Compensation for Club President

[chefcs5]

We compensate our club president and VP they both shoot the match for free. and any one who come to help on set up day (up to 3 ppl) shoot for just the classifier fee. We usually get arround 40 ppl mer match so ot doesnt hurt us any. That way the guys who do the work get something even if its just saving a bit of cash.

[Jaxshooter]

I am all for paying somebody if they have the stages setup and they also tear them down and put the equipment up. I would be willing to pay a little more to show up and shoot and leave.

[kevin c]

Action range committee members, who run our range, can go to the weekly practice no charge, but pay all other fees, including range use fees on other days.

The action range chairman parks on the range, saving him a few steps from the (free) parking right out side, and catches good natured grief for it. On duty range officers get to park on the range. Off duty range officers have the privilege of using empty bays to practice on, but pay the regular practice fee.

The main "perk" at my club goes to those actually building the stages and doing the scoring. They shoot for free at the match where they do the work. Since the match fee is $20 for members, and it takes most of the previous afternoon and the morning of the match to set up, that's less than minimum wage.

That's it.

The common refrain among those running the club is that what they want is help, not compensation.

+2 to Nik and Dave Thomas's comments on recruiting/training help that will sustain the club in the long run. Our previous chairman took pains to do that (he recruited me, among others), and it's helped to keep the club going strong.

[MoNsTeR]

When I was a club officer I got to shoot at that club for free, and other section clubs for member rates, if I remember correctly. Didn't really think of it as compensation, just a little perk for putting in the extra effort. Something along those lines seems perfectly reasonable, but actual compensation is probably more trouble than it's worth. There's some psychology and behavioral economics research that suggests someone in a position like this will work harder and feel better about it as a volunteer than if they were paid a small amount.

[djeffers]

I am on the board at our local club and all the board members shoot for free. Anyone who sets up a stage gets to shoot for free. We have anywhere from 15-30 shooters a week and some shoot and leave, but alot do stay afterward to help tear down. This system has been working for us and I haven't heard any complaints for the last couple of years.

[Strick]

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

+1 again

I kinda got suckered into the MD deal for our weekly wednesday IDPA matches. It may not be a full blown monthly match but we still run about 5 stages and they need to enjoyable enough to actually get people to want to shoot. For me it is not the work of setting up and tearing down, it is every week having to have 5 stages to shoot, get them organized, and run the match.

Do I think paying the Pres or other is the way to go, I don't know and I do agree that it could cause more issues with volunteer help and different expectations. For our club it seems to be a core group that pitches in but an even bigger core group that shoots every match. I am not as worried about paying people just trying to find a way to get others to step up and take their turn.

[Aristotle]

I run our USPSA matches at my club, and I can see how people can burn out when the rest of the "help" have excuses for not being at the match to help/shoot.

In my case, I also run a business and I have a 2 year old at home that I would rather spend my time with.

I am slowly starting to see less and less help lately, and I don't know if it's because of the weather/season, but if it erodes much further, I will be hanging it up as well.

As it stands, I put close to 100 hours a year with designing all of the stages for my matches, setting them up and conducting new shooter/safety checks, etc.

I love being MD, and I love the reward of seeing happy shooters and bringing new shooters into the sport, but I also have my own life, and I don't want to see my time slip away if it's unappreciated.

give me dedicated good help, and I wouldn't mind running this club until I am too old to shoot.

[Jim Norman]

Aristotle,

STOP, you are killing your love of the sport as well as your match. You said you design all the stages, run the new shooters, and set up everything. You need to have your help buy into the match 100%. Get them to design a stage and build it. It won;t be your stage, so as Nik pointed out in his post, review it for rules and safety and shoot throughs and otherwise leave it alone. You do 4 stages and a classifier? get 4 designers and an extra 12 people or so to help build. Then see if you can get a stats dude. You will have more fun, you will have more people helping as they will feel they own the match and have a stake in making it run. We have over the years developed a great crew to work WITH us, (notice WITH, not FOR) yes there is still stress, and everything isn't the way you'll want, but it may surprise you. You may find your match becomes better since the stages will have a much more varied flavor and not all come from one mind.

Jim

[Aristotle]

Thanks Jim,

I have a stats person, and although I design all of my stages (5-6 stages + classifier)I don't build all of the stages myself, but I do roll up my sleeves and get in there with them. That's where the majority of our helps kicks in, which last month was about 8-9 people to build stages, make targets. And it was my die hard crew of faithfuls. There were a few times last year where I was setting up from 10am-4pm the day before the match as well as doing safety checks.

