Compensation for Club President

[Big Guy]

I know that practical shooting is mostly a volunteer sport.

However, would it be appropriate to compensate a club president for his extra work? As in understand, several clubs already compensate the person that takes care of the scores.

In most instances, the club president does not have time to enjoy or shoot his match. So why not compensate him for his work associated with the planning and running of the match?

[chendersby]

I see nothing inapproiate about it. I believe as the sport grows we are going to have to start paying key people for running National and area level matches to get us to the next level. Profit is a great motivator.

[Sean Gaines]

I know that practical shooting is mostly a volunteer sport.

However, would it be appropriate to compensate a club president for his extra work? As in understand, several clubs already compensate the person that takes care of the scores.

In most instances, the club president does not have time to enjoy or shoot his match. So why not compensate him for his work associated with the planning and running of the match?

Some clubs do make money, especiallly when they are good clubs that attract alot of shooters. Do the math,

$25 per shooter

50-75 shooters

5 stages with 10 targets at .50 cents a target= $25 for targets

help shoots for free, score keeper shoots for free

? range fee, maybe $5-10 per head, negotiable

If you have walls and target stands your in business.

you must weigh what your time is worth vs the return.

[Dan Hefta]

I am a club President of a club that does make money, it has crossed my mind, I feel like I am doing all of the work and pay my match fees just like everyone else and I shoot like crap beacause I have to wear so many hats on match day. Sometimes it feels like you are doing a thankless job, should I be paid for my trouble? If I were to take pay for doing the job, then I would really be putting a lot of pressure on myself and the pay wouldn't make up for all the crap I would get if things don't go smoothly. I don't want pay, just help a lot of help.

[LPatterson]

If you start trying to compensate a club president fairly for the amount of work they do then the club will start losing money. Even if you only considered minimum wage have you ever gotten with the club president to see how many hours per week/month they are giving the club. Most presidents have gone through an election process and want the job, personally I can not think of a more thankless position. How many times have you seen members thank the president for something instead of complaining because it wasn't done to a members satisfaction. While letting the president and score keeper shoot for free sounds great paying a fair wage would be about $100 a piece based on the time they put in versus being able to kick back and shoot without distractions. Then there are the shooters who leave as soon as they finish shooting or just stand around while other people are tearing down the stages and the pres and score keeper are getting stats down so the trophys can be given out.

[/rant off] I've already raised my blood pressure 50 points.

[Sarge]

If you start trying to compensate a club president fairly for the amount of work they do then the club will start losing money. Even if you only considered minimum wage have you ever gotten with the club president to see how many hours per week/month they are giving the club. Most presidents have gone through an election process and want the job, personally I can not think of a more thankless position. How many times have you seen members thank the president for something instead of complaining because it wasn't done to a members satisfaction. While letting the president and score keeper shoot for free sounds great paying a fair wage would be about $100 a piece based on the time they put in versus being able to kick back and shoot without distractions. Then there are the shooters who leave as soon as they finish shooting or just stand around while other people are tearing down the stages and the pres and score keeper are getting stats down so the trophys can be given out.

[/rant off] I've already raised my blood pressure 50 points.

+1. I am sure somebody would have a beef with anyone shooting for free but I certainly would not be one of them. I had a very small dose of what goes on at a major match this fall and it is hard work for the major players involved in putting it together. Local matches are no different in that alot of time goes into setting things up the day before a match, making sure everyone else gets their money's worth during the match and getting scores posted in the following days.

I say shoot all you want and thank you all for putting on the matches alot of us take for granted.

[Jim Norman]

I am currently the president of my local club. The one that hosts our USPSA matches. I pay full dues just like everyone else. I am also co-director of our USPSA matches and of our three-gun and action shotgun matches.

