USPSA MD / builders question

[robchavous]

I think preplanning is huge. Have detailed stage diagrams. You can make very detailed diagrams with something like SketchUp and work out a lot of bugs just with that if you make some accurate bay templates. With accurate diagrams you can then also put together a prop list and know exactly what needs to be dropped at each bay. Drop the stuff and hand 2 people a good diagram.

We're fortunate to be able to setup most of our match on the weekend before. We can build 6-7 stages in 3-4 hours with 6ish people. Then morning of is mostly just for hanging targets.

There is also a learning curve for stage design. I used to try to use way too many walls and props. Now I've learned how to accomplish the same things with less.

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[MemphisMechanic]

22 minutes ago, IHAVEGAS said:

 you need idpa/classifier type stages in order for skill to be obvious.

 

Who on earth said anything about classifier crap?

 

We’re not talking about shooting flat footed or around either side of a barricade at all. If anything, you better move and shoot faster and straighter if you want to win a *well designed* medium field course , than a long one.

[motosapiens]

35 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

All along the Colorado Front range we have 11 different USPSA clubs with matches happening on every single weekend day and several indoor matches happening during the week in the evenings. ALL OF THEM function in the manner of setting up the whole match right before the start of the match. 

 

I think this is key. I personally only live 15 mins from our local range, but I still would have a hard time consistently showing up the day before a match to build a stage, especially when I know it can be done well in 60-90 minutes by 3-4 people.

 

CrashDodson should pm me or Charlie and come visit for a relaxing weekend and see how other folks are accomplishing setup the morning of the match. I even have a spare room, and although I'm only one of the usual stage designer/builders, I can also put him in touch with our MD's for more info on organizing and delegating. It is absolutely vital in this sport to delegate and empower other folks and educate them as they come up with ideas. At first people need more supervision and feedback, but if they are allowed to experiment and have fun and not be micro-managed (outside of safety and rules concerns), they will need less and less supervision pretty quickly.

 

We start building stages about 90 mins before the match, usually 4 stages with 1 person in charge of each, plus 2 classifiers that anyone helpful can set up. I can my stage with just me and my wife, but there are always a few folks that come ask how they can help, and with 2-3 extra people it goes quick like a bunny, and newer shooters get introduced to helping and figure out that it's not a burden to pitch in a bit.

Edited April 8, 2019 by motosapiens

[MemphisMechanic]

@IHAVEGAS

And hey, do not give me wrong. If I visit a match with seven stages, in at least four of them I’d like to see over 25 rounds. I love to shoot just as much as the next guy. If I wanted a match full of 18 rounders I *would* still be shooting IDPA.

 

 But a blistering fast 16 to 21 round stage which features all of the field course challenges *and* a breakneck pace where every single point is at a premium? That’s an entirely different challenge. And a lot of us appreciate that enough to really enjoy it when they crop up once or twice in a match. 

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by MemphisMechanic

[robchavous]

 
This is part of the "Know your product/customer" rule. If your local customer base puts more value on round count, then bump up the round count.

Just build balanced matches with good stages. You are always going to have people complain about something.

Personally I'd go talk to some of the better shooters around and ask them what makes good stages.

If you just get a reputation for building quality matches then the shooters will show up.

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[DKorn]

I do think varied round count helps make a match more interesting AND can ease the pain of setup somewhat.

 

I’m not saying we need the 3/2/1 rule that IPSC has, but good short and medium courses are interesting, especially because they’re unusual locally. I’d even settle for some 28-31 round courses... lately it seems I don’t even have to bother checking the round count when I look at the stage briefing because it’s either 32 rounds or the classifier. 

[rowdyb]

In my experience, if all the needed supplies are dropped at the end of the bay it is entirely reasonable to have just 1, yes one, person completely and totally make a legal stage in less than one hour. Growing a cadre of 5 people who you can count on to without direct supervision, each build a legal and fun stage in an hour, is worth far more than 20 people with good intentions milling about the bays.

 

There is no nobility in suffering, being a volunteer doesn't make you a martyr and if a match dies due to non-participation it wasn't meant to be with those people in that area. Why kill yourself for something you aren't making money off of, and for other people? Sounds a lot like love....

 

ps-I've never understood why local matches need to be built the day before? To me that seems the worst way to treat your volunteers.

Edited April 8, 2019 by rowdyb

[HCH]

Where I currently live/work, it’s about 90-120 miles to get to a club match. I don’t mind helping tear down, RO, reset, yadda yadda yadda; but getting to a match at 8:00 to help set up is not something I want to do on my weekend. 

