How to keep a match going

[sperman]

One of our local matches is on it's last leg, and I'm looking for some ideas on how to keep it going. I know the MD reads the forums, I hope I'm not stepping on his toes. I think he is as desperate for help as I am.

Here's a brief history. When I started shooting almost 2 years ago, this was the first match I went to. The MD was very helpful, and since I was a member at the club where the match was shot it wasn't long before I was pitching in every month. For over a year I've set up at least 2 stages every match, sometimes more. There's another shooter who could almost always be counted on to setup every month. The last stage or two (of the 5 stage match) was usually a last minute stage put up by some of the other shooters who showed up early (or something thrown together by myself and the other regular.)

After doing this for over a year, and watching my shooting suffer because I was exhausted at the start of the match, I told the MD that I needed to take some time off and focus on my shooting. At the same time, the other regular just had a baby, and he is cutting back on all of his shooting, including setting up a stage at this match. As a result, there is almost no support for this match. The MD was burned out before I started shooting and I appreciate him keeping the match going for this long, but without any help the match has been cancelled for the last two months.

I've considered asking to take over the match myself, but given how tired I am after just setting up a couple of stages, I can't imagine the burden of trying to run the entire match. Whoever runs this match, they cannot do it all by themselves. They will need the support of the shooters to make it happen. While I don't think this has been made clear to those shooting the match, no one has stepped up and volunteered to help. I'm torn because I hate to see the match go away, but at the same time if the shooters expect to have a quality match every month without having to help out every once in a while then maybe it is time for it to end.

Any ideas on how to breathe some new life and support into this match would be greatly appreciated. If the MD doesn't think this thread is appropriate send me a PM and I'll delete it.

Thanks,

[J-Ho]

setup night before the match. After that go get a beer with everyone who helped. Then get some sleep. Next day you are well rested, the stages are set and shooters are happy cause you fed the beer the night before.

[Ledge]

What is the average number of shooters at this match?

[sperman]

What is the average number of shooters at this match?

Anywhere from 20 - 40.

[yoshidaex]

The suggestion of setup the night before is a good idea.

The offer of free match entry seems to get some people to help out also.

[Ledge]

Make an announcement at the next match that things can't continue without some additional volunteers, and the first X number of volunteers that show up at 6AM get to shoot for free. The cheap bastards will form a line...

[sperman]

The suggestion of setup the night before is a good idea.

The offer of free match entry seems to get some people to help out also.

The people who help setup get to shoot the match for free already. The night before really isn't an option. I can't speak for the current MD, but the earliest I can get to the range on a Friday night is 5:30. That would work during the summer, but not when the days are short. There's also only so much one person can do without help.

[Bear23]

I suspended several of our matches over the summer due to lack of help. After 2 months a few shooters came to me to help out. It seemed to have lit the fire under several of our members and now we have a nice turnout to help set up. we are unable at our range to set up the night before as it is an open public range. We do two matches a month, uspsa and a steel challenge match.

A majority of guys just want to show up, shoot and leave. that will never change, keep the core group of volunteers happy, and try to work others into the program. It all comes down to new shooters coming into the sport.

[LPatterson]

Both of the clubs I belong to setup the night before but over the past 10 years the number of helpers has steadily declined. One club shoots on Saturday and sets up Friday night and seen a steady decline in help to the point of hiring temps to help. The problem here seems to be a shrinking base of shooters and distances to other clubs (168 mi for me). At the other club attendance is growing and we are getting new helpers but we are starting to lose old helpers to personality conflicts. One club offers incentives for helping to set up but the other does not and it appears that incentives help or it is just that the new shooters are coming out more.

It sounds as though your only choice may be an announcement that with out help the matches are going to stop.

[sperman]

Both of the clubs I belong to setup the night before but over the past 10 years the number of helpers has steadily declined. One club shoots on Saturday and sets up Friday night and seen a steady decline in help to the point of hiring temps to help. The problem here seems to be a shrinking base of shooters and distances to other clubs (168 mi for me). At the other club attendance is growing and we are getting new helpers but we are starting to lose old helpers to personality conflicts. One club offers incentives for helping to set up but the other does not and it appears that incentives help or it is just that the new shooters are coming out more.