We do not 'Pay' anyone to work our matches. We build our matches to shoot them. If we don't build them, we don't have them to shoot. If you start paying the 'President' of the USPSA league at your club, where do you stiop? Match Director? Stats? Designers? Builders? What we did is the opposite. We get as many people as possible to join in and help out. If we start paying everyone that shows up early to build and stays late to put away, pretty soon the handful that travel to shoot at our club from 'outside' are going to have to pay a couple hundred dollars a match so the rest of us can make minimum wage.

I'd rather keep it on the friendly one hand washes the other then turn this into a business. As soon as we start having a "Boss" and employees and cutomers, we will have the inevitable problems associated with all that, not counting the fact that we'd have to start collecting witholding and have insurance (Workman's Comp) and all the rest.

Now, one thing we do is to discount our home club members as opposed to the visitors, but that is a club wide policy, not just USPSA and is partly to encourage people to join our club.

Keep it simple, don't complicate things.

This is a volunteer sport. Now, all this said, at the Nationals level we just might have to rethink how we do things. The Nationals are supposed to be a major part of the President's job, one he is already compensated for handsomely. Maybe we need to reduce the President's pay to that of a regular board member and have a position of Nationals Match Director and perhaps a couple other positions that are paid so that we can have and continue to have a premier match. But at the club level, I am against paying.

Jim

[gunther]

I know a few clubs where the club pres shoots at a discount or for free, which i thought all clubs did. I think its more important to keep your shooters comin back even if you have to take a couple of bucks off there match fee when they help out. The club in norco, ca. pays around $30 match fee, then they hire guys to tape, pickup brass, setup stages and tear down the stages when the match is over. I hear they have 75+ shooters show up every saturday. Maybe some one from Norco can correct me if iam wrong on this!

Edited November 18, 2009 by gunther

[chendersby]

Maybe we need to reduce the President's pay to that of a regular board member and have a position of Nationals Match Director and perhaps a couple other positions that are paid so that we can have and continue to have a premier match. Jim

That would be quite a demotion. Board members get paid nothing.

[L-10_shooter]

I get paid for setup, tear down and scores. All the local clubs charge an extra $2 for tear down for USPSA matches. My club typically gets 50 shooters year round.

[scirocco38s]

My club president pays to shoot the match. All club members shoot for 15/ 5 less than nonmembers. He does not get involved in the setup, design or running of the match. He does get invovled with issues that I need assitance with such as getting resources and permissions and such within the BOD(which he is the head of).

As MD I do shoot for free, so do the score keepers(2) and the 3 or 4 folks that come up on friday and help me set up the match.

That is all the compensation we are getting. $20 for 4 to 6 hours of setup. We obviously work cheep.

My match turns a good profit every month, even after I figure in targets and pasters,match bucks, and activity fee. We make very good money because of the level of participation.

Do I believe we should be or the president should be..no, it is a volunteer group and we do it for the enjoyment of it. If we start paying people then we will expect greater things and want more for our money...a bad situation.

I believe that groups that pay for a scorekeeper to enter the match is fine but they should be able to find someone to run the computer for 1 mattch a year. That way people can pick 1 match and they know they will be the scorer, they shoot thru and then run the computer for the day. This is the way I try to do it, some of us score more than 1 match a year but most of know that to have the match and for it to run smooth it is a responsibility we must take ownership of.

[steel1212]

I am a club President of a club that does make money, it has crossed my mind, I feel like I am doing all of the work and pay my match fees just like everyone else and I shoot like crap beacause I have to wear so many hats on match day. Sometimes it feels like you are doing a thankless job, should I be paid for my trouble? If I were to take pay for doing the job, then I would really be putting a lot of pressure on myself and the pay wouldn't make up for all the crap I would get if things don't go smoothly. I don't want pay, just help a lot of help.

THIS IS A HUGE +1

I just took over MD duties for my local USPSA match and the 5th sunday matches we now have as of last year. Its a lot of work coming up with entertaining stages that have to fit in at a club with a lot of "rule" on how we shoot. Then I have to do the scores and all other prep. On match day if you don't have anybody that wants to help well your doing most of the work. Luckily I'm getting more and more help with the behind the scenes stuff. Match day its still the same people doing the work and the others bitching about the stages or other things.

