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Stage design/building in a volunteer sport - how does your club do it?


fyaman43

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1 hour ago, BritinUSA said:

Yep, local shooters only. If people were traveling from several hours away then a rota would not work. 

 

We still help with the scoring and do a tear down at the end of the day... These clubs have great setup crews that put about 10 stages on the ground a day before.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've seen a lot of clubs wax and wane over the past 25+ years.  At the root of it, there are always only a handful of people doing the majority of the work.  The key to a successful club is to bring new people into that small worker group as others tire out and encouraging everyone else to help them for setup and teardown.

 

Around here clubs set up morning of match and a good system is Stage Directors that are in charge of getting one stage on the ground and having enough prop trailers so there is no waiting around for poppers and fault line and teardown is the squad dumping everything back onto the trailer.

 

Its much easier getting somebody's time to do one stage versus a match.   The MD either assigns stage designs or the SDs can make things up based on guidance from the MD.  At registration, the reg people point people signing up towards one bay or another that could use labor help.

 

ETA: one thing to avoid is "treating your shooters like customers", because then they act like customers and volunteerism drops like a rock.  Seen it a bunch of times.

 

 

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So we've kinda settled for the time being on a mix of both:  morning-of construction for the remainder of stages that aren't built to add to those built in advance by those that wanted to volunteer time and do something generally more involved.  

 

Totally agree about the "customer" issue.  New folks especially think they are paying for the stage building as if it was a service, which is not necessarily their fault, just a matter of communication.

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  • 2 months later...

Disclaimer: I’m not the MD but one of the worker bees, but here’s the system at our monthly club match:

 

Friday: one guy works off the prop list and gets the material to the bay. He literally just throws it in a pile and moves on. Next a crew of two or three does rough set up (I’m on this crew). Our goal is to get things upright and in the right position in the bay. Friday afternoon the MD comes by and fine tunes. Also sets up any “gadgets” ie swingers, max traps. He might have another MD or a very experienced CRO help.

 

Saturday: the squad that is first up on the stage is responsible for nailing and putting up targets. At the end of the match, the squad that shoots the stage last tears it down and puts things away.

 

Things seem to be working for the most part. The downside is that the Friday crew is all pretty long in the tooth. We’re either retired or semi-retired so have Friday free. So it’s a bunch of old guys doing the most physical stuff of match set up.

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On 1/23/2022 at 11:42 AM, shred said:

I've seen a lot of clubs wax and wane over the past 25+ years.  At the root of it, there are always only a handful of people doing the majority of the work.  The key to a successful club is to bring new people into that small worker group as others tire out and encouraging everyone else to help them for setup and teardown.

 

Around here clubs set up morning of match and a good system is Stage Directors that are in charge of getting one stage on the ground and having enough prop trailers so there is no waiting around for poppers and fault line and teardown is the squad dumping everything back onto the trailer.

 

Its much easier getting somebody's time to do one stage versus a match.   The MD either assigns stage designs or the SDs can make things up based on guidance from the MD.  At registration, the reg people point people signing up towards one bay or another that could use labor help.

 

ETA: one thing to avoid is "treating your shooters like customers", because then they act like customers and volunteerism drops like a rock.  Seen it a bunch of times.

 

 

Sounds like you're at APSC. As a nonMD I must say its a good setup up plan. It does require multiple trailers and volunteers, but it works in getting things going. 

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  • 8 months later...

I'm the match director for our monthly match and its basically just me that does everything. I do all the stage design, registration, practiscore upload, etc... I get a couple guys to come help set up. 

 

I have raised our match fee an additional $5. That money all goes in a pot and the set up crew splits it. I cut them a check.    Say we have 50 shooters. We split a $250 pot....Didn't get me any extra help but at least I am helping out the guys that show up every month. 

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On 1/5/2022 at 12:29 PM, fyaman43 said:

All great stuff here, thanks for the replies.Our issue is that these guys are getting burned out, so I'm curious about other ways of getting club members involved...


Recycle the good ones..
but change up the start positions.. dont be afraid to retrograde a stage
add one "all mags from table" stage per match.. (ok, for a few matches)
and give good speech about needing more volunteers
ask for volunteers.
host an RO class if you haven't lately. Seems like ROs are the volunteering types but may need a little push.

