the benefits of a providing shooters with "total information" and the ability to fine-tune their squad disappears.

If registration enforces a typical "applications must be received together to be squadded together", people will still send in registrations with notes asking to be with a particular individual. Enforcing such a policy creates one set of problems, and ignoring it creates another.

No system is perfect - the trick is figuring out which one works the best when applied to an actual match.

If you were at the A7 and liked or hated the squadding system we used, please add to this thread to help the match committee get a feel for public sentiment.

[Paul B]

Rob, realizing from personal experience that running a large match is a thankless task, There are some problems and advantages with the online squading system. I did not shoot Area 7, but recently shot a major using this system and it was a true PITA if you wanted to shoot with a group. This is in spite of the fact that the people running the match and the match itself are just top notch.

We had a group of 9 competitors and made up an entire squad. While we sent our apps in together and asked to be squaded together we ended up on the "to be squaded" list with passwords going out to all concerned separately. Some of the 9 either do not have regular access or seldom if ever use the internet. Consequently it took several e-mails and phone calls to get everything straitened out - in spite of the fact that the match officials are friends and wanted to help.

What I can tell you is that for us and many like us shooting is really a social activity. If we can't get squaded together we would just as soon go to another match. This may not represent most shooters and there may not be that many groups that large, but coordinating even 4 or 5 could be a trial.

I would suggest that at least there be certain squad lists held back so the MD can take care of problems like this manually. Another possibility is to send all the passwords to one coordinator who can make all the changes for everyone.

Of course with the match attendance up this year almost everywhere (a very good thing) it may not be necessary. A few disgruntled people, though, will remember and may not be there when attendance is down.

[Glock35]

Great match, weather was too much like GA.

Need to limit who has ATV's. We had a Police Explorer run into a car at the Area 6, fortunately no one was hurt. Same goes for the kid riding the ATV.

Need to make sure everyone wears their eye protection. With the forward falling steel I was getting hit quite often. When I am RO'ing a stage I always make sure everyone on our stage has their eye protection on, competitors as well as spectators.

Larry

[Rob Boudrie]

I would suggest that at least there be certain squad lists held back so the MD can take care of problems like this manually. Another possibility is to send all the passwords to one coordinator who can make all the changes for everyone.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We honored all requests to send the squadding code to a single coordinator if they were in the envelope, or if the competitor asked us to send it to another competitor when they submitted their registration.

Your comment makes it obvious to me that we should have done more to advertise this option, which we will do if we use this system next year.

Another possibility under consideration is to take care of requests "if possible" (for example, "give me a Sat PM slot with Joe") but only if it can be done without juggling existing competitors. Competitors could then move themselves around if they wished to fine-tune.

There is always room for improvement in any process.

[Chriss Grube]

Rob,

First time with this online high tech computer geek squading. I'm used to send in your apps together and get squaded not needing a password to try and figure it out. I'm glad the match opened up in Jan. only problem is at that time of year I'm up to my butt in Snow and not thinking about shooting. We were not going to bother even shooting the match because a hundred bucks for a trophy match seemed over priced but since there was nothing good on TV we decided to spend the money and shoot it. I would suggest that when apps come in together that they initally be put on the same squad and then let people move if they chose. Just remember that this is a low tech sport with a few hi tech geeks that actually enjoy computers the rest of us use them for email and match results.