It sounds as though your only choice may be an announcement that with out help the matches are going to stop.

Is the range lit? Do you have people who take Friday off work to do the setup?

I know a couple of the matches around here all of the setup takes place on Friday. Both match directors have schedules flexible enough that they can spend the Friday before the match on the range, and they have a group of volunteers who can do that also.

[lneel]

Simple.....ASK for help from EVERYONE who wants to shoot! I almost killed myself with Heat Stroke doing it all when I first started my club. At the next match I told all the shooters how it was going to be and that if they wanted to shoot they will have to help setup. Now we have a 6-7 stage match that is all setup from 8:30 to 10:00 AM the day of the match. The previous day setup won't work for me as the range is 58 miles away. Though sometimes we have to prod the shooters into helping, most do it with just a simple, "Hey, here is the COF for Stage X in Bay X, all the stands, walls, barrels are there, would you mind helping set it up?"

Lee

[Joe4d]

A common thread is, "People wont help" and I'll admit that some of it is selfishness but as a MD asking for help you need to make sure you arnt the problem.

1. If you have shooters traveling more than an hour or if your range is in traffic jam central, people are not going to show up on Friday evening to setup. You need to have say a 8 to 9 show time and registration and 10 or so hot time. If you arnt there by 9 you dont shoot. No exceptions. you'll have help that is there. Once there most people are willing to lend a hand. This is a problem at a club I shoot, we have about 100 shooters and the MD issued a mandate that everyone had to show up and setup one match a year figuring 10 people a match. Well 4th of July match MD decided to do a setup morning of instead of Friday before and guess what ? about 40 people showed up for their one match setup. which brings me to ,

2 Oneguyitis. This drives me nuts and sends me right back to the tailgate of my truck to wait for the match. To start These guys micromanage everything and are usually the match directors sweating to death and scowling at people who dont help. This is the MD that is the only guy who knows the COF's and walks around with them. If they are even written. No one else knows what goes where, where anything else is, how many targets where the targets are or anything, If you pick up a staple gun you get told to "wait on Bob" Screw that, Guess what many of us have been to a match before, we even know how to put up a target or two, Before the match every stage should have a WSB with pictures of the stage, a list of props, where they are located, a bucket with hammer screws, extra staples, basically all the tools needed so anyone can show up grab the paper and start building, The MD just jumps from stage to stage to make adjustments this was how a Hawaiian club ran and it worked very well.

This one is the most common reason I see for lack of help at matches, nothing like showing up early or the day before to setup only to spend 90% of the time you are there with thumb in anus because of a lack of direction and leadership. Hey we wont get our feelings hurt if you come by and shift a target or two.

3 If your shooters want to shoot and scoot and be customers treat em like customers, announce an increase in fees and hire some help with the extra money. The more people the more money the more workers the better stages the more people.

Edited January 4, 2010 by Joe4d

[steel1212]

We currently have a problem similar to this at our range. The last MD took his well deserved leave, well a lot of the experienced crew he had took the same leave. It got to a point where we didn't have stages setup by the 10:30am go hot time. We couldn't even get on the range until 8am. Basically, we kept setting up the stages until they where done. The people that complained about why we wheren't shooting yet where POLITELY asked to help setup next time, as we needed the help, and we would get done sooner.

I took over and have a crew of guys but we are all still green. To ease the load on me I've gotten several guys to design stages. Typically if they design it they know how to set it up as well. I still have WSB set out on every stage and try to get guys in the bays setting them up when they show up.

One thing I found out is if you can setup the night before, at least the vision barriers and put the target stands where they go it will cut down on the fine tuning quite a bit. Pretty much show up and put up paper and steel and then tweak a little here and there and your done. We did that this weekend and it seemed to work out pretty well on the stages we got to. Granted its another day to be at the range in teen degree weather but I wanted to get there and do it so people wouldn't have to bust their humps the next day in the single digit morning.