 

@CrashDodson puts on a hell of a match. Probably the best club match I go to. Maybe moving to that private range would be a good choice. Would that discourage any shooters from attending?

[CrashDodson]

4 hours ago, rowdyb said:

ps-I've never understood why local matches need to be built the day before? To me that seems the worst way to treat your volunteers.

 

I suppose for me it was somewhat selfish.  When we attempted a few times to build the day of, by the time it was go time I was so tired and stressed out I didnt even want to shoot my own match, which goes back to your statement about killing yourself for essentially nothing.  Im not the type to sit on the sidelines and direct traffic.  Im going to be swinging hammers as well as making sure every stage is as good as it can be.  Ive been told I need to delegate but I dont feel right giving people orders.

 

I need to have a talk with the few dedicated guys that I always can count on and see how they feel about trying to make the morning of thing work, since it seems like thats the consensus.    

[shred]

And there you have it.  If you don't want to delegate, find someone that will, and you go do what you want to do as far as setup and stage design rather than the whole thing and burning out.  It's not easy to let go, but you'll burn out if you don't.

 

I've been playing this game for nearly to 30 years now and seen lots of MDs and more than a few matches and clubs come and go.   ALWAYS, the key piece for longevity has been to have a few people running the show.  One person can be the leader and there are never more than about 5 or 6 key players putting in the majority of the work at any club, and usually less, but there needs to be some.   Only one person running the whole thing top to bottom can work for a while, but it will die and usually sooner rather than later.

 

Delegating a stage to a Stage Director isn't ordering them around, it's asking them "hey, can you put up a stage for this month's match?".  Give them the stages if you want, but give them rope to set it up.  They might fail a time or two, but pretty soon they get good and it's one less thing for you to do but stroll by and check in.

 

Next up is sort the work by skill level.  Leave hammering in spikes and sticks and hanging targets and whatnot until match day.  Open registration early and when people show up and register, the reg person says "can you go help with Bay 1?", then the next person "can you go help with bay 2?" and so on.  Set them to spiking and stapling and it goes fast.

 

[CHA-LEE]

1 hour ago, CrashDodson said:

 

I suppose for me it was somewhat selfish.  When we attempted a few times to build the day of, by the time it was go time I was so tired and stressed out I didnt even want to shoot my own match, which goes back to your statement about killing yourself for essentially nothing.  Im not the type to sit on the sidelines and direct traffic.  Im going to be swinging hammers as well as making sure every stage is as good as it can be.  Ive been told I need to delegate but I dont feel right giving people orders.

 

I need to have a talk with the few dedicated guys that I always can count on and see how they feel about trying to make the morning of thing work, since it seems like thats the consensus.    

 

If you think it’s possible to run a match effectively and also attend that match without your performance suffering, you are kidding yourself. I run a pretty tight ship at the matches I MD and also have a core group of 5-8 dedicated board members to assist in making it happen. There are also many competitors that come early to help setup as well. Even with all of that help and everything going smoothly as planned during setup I still rarely have the spare time to walk the stages as a competitor to figure out stage plans or strategies. I am usually forced to figure the stages out as my squad gets to the stages while shooting the match. Not to mention ROing the majority of the time and dealing with random issues that come up. 

 

This absolutely has a negative impact to my match performance. But the reality is that running an effective match is my top priority that day and that automatically puts my own match performance on the back burner. I accept this reality and willingly donate my match performance that one day a month to make it all happen for others. If you are not willing to sacrifice your own match performance to run a match then maybe you shouldn’t be running the match.

Edited April 9, 2019 by CHA-LEE

[DKorn]

Locally, most of our matches set up the day before and then do final stuff (stapling up targets, nailing things down, etc.) the morning of the match. I’m not sure why this is but it seems to be the norm around here. Most matches, the shooters are expected to stay to tear down, which usually almost everyone does - nobody has a problem with someone who says “sorry guys I have to be somewhere this afternoon” as long as they don’t make a habit of it. 

 

I think setting up the day before makes it harder to get volunteers for setup for two reasons: one, it means people have to drive to the range twice, and two, it means that people who don’t help setup never directly see the work that goes into it. 

 

For point #1, driving to the range twice- there are many shooters who love volunteering to help with the sport. I for one would love to learn about designing stages, and helping set them up and debug them is probably the best way to do so. However, most matches are an hour to an hour and ten minutes away from me, so I can’t justify the drive time every month. I do make it to my “home” club to help setup when I can. 