I did solicit a request a couple of weeks ago via email from my list of volunteers for help on stages, and only got 1 response at all. I don't even mind building the stages, it's actually what I like the most about MD'ing, but I'm sure the shooters would love to see more variety. But if it came down to it, I don't mind designing the stages, if we had more help so we can all get out of there in a decent time.

I comp the full match for my volunteers, up to, including paying for additional costs for Classifier matches. I'd love to keep things that way if at all possible. But if it's a means of motivating, I'm all for keeping this program going, because as I said, if I continue to be short on help I will step down from doing this and just shoot and volunteer for the other clubs.

Edited April 3, 2010 by Aristotle

[Pat Miles]

I am on the board at our local club and all the board members shoot for free. Anyone who sets up a stage gets to shoot for free. We have anywhere from 15-30 shooters a week and some shoot and leave, but alot do stay afterward to help tear down. This system has been working for us and I haven't heard any complaints for the last couple of years.

I like this idea. If the club is making money paying the folks that put the matches on is only right.

CYa,

Pat

[Jim Norman]

Pat,

I hear what you are saying, but differ in opinion. I feel that if we pay people to work and shoot we lose out. Look at it this way. if we are all 100% volunteer, no one can gig us for anything. We also wind up with people that WANT the job because they know this is how to have a match, not because they get $20. We can have as many helpers as show up, no cut off time, "if you showed up 10 minutes ago we'd pay you, but we have our 6 people so we don't need you or can't pay you."

Ari,

While designing the stages is fun, we found that a group of people that always want to squad together will in large part show up to help one of 'their' group build where normally they might sit out. The 'trick' if you want to call it that is to get people to take ownership.

Jim

[luckyshooter1]

Our club operates on a range where cannot do setup the day before. We have 5 club officers that do the core of the work every match. We are not directly compensated for our work. We do shoot free(20.00). Those who show up at the appointed time to help with set up get a 5.00 discount card to be used at match registration. I will say we all see the same problem of the 90/10 rule 10% of the average match shooter do 90% of the work 90% of the time. Most folks do not want the responsiblity of an office. They want to come to the match, shoot and then scoot. This happens in many sports. I think to compensate directly is not a good thing. I think leaving it volunteer keeps motives clear and for love of the sport.

[Bear23]

I'm sure most clubs are not making alot of money. Most have to pay some sort of kick back to the range and or club.

My club makes money, enough to cover targets for the year, shooting sticks, paying USPSA, and maybe buting some steel for projects through the year. Plus i have to kick in money for insurance, (right around 600 per year), and i donate some money to a umbrella club which helps us out.

We don't have the funds to pay our members for their time..we'd go bankrupt as quickly as AIG if we did.

The key is bringing in new shooters and retaining them, and hoping they step up to help out. Doesn't always happen.

RM

[Jake Di Vita]

One thing I will say. With a paid staff, the quality of the match would likely go up quite a bit.

[LChico]

One thing I will say. With a paid staff, the quality of the match would likely go up quite a bit.

I completely disagree. I have traveled all over the country to work matches, and found match directors and staff who selflessly devoted time and effort to putting on the best match they knew how to produce. Occasionally, someone will ask me "what I charge" to do stats at a match. I tell them that they couldn't afford to pay me what I am worth, and that I only work as a volunteer. After 18 years of working matches (local & major), I have avoided burnout because of the fine volunteers I've met over the years.

I am constantly inspired by the dedication and creativity of the volunteers in the shooting community. At my local club, we have about 35 volunteers who run all the disciplines: USPSA, Steel Challenge, IDPA, SASS, High Power Rifle, Pistol & Rifle Silhouette, Rim fire Benchrest, Light Rifle, Black Powder and 2700 Bullseye. That number includes match directors, co-match directors, website designers and stats people for the various disciplines. These people all have a passion for their sport and we could never afford to pay them for all their work. To suggest that giving them some small stipend would improve their efforts, is actually a bit insulting.

Linda Chico (L-2035)

Columbia SC

[Jim Norman]

Linda,

You are, as always, right on. You could be talking about our club. We have at least 12 disciplines shooting. All are run by volunteers. Even our Board of Trustees pays full dues. As for running a match, if you wanted to pay just the minimum wage to set up and tear down 7 stages. Figuring 2 persons one hour per stage or 14 hours, plus two hours pre-match and 3 hours post-match plus the RM for 7 hours and the stats crew for two hours for a total of 27 hours. you'd have to come up with over $300 per match additional money. I seriously doubt that we'd have a better match then than we do now. Actually I think that more than a few people would be insulted. Now if we started paying just an average wage for semi-skilled construction and computer skills and managers, we'd probably have to triple or quadruple that amount.

