Please help with my club at my University

[twodownzero]

As you guys probably (don't) know, I am the President of my university's rifle and pistol shooting club, as well as the captain of the "Gunfighting Illini," the school's action shooting team and the only one of its kind in the entire United States, as far as I know.

It's never been done before, but I would like to figure out a way to tap the school's student activities funding for my club so that we can attend far away matches and compete (potentially) on a national level. I'd also like to use it to procure targets (steel and cardboard), target stands, holsters, magazines, mag pouches, and perhaps belts so that my guys who can't afford the gear needed to compete will be able to--and so that the equipment can be passed to later members of the club for these types of events.

First and foremost, I need to know what kinds of rifle and pistol matches are open to anyone or nearly anyone. I can most likely get the school to fund travel and hotel for up to 12 people, 4 times per year, in order to compete. The school will pay half of the match fee, 60 cents a mile per vehicle OR plane tickets for everyone, and the hotel. From what I understand, they want these to be large, sanctioned matches. The first thing that came to mind is the CMP's matches at Camp Perry. Despite them occurring in the summer, I AM going to submit to have the school fund that event.

What other kinds of shooting sports have sanctioned matches? USPSA has some--but they'd require my guys to not only be classified with the USPSA, but they'd also have to win at state level matches which would require a lot of out of pocket expense. USPSA's national level match for multi-gun is currently open on a first come, first-served basis, and I will definitely be tapping the funding for this.

Other than this, I'm at a loss as to what kind of matches I could get the school to eat. I would like for them to send us to local matches, but I'm not sure that will pass.

Does anyone know of a match that could generally be attended by anyone with a firearm, no matter how far away, that I could use?

Also, permanent equipment can be purchased. I've considered trying to get a plate rack or pepper-poppers, as well as cardboard IPSC targets funded. I think they'd be a big help in getting the guys ready to compete.

I guess this might seem silly, but I think it'd be BAD ASS to have a successful university practical shooting team. In this day and age, with the antis telling us that "guns are bad," teaching people how to be proficient rifleman and pistol shooters with money that would normally be used to fund some Marxist's speech or some other bullshit would be an excellent thing, I think.

The front lines to opening the eyes of everyone at this school, which is in one of the most God-forsaken states for gun laws in the entire country, is right in front of me as President of this club. Any ideas you can submit would be helpful to our mission of teaching more people about shooting so that the next generation will value their 2nd amendment rights as we do.

FWIW, my club has existed for years, just not branched into anything competitive. I want to make it easier and more accessible for more students--by tapping the school's funding to do so.

Thanks in advance.

[AikiDale]

For USPSA Area matches your team members need only be USPSA members, pay the match fee and show up.

You may also be interested in the US Shooting Academy Pro-Am match in Tulsa.

Sounds like a great program. Keep up the good work!

Edited November 5, 2008 by AikiDale

[Barrettone]

Camp Perry rifle, shotgun and pistol championships. They are probably the biggest team event in the country where school teams come from all over the country to compete. I would start there.

Jeff

[kimel]

A *LOT* is going to depend on the policies surrounding your school's S&A fees and upon the stance your student government takes on shooting. Sometimes you will find these to be fairly undefined and thus you have a good shot. Other times you will find them to be very strict to the point of forbidding funding for some types of activities. 20 years ago it was pretty common to find provisions for funding from S&A fees for alcohol. Today, I doubt any schools will allow S&A fees to be used to purchase alcohol.

My guess is you will have much better chance of getting travel funds and fees as opposed to equipment and especially guns/ammo related expenditures. If you have a school newspaper reporter that expresses an interest in covering your events (or better yet shoots with you) then this can really help grease the skids.

When I was in college we wanted to re-fit the Ham Radio facilities. The equipment was decades old for the most part and we spent more time fixing it than operating. We had a member that was a reporter for the school paper who started doing general interest pieces about the club and ham radio a couple weeks before we took our S&A request in. We got 90% funding of our request (which worked out to about 10% more than we had hoped for so we had some gravy to play with). We did the same thing the next three years and were successful each time.

Your school probably has an office of Student Involvement or something similar. Find out who on the staff (not student, staff) is in charge of the S&A accounts and feel them out as to what the ins and outs are going to be; what can and cannot get funded, etc.