In the end try to get yourself a stable reliable "crew" they don't have to be the only ones that help but pretty much know what is going on so you don't have to do all the thinking. Get the WSBs out and get a guy from your "crew" started on the stage that they know where everything goes and as people filter in to help they can just be directed to help out one of the guys that are already working on the stage.

As it goes it will typically get better. You and your crew will figure out what needs to be done to get everything done.

[sperman]

I'm sure I've been guilty of oneguyitis.  When I've spent 3+ hours trying to get stages put up, and someone shows up 20 minutes before the match is supposed to start and asks if they can help I usually blow them off, because at that point I'm fine tuning target placement and there really isn't much they can do. 

BTW, I'm not MD.

[JFlowers]

Scott,

Some of the comments I put on the MD's survey...

1) Rather than do the current Shoot For Free, give those who work Coupons for $5, $10, $15, $20 off the next match. Here's why. I have come in several time and seen that a bay was empty and setup a stage. But I have already paid and often don't get paid back. A coupon would make it easy to pickup those who come in and help since the signin is at the range house while the bays are down the road. Plus $5 coupons could be used to reward those who pitch in to help those already setting up stages.

2) This match needs to start Starting On Time. A 10am match that starts at 11:30am is not a good thing. Yes, I know this is a symptom of the help issue.

3) Back down the quality of the stage if needed. Scott (sperman), John (John2A), and Donald setup Sectional/Area level stages month after month. I think some people are intimidated to setup stages after trying to match that quality.

4) You know I will help when my schedule lets me.

5) Maybe cut the match back to fewer stages until help steps up.

[steel1212]

Scott,

Some of the comments I put on the MD's survey...

1) Rather than do the current Shoot For Free, give those who work Coupons for $5, $10, $15, $20 off the next match. Here's why. I have come in several time and seen that a bay was empty and setup a stage. But I have already paid and often don't get paid back. A coupon would make it easy to pickup those who come in and help since the signin is at the range house while the bays are down the road. Plus $5 coupons could be used to reward those who pitch in to help those already setting up stages.

2) This match needs to start Starting On Time. A 10am match that starts at 11:30am is not a good thing. Yes, I know this is a symptom of the help issue.

3) Back down the quality of the stage if needed. Scott (sperman), John (John2A), and Donald setup Sectional/Area level stages month after month. I think some people are intimidated to setup stages after trying to match that quality.

4) You know I will help when my schedule lets me.

5) Maybe cut the match back to fewer stages until help steps up.

Very good points. Setup one really nice stage and some simpler ones until help starts showing up. You do need to start on time.

[Nik Habicht]

Honestly, it really comes down to recruiting help. Anyone planning on running a match for an extended period of time, should be planning on setting the classifier and helping out during set-up/registration by answering questions, locating and delivering set-up items/rarely used props/tools/supplies, etc.

To pull that off requires recruiting a match staff that consists of multiple volunteers who are willing to take responsibility for designing/ and supervising the building of a stage every month, and the recruiting of volunteers to help them with the building. That spreads the leadership out --- the MD becomes a facilitator/paperwork lackey (creating scoresheets, ordering targets and supplies, coordinating efforts, providing guidance, recruiting replacement help, training, planning for his departure/successor); the stage designers get experience leading the build, which puts them in a good position to become assistant match directors and match directors; stage set-up help hopefully learns about design/building/becomes motivated to take over or rotate into design slots.

If you're planning a five stage (really 4 plus classifier) match every month, ideally you'd have ~ 6 designers who could get a stage up. A couple of those might be experienced folks, who are mostly focusing on shooting, but who would be willing to do an occasional stage, if a regular can't build one. These folks might also be willing to show up at some point during set-up to help mentor the newer designers.

Then you need someone to handle registration, someone for safety checks/new competitor orientation, someone to handle scorekeeping, and an assistant match director or two.