Want to let your MD and RM shoot free? Fine, they have a lot of off range time devoted. Want to build your crew? DON'T pay anyone, get more volunteers. You pay the first 5 to show up and after than the rest can honestly take a break. Why should they work alongside Paid Crew? Pay no one and everyone is equal.

Does it work? I don't know, but we usually have help tripping over each other. Often 5 people building one stage. Some are there for the whole build, others pitch in as they arrive, maybe only 20 minutes, maybe they just hold targets so angles can be verified and shoot throughs checked. But the big thing is THEY COME AND HELP.

And I as THANK YOU. Often and loud. We announce the stage designers at each match as well as any special efforts.

Try it.

[Jake Di Vita]

So you're actually telling me if you and all of your cohorts were paid fairly to do what you do, you couldn't put on a better match?

[Rob Boudrie]

The problem with compensation is the slippery slope. If you compensate the president and MD for Area Championships, how do you justify not compensating other positions? What about the propmaster who spends a boatload of time before the match building the stages? Stats and registration? CROs? RO Staff? USPSA area directors? National, Area, Sectional and club webmasters? If everyone takes a slice of the pie all you'll have left over is a dirty pan and no pie.

Once you start compensating for a job you can guarantee you will be doing so forever - and those people who would normally have volunteered to be a club pres, match director, etc. will expect to be treated "fairly".

The de-facto local standard at some of the clubs I shoot at in A7 seems to be free shoots for full time staff (You don't get a freebie for picking up the timer and running your squad, but probably do if you are at the range the day before the match building stages and also work the teardown).

I tell them that they couldn't afford to pay me what I am worth

Amen to that one. I've turned down projects people want to pay be for because they couldn't afford anything coming close to what I get on my day job, and do other projects for free because I want to.

[shootingchef]

The problem with compensation is the slippery slope. If you compensate the president and MD for Area Championships, how do you justify not compensating other positions? What about the propmaster who spends a boatload of time before the match building the stages? Stats and registration? CROs? RO Staff? USPSA area directors? National, Area, Sectional and club webmasters? If everyone takes a slice of the pie all you'll have left over is a dirty pan and no pie.

Once you start compensating for a job you can guarantee you will be doing so forever - and those people who would normally have volunteered to be a club pres, match director, etc. will expect to be treated "fairly".

The de-facto local standard at some of the clubs I shoot at in A7 seems to be free shoots for full time staff (You don't get a freebie for picking up the timer and running your squad, but probably do if you are at the range the day before the match building stages and also work the teardown).

I tell them that they couldn't afford to pay me what I am worth

Amen to that one. I've turned down projects people want to pay be for because they couldn't afford anything coming close to what I get on my day job, and do other projects for free because I want to.

+1

[Jim Norman]

So you're actually telling me if you and all of your cohorts were paid fairly to do what you do, you couldn't put on a better match?

Jake,

The problem is not that we couldn't have a spectacular match if we were paid to build it and run it. I can virtually guarantee that we could build a match with spectacular stages and props that you'd be talking about for the rest of your life. We could even hire drink girls, target pasters and squad moms.

How many people do you know that can afford $500 to shoot a club match? And that would not account for prizes and payouts!

Just paying for hotels and meals for staff at a large match can double your on the ground costs.

Do the match. Figure an 8 stage match with an average of 26 rounds per stage. three staff per stage, three people in Stats, tape or pasters, and a target change every 3 squads, that is 30 shooters per target change. 10 shooters on an squad, shoot in one day, 80 shooters per day, 3 day match PLUS the RO and Staff Match. Hotels for 4 nights for about 30 people at $80 per night, 2 per room, $4800.00, Food for 4 days for 30 people at $25/day, another $2000.00 plus match supplies and now we pay for the 4 days plus set up and tear down at what $20/hour (including tax and insurance and Workers Comp etc. netting your worker $15 per hour for a 10 hour day and you have to pay OT for the additional two hours. Simple match works out to $39,600 for staff pay. Add in targets and other supplies, let's just say $2000.

Now our match brings in 240 shooters plus the staff who we will assume shoot for free. before we pay for range fees, USPSA, prizes, or tents we are already up to $ 200 per shooter! This by the way does not have the drink girls, pasters and squad moms included. Now let's put in a prize table and cash. You will have to charge $300 per shooter at the very least. All for a one day 8 stage match! Kick this up to the Nationals level with 24 stages, 100 staff, and TRAVEL and you'll have a COST per shooter in the neighborhood of $400 per shooter! Add the Range Fees, USPSA Fees, Prize table and Cash Payouts in and you will have a $800 match fee!

No, I think that a volunteer sport this is and should stay, but hey, I could be wrong.