With all that said, I DO NOT want to be paid for what I do. If you get paid your expected to do a certain thing and I don't want that pressure. Its a volunteer sport and I just want more people to VOLUNTEER! Yes our club make money as well, plus we have 6 pistol sports in our pistol club.

Now if your talking about the Pistol Club President, I can't speak for him but he does bust his butt as well.

Edited November 18, 2009 by steel1212

[jar]

I just started shooting USPSA recently, but I've been active in IDPA for a few years. At all the clubs around here, match staff (SOs and MD; SOs usually also build and break stages) shoot for free. I assumed that was standard everywhere. I wouldn't ever expect to get paid for working matches, but paying to volunteer would rub the wrong way. I've worked one major match, and staff shot free and ate for free while on site.

[VegasOPM]

As a Match Director and Club President, I am torn. The way I see it, my time is worth either $50 (for work) or nothing (for play or volunteering). On the other hand, I am burning out pretty quickly due to the demands of my "playing" and there is no significant personal benefit to being in charge. The reason that I do it is because I really do love the sport, but there are days that I want to hang it up and just shoot. I can't say that being paid would change that feeling too dramatically.

[shootingchef]

As a Match Director and Club President, I am torn. The way I see it, my time is worth either $50 (for work) or nothing (for play or volunteering). On the other hand, I am burning out pretty quickly due to the demands of my "playing" and there is no significant personal benefit to being in charge. The reason that I do it is because I really do love the sport, but there are days that I want to hang it up and just shoot. I can't say that being paid would change that feeling too dramatically.

+1

burn out is around the corner for me too. too many shoot and scooters, and nothing you say or do can stop them. This is old news,I see the same problem in any activity. I won't take payment but some help sure would be nice. LOL

[Nik Habicht]

A couple of years ago a few of us were lucky enough to be able to go to a leadership workshop put on by USPSA. Dave Thomas suggested (in a presentation authored by Bruce Gary IIRC) that our primary responsibility as leaders/match directors was to recruit and train folks to replace us.....

He was right. I was able to be a match director for five years only because I had a dedicated scorekeeper who scored every match, a dedicated registrar who ran the stat shack the morning of every match, and three individuals who took charge of three pits, designing and building three of five states each month. That left me with responsibility for designing and building a fourth, picking and perhaps building the classifier, and dealing with the administrative minutiae: Score sheets, club approvals and accounting for match revenue, paying prizes, dealing with USPSA, obtaining supplies, etc.

The best advice I can give you is twofold: recruit people to help --- and then let them do their job. (If someone's new to stage design, we'll fix safety issues and potential scoring nightmares, i.e. shoot throughs. Other than that we may talk about the implications of their design, but I largely favor letting stage designers learn by experience...) Answer questions, listen to gripes, resolve problems, encourage your team, and help out wherever you can.

Second: Start thinking about who'd run this match next month if something happened and you couldn't continue. Start grooming that person to assist/take over. Not only will it make your life easier --- because you'll have an assistant/deputy/co-match director, but you'll actually be able to take a month off here and there if you need to without canceling the match. Think about when you want to get out completely: I wasn't sure if I'd be able to continue after graduating from Nursing School, so I stepped down at the beginning of my senior year. Why then? Because it enabled me to assist the new match director for the better part of a year.....

I'm still involved in every match we run at Central Jersey --- but I'm an assistant or co-match director now along with another forum member. We both support the current match director --- and having three of us sharing the burden at each match has made it easier for all of us....

[Carmoney]

Maybe we need to reduce the President's pay to that of a regular board member and have a position of Nationals Match Director and perhaps a couple other positions that are paid so that we can have and continue to have a premier match. Jim

That would be quite a demotion. Board members get paid nothing.