It's really tough to do that when you have only ~25 shooters in some months....

It can be done though --- and if you do it well enough, you can grow the match quite a bit.....

You need to start impressing on newer competitors that it's a volunteer sport; part of my response to "I want to shoot with you" is that set-up starts at 8, and help is needed and appreciated....

[Merlin Orr]

Lots for really good advise already. My condensed version......

Plan ahead and have stage diagrams printed with copies.

Work the phone and ask for "Will you do a stage for the match."

Have your shit together and ready to rock when people show up to help.

Delegate, Delegate, Delegate responsibility - and verbally acknowledge help and designers at the match brief. ASK very nicely but Loudly that at the end of the match that you help tear down whatever stage you are on and move it to the front of the bay. Make sure everyone hears this request.

Be nice and DO NOT micromanage!

Try to avoid putting poison apples, anal one way know it alls, ass*&&@s^ or Nazis in positions of authority. They do more harm than good and will soon run off anyone who might have become a good asset had they had someone pleasant to work with.

Four or five guys have a copy of all the stage diagrams. We usually have one of the guys with golf carts hook onto the little 12' trailer with the stands and drop stands in each bay as required. A second go around drops props and walls. As people show up to help the guys with the know how spread themselves around and work and kind of oversee those who want to help.

Try to get a regular "lets do lunch or have a cold one" theme going for a regular get together after the range work is finished.

Just my .02...

[Fireant]

My solution to this same problem was to tell everyone that if they would donate 6 hours of their time to my match we could all show up at 7:30 and be finished with a 5 stage match including teardown by 1:30 I also let them know that we would start on time, first shots would be fired by 9:30. Now, how many stages we actually would have was up to them. If we had 3 stages set-up then it was a 3 stage match, if they had 5 done we have a 5 stage match. Since we started this about half of the shooters are able to leave the range(from a 5 stage match) by about 12:30 after they have put away the last stage shot. There are always 1-2 squads that are having a great social time and run a little behind, but that I think is a good thing and all the matches have been 5 stages so far also.

[chizzle]

If you're trying to jump start your volunteers, here's what I would do:

1) Set up a normal match with your normal help (if any) for one last time.

2) When you're doing your shooter's meeting for this match, explain that your match is really short handed and that the current system is not sustainable. Then announce that you want 5 shooters to responsibility for 1 stage each at the next month's match (sort of a "Team Leader" approach). If you can only get 4 shooters (not including yourself) then plan on shooting 4 stages at next month's match. If you can only get 3, ask people if they want to cancel the match for next month. I think the peer pressure will push people to volunteer, and give you an opportunity to get some new blood into the match.

3) If somebody's stages aren't great, don't be too hard on them. Make sure they're safe, but then let the other shooters give the designer a hard time about them. I think shooters' competitive nature will take over, and you'll have several people wanting to out-do the next guy.

Thanks for posting this! I thought you did a nice job of not being antagonistic, while addressing a real problem that many matches have. Good luck, and please keep us updated as to what course of action that you take.

[sperman]

Thanks for all of the good ideas. I'll make sure the MD see's this thread.

[Dan Hefta]

Simple.....ASK for help from EVERYONE who wants to shoot! I almost killed myself with Heat Stroke doing it all when I first started my club. At the next match I told all the shooters how it was going to be and that if they wanted to shoot they will have to help setup. Now we have a 6-7 stage match that is all setup from 8:30 to 10:00 AM the day of the match. The previous day setup won't work for me as the range is 58 miles away. Though sometimes we have to prod the shooters into helping, most do it with just a simple, "Hey, here is the COF for Stage X in Bay X, all the stands, walls, barrels are there, would you mind helping set it up?"

Lee

+1, I am the the President and MD for our club we hold one match a month 4 good quality stages and get it all done on match day, we start at 8am and are ready buy 10am. It is all volunteer everyone pays for their match fees exept new shooters they get to shoot their first match for free but do not get scored. If I were the MD in your clubs situation I would make an announcement and state that the match does not start until setup is completed, they will help if they want to shoot. Good Luck, I hope that it all works out for your club.