Jim

[Bear23]

What i hear and see is most clubs need volunteer support mainly to put the stages together. Our sport is prop intensive, that equals time. that factor is the prime drawback to USPSA.

I really prefer running and setting steel challenge anymore. it takes 15 minutes to put up 4 stages and we have lots of help.

[Jake Di Vita]

The problem is not that we couldn't have a spectacular match if we were paid to build it and run it. I can virtually guarantee that we could build a match with spectacular stages and props that you'd be talking about for the rest of your life. We could even hire drink girls, target pasters and squad moms.

Thank you. That was exactly my point.

How many people do you know that can afford $500 to shoot a club match? And that would not account for prizes and payouts!

Just paying for hotels and meals for staff at a large match can double your on the ground costs.

Do the match. Figure an 8 stage match with an average of 26 rounds per stage. three staff per stage, three people in Stats, tape or pasters, and a target change every 3 squads, that is 30 shooters per target change. 10 shooters on an squad, shoot in one day, 80 shooters per day, 3 day match PLUS the RO and Staff Match. Hotels for 4 nights for about 30 people at $80 per night, 2 per room, $4800.00, Food for 4 days for 30 people at $25/day, another $2000.00 plus match supplies and now we pay for the 4 days plus set up and tear down at what $20/hour (including tax and insurance and Workers Comp etc. netting your worker $15 per hour for a 10 hour day and you have to pay OT for the additional two hours. Simple match works out to $39,600 for staff pay. Add in targets and other supplies, let's just say $2000.

Now our match brings in 240 shooters plus the staff who we will assume shoot for free. before we pay for range fees, USPSA, prizes, or tents we are already up to $ 200 per shooter! This by the way does not have the drink girls, pasters and squad moms included. Now let's put in a prize table and cash. You will have to charge $300 per shooter at the very least. All for a one day 8 stage match! Kick this up to the Nationals level with 24 stages, 100 staff, and TRAVEL and you'll have a COST per shooter in the neighborhood of $400 per shooter! Add the Range Fees, USPSA Fees, Prize table and Cash Payouts in and you will have a $800 match fee!

I never suggested the current logistics would work for every match.

No, I think that a volunteer sport this is and should stay, but hey, I could be wrong.

On the local level, absolutely. On the state level, sure. On the National level? I don't know. Having a "flagship" match (such as the nationals) would probably do a lot to increase general interest and marketability of the sport.

[EEH]

I am with Linda C. our club could not pay me for what I do,we would go broke,I also have a Buddy that I manage to talk into helping me with all sort a stuff,now that we own our land I have been put in charge o fund raising to help pay for it,,,but I will keep doing what I can so I will have a place to go,even if everyone else quits,it will still be there for me to enjoy,,that's the way I look at it,just call me selfish if you dont come I will

[LChico]

So you're actually telling me if you and all of your cohorts were paid fairly to do what you do, you couldn't put on a better match?

What you fail to see is the dedication and sense of responsibility that match staff on every level bring to the tasks required. Money will not improve that, and might actually diminish it. Please think about the single-minded effort you put into making Grandmaster. Look at the time and effort you put into diet, exercise and maintaining your health, and how passionate you are about it.

For me, every match (local to state to area to nationals) is like inviting friends over to 'my place.' I sweat all the small details, because "my friends are coming over." If you give the match more money, I will build better props; I will feed the staff better food; I will return more value to the shooters. What I will not do is turn a volunteer into an employee.

So YES, that is exactly what I am saying. When you take something I do for the love of it (my hobbies & taking care of my friends), and make it my "job," you strip all the joy and motivation out of it. For some of us, money is simply not a motivator.

Linda Chico (L-2035)

Columbia SC

Edited April 6, 2010 by LChico

[John Heiter]

I agree with Linda and, for the most part, I like it the way it is. I put in a ton of time on USPSA matches because I love doing it and it makes me happy. I frequently wake up in the morning thinking about what I need to do for the club or our next match. To get that same level of enthusiasm out of me for something I don't like, you're going to have to provide some serious incentive pay and not just an hourly rate.

I'm not saying you will never run a local/state/sectional USPSA match as a business and make a profit at it, but the math above is pretty close to accurate and I'm just not sure we're ready for it. Maybe we will one of these days. Reminds me of a story my father told me about his father and how completely outraged he became when someone decided the city was going to start charging for water. For years he mailed in his checks with a note in the memo field saying "God gave us this water and you've no damn right to charge for it". A couple generations later and we're all paying for water without even blinking an eye and a good many of us don't even think that water is good enough to drink.

Edited April 6, 2010 by John Heiter