Particularly when you consider that the President of USPSA makes over $50,000 per year.

[Flexmoney]

Nik, great post !!

[Merlin Orr]

This is a volunteer sport done for love, not for money.

If every club member is treated with respect and their input, ideas and contributions to the club welcomed and appreciated, there will be someone always willing to step up and help.

[Canuck223]

In my opinion, either the position is 100% volunteer, or 100% paid. There is nothing in between except heartache and strife.

I fully appreciate that in the bigger clubs, hosting bigger matches that the job can take on herculean proportions. I don't have an issue with the club paying reasonable expenses, to compansate for the phone, fax, gas, and other real expenses of doing the job. I don't take issue with any match discounting or rebating the match fees of the officials who work the whole match.

However, as soon as you start turning a volunteer position into a paid job, then out come the knives. The guy who does a generally good job, and learns from his mistakes, once on the payroll becomes a target. What we excuse of the volunteer, we berate of the employee. Make no mistake, paying the club president turns him into an employee with many unappy bosses.

[Nik Habicht]

Nik, great post !!

Thanks. I'm really grateful to Dave Thomas and to USPSA for making that learning opportunity possible. If you remember anything, or have anything to add to that topic, please share.....

[Bill Nesbitt]

I'm not a club president but I know some.

I doubt if most clubs make enough money to pay a good president what they're worth.

[MikeFoley]

Being a volunteer president may take on different meanings at different clubs. IMO if you are actually an executive director or operations manager, I mean a full time employee who makes the entire thing happen, and the budget affords it, then compensation is expected. IF you just put a little more into it than the guys who setup, RO, tear down, and show up for work days, then I think compensation is over the top. Hard to know what is right for other clubs, as the situations are all unique. Our club has an operations manager and a staff, including a range staff. The pistol sports are all volunteer run, and while we have money to do what we want, there isn't enough to pay a salary.

[Jim Norman]

I think that we need to address definitions here just a bit.

There are privately owned ranges that are businesses, some of which are large operations, some are small, some have many pits and some have few, some run multiple classes and competitions, while others max out at one function at a time. Then there are others that are actual clubs. the membership owns the property, they raise money through dues and functions. They have within the main club structure several or many different shooting disciplines that utilize the club property.

If case one is what we are talking about, the owner (sole proprietor, partnership, LLC or corp) will have a management that is expecting a paycheck, they look for ROI from operations. They may have paid staff that provides much of what we need so all we need to do is the basics and enjoy shooting. If the latter then it is usually a volunteer program at the discipline level, USPSA, Smallbore, NRA Bullseye, PPC, Skeet etc. The "Club" may decide that they need a full time executive, but he is paid by the "Club" from Club generated proceeds.

From many of the discussions here and other places, it might be that there are some Clubs that are USPSA only clubs. If so and yours is one of them, then you may have some hybrid of the two situations. Most of us I believe are members of clubs that are multi-discipline true clubs and as such to my way of thinking should other than reimbursement for expenses and perhaps a pass on match fees for certain heavily abused staff be strictly volunteer.

My additional 2 cents.

Jim

[CHA-LEE]

I think that paying people to put on the match would quickly erode the volunteer base. If there is an impression that someone is getting “Paid” to put on the match, then everyone that isn’t getting paid to help out will have some level of animosity towards the person that is getting paid. You also risk converting your volunteer help into pure consumers because they feel like they are getting taken advantage of by helping out for free with others are getting paid.

That and really, is there ever TOO MUCH money in any one clubs coffers? Once a certain cash level is achieved the club should reinvest that money by getting more props, updating equipment or whatever. Shooters like to shoot interesting targets during a COF (poppers, swingers, stars, etc), but rarely realize how much those cost. You could also have other shooter attendance motivated things as well, such as a raffle for some primers, to help bring in more shooters during the slow months. These things are not free.