[sfinney]

This can be fixed, all of the above are good thought starters. But it is pretty hard to turn around a declining club, it seems.... keep in mind you are competing for everyone's business. How many other matches a month are within a couple hours drive? Are they better/bigger/better run? Better facilities? More convenient to get to? ESPECIALLY if there is a better match the same weekend. While some shooter's shoot every match, every weekend, if they are like me, some (most?) are now picking and choosing their shooting a little more carefully.... ammo is expensive, and I find I can usually only get one day per weekend off to go shoot now, sometimes only one match per month. If people are having to choose between matches to attend, you have to do somehting to make yours more compelling than the other ones. Better, more involved stages? Free lunch? Trophys and or cash payouts?

I've lived several places in several states the last 15 years, and have seen more than couple decent clubs implode due to MD burnout, or "oneguyitis" (love that!).

One more thing I would advise, just in general to MDs out there struggling for attendance: don't try to scold the shooters into showing up, or send out scathing emails or pre/post match rants basically calling out everyone for not helping. You end up causing more negative feelings than any positive benefit. Try to come up with positive reasons for people to want to help, the ones that want to, will..... the ones that don't...... still won't. Especially at clubs where one guy IS the club, runs everything, and treats it all like a business venture..... its hard to get volunteers if everyone thinks its YOUR match instead of the CLUB's match. Appoint some officers, have regular meetings, get feedback. Delegate RESPONSIBILITY, not just work. Be big enough to understand that YOUR vision of how a match should run, and style of shooting may not jive with the majority - cater to your customers. If you find that your majority of shooters are all new to practical shooting, and the old hands tend to move on or never come back.... great job on recruiting, but maybe look at your competition and see what their matches are like, to retain more shooters as time goes on.

Give the ones that do show up to help a diagram, a bay, and set them loose..... they may not make exactly the stage you had on paper, or in your head, but guess what, sometimes they are better. Or not. Learning in progress. Do a once over safety check before shooting, verify round counts, but resist the urge to micromanage the stage to your previous expectations. Nothing more discouraging than the helpers watch someone seemingly randomly totally rearrange the stage they just worked so hard on, especially with no explanation.

Anyway, good luck with your club, sounds like you need some fresh blood. Try to get some new guys in there, give them the basics, and turn them loose.

Edited January 5, 2010 by sfinney

[LPatterson]

Is the range lit? Do you have people who take Friday off work to do the setup?

No this range is not lit. Yes this club has a couple of brothers who have decided to shoulder the work but it is getting really old. I drive 168 miles to help with the set up unless it conflicts with my primary clubs match on Sunday. Otherwise I have over 200 miles to drive to the other match after shooting a match. My primary club is also a 160 mi drive from home so I go over the day before and help set up.

I agree with everyones suggestion to get more volunteers to help but how many are willing to drive 150-250 miles to attend a match that you have to help set up before you can shoot. Not me.

It would be nice to have stage diagrams with dimensions and or prop lists and have enough CRO's to give a stage drawing to and say go set this up but with 4 people and 5 stages it won't work. Or we get 10 people so there are 2 to a stage still hard to set shooting angles with 1 person holding walls and the other continually going between the shooting position and the target. Then you get final review where the MD thinks a position is too hard or too easy so it's necessary to move a half dozen targets.

[/rant] Maybe this whole thing should get moved to I hate.

[ebg3]

Hey Scott,

If you are going to ask for new help, try to get help to setup the day before. If not the whole match, at least a stage or two. It's taking me and my setup crew, usually 2-3 others, close to 5 hours to set up my monthly match. John and I are able to start setting up around noon on Fridays and we'll have a couple other members show up to help. I hate to think about having to set up on match day. I'm usually pretty tired at the end of the day on Friday. I wish I lived closer, I'd be there to help you.

Eddie