Oh, and I believe the Oregon State University has a similar organization. Or did recently.

Good luck!

[buddy_fuentes]

You may check around and find more "shooting clubs" at other universities. I think LSU in Baton Rouge has one, or at least they did. If you can find other organizations to use to model your organization after, you may not have to re-invent the wheel.

Good Luck, Buddy

[tripwire]

About 8 years ago I was the president of the Illini Paintball Warriors, which was a recreational and tournament paintball club. I also spent most of the time jumping through hoops for SORF's funding board. In 2000 they gave us a hard time for funding because of the "gun" aspect, but through media coverage, petitioning, and lobbying at funding meetings we were successful.

Then about 2001/2002 the whole SORF system changed, and we would only get 20% of the money we were getting. The only way we found to get around this was to only submit for travel and entry fees. This worked for 2 reasons; One, there was proof that you actually went to an event and gave the school publicity, and two there was hard proof of what was spent with the receipts. With 10 people traveling halfway across the country, you can easily rack up a few grand worth of traveling expenses, or at least more than SORF will be willing to give you anyway.

You need to have a treasurer that is on the ball, hits the request dates early, and keeps all receipts. I do suggest going to the funding meetings and talking about all the positive aspects of our sport, it will help them remember you when they decide funding. And if you can show that other schools have similar clubs that have had positive publicity, it may help them believe you are not just trying to bring guns on campus.

[Jeff686]

The USPSA has 8 'areas' or regions. Each Area consists of 4-8 states. Each year there is an Area championship, but attendence is not limited to people who reside in the region. They are open to anyone. For example, this year the Area 1 match had 300 competitors. 1st come, 1st served.

As far as the USPSA Nationals, there are many ways to get a slot: see here: http://www.uspsa-nationals.org/archive/200...ot%20policy.pdf

Additionally, you should check out the two big Steel Shooting matches each year:

Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championship, in Calf, in August (web page is flux, scroll to bottom): http://steelchallenge.com

US National Steel Championship, in Florida, in March: http://www.ussteelshoot.com/

[Chuck Anderson]

Part of the problem with picking different competitions is that they have different equipment requirements. A competetive CMP rifle will not be competetive in USPSA/IMGA 3-Gun. Same thing with some of the other specialized sports such as Bianchi, PPC, etc. My suggestion would be for USPSA with the suggested purchase of Glock 17's. The gun can be used in just about any pistol sport which would minimize purchase of different guns for every sport. Some sports that you could looking into with that setup would be USPSA Production Division, IDPA Stock Service Pistol, Steel Challenge, and even PPC. Shoot local matches first. If your first event is a National or even an Area level Championship it can be pretty overwhelming.

As far as equipment to purchase for practice, start with target stands, sticks for the targets, targets, staplers, paint, shot timers, and maybe some medium sized static steel targets. Plate racks are neat but they are big heavy, a pain to move around and expensive. They also represent very few targets in any competition. I have a bunch of A-zone sized steel plates that I hang off of rebar stands that are already at the range. Light easy to pack and a good target to learn to aim at.

I'll check with Andy from Oregon State University the next time I see him. They have a pretty active team at OSU.

[EkuJustice]

I would check with the NRA Foundation as well for funding help. When I started up the Skeet & Trap team in college we got pretty decent funding from them. You might want to check quick as the deadline is usually end of december. If your school has a campus rec try and set it up as a club sport if you arn't alaredy set up as one. That just makes one more place to try and get some money. Have you thought about contacting a local club and doing a "charity shoot" to help get some funds in for the club as well.

Your best bet would be to try and get entry fees, travel, and target expenses(especially metal ones that arn't disposable like paper ones) from the school. Most schools will not have much trouble covering those for the teams. They will probibally be alot more against funding ammo, guns, magazines etc as they don't want the liability of someone shooting up the school with guns and ammo they paid for(and believe me the lawyers for the school would consider it). The travel, entry fees, targets they view as competition and practice equipment and not liabilities.

From doing the college shooting thing for 4 years of running a team and talking with other teams it is going to be an expensive sport to do and alot of that money comes from fundraising or the students themselves. I know of exactly 1 school where they paid all expenses for the shooters and basically set it up as a varsity sport. The other schools were mainly student funded.