Edited by scroadkill
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Make sure you are squared away and set up before the volunteers show up... Tell me to show up at 9 but I am standing around till 10 ? No directions ?, having to wait for someone to show up that knows whats going on ?  Oneguyitis ? Only one guy knows the plan and hordes the info ?
Yeh I will never come back to help

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

Ontelaunee does a 10-12 stage monthly match, where Saturday 20-30 shooters come in the morning and build the stages, then shoot. Sunday is the main match where 100+ shooters shoot and then tear down and put away everything.

 

It works, I love the match and help on Saturdays but there is a core contingent of staff that make it all actually work, and they devote tons of their personal time to making it happen. Staff that know how to operate the heavy lifting equipment, handling registration, where everything is located in the shed, how to calibrate poppers, etc etc. I just show up, drag stuff into bays, build the stage to a rough approximation of what is in the diagram, and then have one of those staff members come and take a look and do final adjustment. Then I RO the squad I'm assigned to (or pick) for the day and then go home. The staff on the other hand, have to come back on Sunday and run the main match, then supervise it all being torn down and put away.

 

The key is going to be keeping staff from burning out, and also recruiting/training more people to act as staff

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/16/2023 at 2:54 PM, sc68cal said:

Ontelaunee does a 10-12 stage monthly match, where Saturday 20-30 shooters come in the morning and build the stages, then shoot. Sunday is the main match where 100+ shooters shoot and then tear down and put away everything.

 

It works, I love the match and help on Saturdays but there is a core contingent of staff that make it all actually work, and they devote tons of their personal time to making it happen. Staff that know how to operate the heavy lifting equipment, handling registration, where everything is located in the shed, how to calibrate poppers, etc etc. I just show up, drag stuff into bays, build the stage to a rough approximation of what is in the diagram, and then have one of those staff members come and take a look and do final adjustment. Then I RO the squad I'm assigned to (or pick) for the day and then go home. The staff on the other hand, have to come back on Sunday and run the main match, then supervise it all being torn down and put away.

 

The key is going to be keeping staff from burning out, and also recruiting/training more people to act as staff

The seem to get much more help support than the typical local match it seems - Just from discussions with people. We struggle getting 10 people to setup 6 stage locals. 

 

The way this sounds, it sounds like it's essentially a mini-major. Good for you guys over there. 

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  • 3 months later...
On 7/16/2023 at 2:54 PM, sc68cal said:

Ontelaunee does a 10-12 stage monthly match, where Saturday 20-30 shooters come in the morning and build the stages, then shoot. Sunday is the main match where 100+ shooters shoot and then tear down and put away everything.

 

It works, I love the match and help on Saturdays but there is a core contingent of staff that make it all actually work, and they devote tons of their personal time to making it happen. Staff that know how to operate the heavy lifting equipment, handling registration, where everything is located in the shed, how to calibrate poppers, etc etc. I just show up, drag stuff into bays, build the stage to a rough approximation of what is in the diagram, and then have one of those staff members come and take a look and do final adjustment. Then I RO the squad I'm assigned to (or pick) for the day and then go home. The staff on the other hand, have to come back on Sunday and run the main match, then supervise it all being torn down and put away.

 

The key is going to be keeping staff from burning out, and also recruiting/training more people to act as staff

 

I'm always impressed by the Oneelaunee match, and the stage design is :chef's kiss: I borrowed a couple of the stages from last year for my night match last week over at NH I liked them so much.

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  • 1 month later...

Our club is strictly unelected volunteers. There are 8 of us that make stages, run squads and help setup. We urge competitors to help with tear down. We do however get a free membership at our club for running the match 

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Our club doesn't have weekly or monthly Matches. There's a good number of IPSC clubs, with ranges within "a couple of hours". During the time when there is (hopefully) no snow, there is a Match in the area, most weekends. Mostly from 6 to 9 stages and 60 to 100 paying competitiors, plus the crew (20 to 40?) shooting for free.

 

Our club has now been arranging two Matches in a season + maybe a smaller indoor Match during the winter. There's half a dozen guys who have been taking turns as MD and Range Master, or there might be a RM or Stats Officer from a different club. A similar bunch has been coming up with stage designs, and gathering whatever help they may need in building it. The rest of the club members are urged to help as ROs and in resetting. The whole crew participates in teardown, although we might leave a couple of stages up for a while afterwards.

 

Some might start building stages during the preceding week, some do it on the Friday before the Match. On Saturday morning, the crew shoot the Match, doing the ROing and resetting within the squad. Paying competitors shoot on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, with the crew doing all ROing and resetting for them.

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