 

For point #2- I feel like when shooters who aren’t naturally volunteer-oriented show up to a match and everything is already ready to go, the pleas for volunteer help fall on deaf ears. If they came out and helped even once, they’d see how much work is put in by the dedicated few and might be more willing to help in the future. When it’s all done for you, it’s easy for some people to think “Well, they complain about lack of help, but they still manage to get it done, so it must be okay.”

 

[Sarge]

1 hour ago, DKorn said:

Locally, most of our matches set up the day before and then do final stuff (stapling up targets, nailing things down, etc.) the morning of the match. I’m not sure why this is but it seems to be the norm around here. Most matches, the shooters are expected to stay to tear down, which usually almost everyone does - nobody has a problem with someone who says “sorry guys I have to be somewhere this afternoon” as long as they don’t make a habit of it. 

 

I think setting up the day before makes it harder to get volunteers for setup for two reasons: one, it means people have to drive to the range twice, and two, it means that people who don’t help setup never directly see the work that goes into it. 

 

For point #1, driving to the range twice- there are many shooters who love volunteering to help with the sport. I for one would love to learn about designing stages, and helping set them up and debug them is probably the best way to do so. However, most matches are an hour to an hour and ten minutes away from me, so I can’t justify the drive time every month. I do make it to my “home” club to help setup when I can. 

 

For point #2- I feel like when shooters who aren’t naturally volunteer-oriented show up to a match and everything is already ready to go, the pleas for volunteer help fall on deaf ears. If they came out and helped even once, they’d see how much work is put in by the dedicated few and might be more willing to help in the future. When it’s all done for you, it’s easy for some people to think “Well, they complain about lack of help, but they still manage to get it done, so it must be okay.”

 

The other side of the coin is setting up the day prior is much less stressful on the MD. As an MD it feels great to show up on match day and hang targets, knock out registration and shooters meeting and get to shooting ASAP.

  Also, when you do set up on match day a few problems pop up. One, shooters will start showing up as late as possible so they have to help as little as possible. And there will be 60 people standing around watching 15 people do the work. This will piss the 15 off and they will for sure not help many times before becoming the watchers. To be fair you only need 12-15 people to set up a 5 stage match without everybody getting in the way but it’s still annoying as hell to lug stuff around while the majority sit in the shade. And those in the shade are probably bitching about set up taking so long.

  Driving to the range twice is asking a lot but like I typically say, “just pick one match a month and help set it up”. The rest, you can relax a little. If every shooter in the local match circuit did this there could easily be 15 or so at each match on set up day without burning out.

Hmmm, maybe I could coordinate a kind of volunteer roster and get commitment ahead of time for all local matches for the season......

[DKorn]

39 minutes ago, Sarge said:

The other side of the coin is setting up the day prior is much less stressful on the MD. As an MD it feels great to show up on match day and hang targets, knock out registration and shooters meeting and get to shooting ASAP.

  Also, when you do set up on match day a few problems pop up. One, shooters will start showing up as late as possible so they have to help as little as possible. And there will be 60 people standing around watching 15 people do the work. This will piss the 15 off and they will for sure not help many times before becoming the watchers. To be fair you only need 12-15 people to set up a 5 stage match without everybody getting in the way but it’s still annoying as hell to lug stuff around while the majority sit in the shade. And those in the shade are probably bitching about set up taking so long.

  Driving to the range twice is asking a lot but like I typically say, “just pick one match a month and help set it up”. The rest, you can relax a little. If every shooter in the local match circuit did this there could easily be 15 or so at each match on set up day without burning out.

Hmmm, maybe I could coordinate a kind of volunteer roster and get commitment ahead of time for all local matches for the season......

 

There’s definitely pros and cons of both ways of doing it. 

 

I think the best thing to do (from my perspective as a volunteer, RO, and not an MD) is, like you said, to pick a match a month that you can help set up. I also try to RO at least a match or two, or at least help RO part of the time. ROing all the time kind of screws up your shooting sometimes, although you do get used to it. 

[CrashDodson]

9 hours ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

If you think it’s possible to run a match effectively and also attend that match without your performance suffering, you are kidding yourself. I run a pretty tight ship at the matches I MD and also have a core group of 5-8 dedicated board members to assist in making it happen. There are also many competitors that come early to help setup as well. Even with all of that help and everything going smoothly as planned during setup I still rarely have the spare time to walk the stages as a competitor to figure out stage plans or strategies. I am usually forced to figure the stages out as my squad gets to the stages while shooting the match. Not to mention ROing the majority of the time and dealing with random issues that come up. 

 

This absolutely has a negative impact to my match performance. But the reality is that running an effective match is my top priority that day and that automatically puts my own match performance on the back burner. I accept this reality and willingly donate my match performance that one day a month to make it all happen for others. If you are not willing to sacrifice your own match performance to run a match then maybe you shouldn’t be running the match.

 

I agree.  Even setting up the day before I am the last to get my gear on and "walk" the stage while im in the hole or on deck.  I understand that reality.  Its just worse when we setup the day of.  With family priorities I only have time to shoot one local match a month and then my major match schedule.  All other level 1's are about 2 hours away from me.   

 

If setting up the day prior is unfair to my volunteers then that is something I need to address because I dont want it to be that way.  

 

Im considering an idea that if I move the match to the private range having a weekly practice session/build day.  Where on one day a week in the evening we build a stage or two and then have a practice session together at the range.  Since I can leave the stages up as long as I want there.  That might motivate some to help because the range is not accessible to them at other times.  Our current range does not allow anyone to use any steel or props in the bays outside of match days. 

The private range discourages some shooters I think because our current range has covers/shade, covers over the bays themselves and running water/bathrooms.     

[ATLDave]

Perhaps a candid discussion with your shooting crowd about the importance of same-morning setup help versus having to move to another range (with less-nice facilities for use during the match) in order to set up the day before might generate some additional morning-of help.  Not a threat, nor a demand, simply that you are considering that option.  

[elguapo]

On 4/8/2019 at 3:41 PM, Mcfoto said:

 

I’m only sharing my personal perception. The “we’re not having a match unless someone volunteers” sounds to me like “you are lazy and it’s going to keep others from having fun.”

 

Step back and consider the fact that you're taking a factual, logical statement and turning into a personal slight/attack.  Why?

 

Fact: matches require volunteers to run.  Simple logical deduction: if there are no volunteers, there is no match.

[elguapo]

On 4/8/2019 at 3:53 PM, Maximis228 said:

 

This is why MDs quit. Everyone needs their hand held.

 

truth

[Mcfoto]

3 minutes ago, elguapo said:

 

Step back and consider the fact that you're taking a factual, logical statement and turning into a personal slight/attack.  Why?

 

Fact: matches require volunteers to run.  Simple logical deduction: if there are no volunteers, there is no match.

 

This debate was so yesterday. Stepping out as there is a lot more practical advise coming now from experienced MD's that I think are more helpful to the OP.

[MikeBurgess]

I almost forgot one of my favorite rules. 

 

This saves us a bunch of nailing and prop hauling.

 

2.2.1.3 Fault Lines extending rearward (uprange) should be a minimum of 3 feet in length, and unless otherwise stated in the written stage briefing, are deemed to extend rearward to infinity.

[CrashDodson]

2 minutes ago, MikeBurgess said:

I almost forgot one of my favorite rules. 

 

This saves us a bunch of nailing and prop hauling.

 

2.2.1.3 Fault Lines extending rearward (uprange) should be a minimum of 3 feet in length, and unless otherwise stated in the written stage briefing, are deemed to extend rearward to infinity.

Interesting.  Im trying to visualize when this would be useful.  I guess you could use this when you were starting the shooter somewhere other than a rear uprange fault line.  

[MikeBurgess]

Just now, CrashDodson said:

Interesting.  Im trying to visualize when this would be useful.  I guess you could use this when you were starting the shooter somewhere other than a rear uprange fault line.  

yep rear fault lines are only needed if you want to restrict movement in that direction. very rarely is it better to get further away from the targets.

 

you can still start them where you would have a rear fault line, just put down a 2 ft board and have feet touching board for start position. 

 

 

[MemphisMechanic]

6 minutes ago, MikeBurgess said:

yep rear fault lines are only needed if you want to restrict movement in that direction. very rarely is it better to get further away from the targets.

 

This is obvious, but for any novice stage designers reading...

 

Make sure your PCC shooters won’t be able to back up 10 yards and delete all of the hard leans, taking pretty much the whole stage from one or two positions back there.

 

Don’t neglect the ‘rifle factor’ when determining if you need rear fault lines.  

 

 

Edited April 9, 2019 by MemphisMechanic

[CrashDodson]

In the mornings as soon as our top pcc guy shows up...here we go moving stuff around.  

[CHA-LEE]

Why would you have to modify a stage after its setup for a PCC shooter?