30 replies to this topic

[Sarge]

Calling all Match Directors and Club BOD members! I need to sort some things out and need some input.

Simple question. Who shoots for free at your local matches?

[jar]

For my two IDPA clubs, everyone who SOs and/or is there working the whole setup time. These are both at private clubs where most of the staff are members, and the IDPA club doesn't pay any range fees.

[Tom Mainus]

Nobody shoots for free at our matches. I am the MD every month, I pay full fair along with anyone who helps set up. We tried it in the past, it is still the same 4 or 5 guys setting everything up regardless of the cost to shoot.

[juan]

score keeper for free.
bod members and stage designers 1/2 off

[Sarge]

score keeper for free.
bod members and stage designers 1/2 off

Really!! I don't think BOD members should get breaks on anything. I'm a BOD member at our club and I know that does not fly here.

Interesting though.

By scorekeeper you mean the Stats guy right?

Edited by Kevin Sanders, 06 August 2011 - 05:42 PM.

[vluc]

Help setup and teardown, work the match, shoot for free. Do one or the other, discount.

[sirveyr]

At my IDPA club, the SO's and general match staff pay $5 to cover the food/soda that we consume. We've tried to make it free, but the club resisted.

[juan]

score keeper for free.
bod members and stage designers 1/2 off

Really!! I don't think BOD members should get breaks on anything. I'm a BOD member at our club and I know that does not fly here.

Interesting though.

By scorekeeper you mean the Stats guy right?

Im sorry stats guy

[TaterHead]

No one gets a freebie here, including BOD, workers or anyone else. It is just too hard to track "who worked" and for "how long". To give the BOD a break would be nice, but the message to the rest of the club that works would be negative. We encourage the club members to help on setup. Many come out and set up good stages. They often just ask "what bay is open?". The process seems to work for us. Yes, sometimes we run short of help. A simple reminder at the shooter's meeting, without being ugly, often turns non-workers into workers. Shooters are basically good people who want to contribute. Yes, there will always be some lazy folks, but that is true in any voluntary endeavor.

[DWFAN]

One of the clubs I shoot at has a reduced "member" price and "nonmember" price. Members must commit to setting up 1 stage/bay a year. They shoot for free on that day. They're responsible for design, and getting help to set up if they need it. Squads tear down the bay they end on.

[Jim Norman]

No one shoots for free.

We generally have 5-7 stage designers each month. Our group takes ownership of OUR match. Some design, some only help with the building, we rarely are short on help. With 7 stages and as many as 28 builders, Stats, Registration, a MD and RM we are looking at a minimum of 33 people! then there are those that stay to help tear down, not always the same as the builders.

Volunteer work is what make the match both possible and fun. Were we to start paying, where would we stop? Soon we'd have people saying, I don't get paid so I don;t ave to work and we'd wind up like so many places with three or four people trying to build a match.

Keep it as a volunteer sport, unless you want to triple your fees and go professional. I can probably get 4-6 people to build a match and tear it down for say $300 a piece? Run 80 shooters at $20 is $1800 so we start out in the hole. Add in targets and props and prizes and USPSA and the club fee and our match fee has to hit $60-80 to work. While we are at it, we probably need to pay the ROs and the rest of the staff as well so you can see that paying for a 'professional' monthly match is not going to work out. How many people would pay that kind of money to shoot a math that they currenty pay $15-20 to shoot and have fun at?

Paying the crew can ruin a good thing

[remoandiris]

MD (who also does setup), setup crew (usually the same 4 - 5 people every month, registration person (often also designs and builds a stage), stats person. Everyone else pays.

[dcarter]

Calling all Match Directors and Club BOD members! I need to sort some things out and need some input.

Simple question. Who shoots for free at your local matches?

I'm glad you asked this question!

[PistoleroJesse]

USPSA: Members get $3 discount. First Time Shooters (to USPSA) are free. Normally its the same group of members who help set up. We generally get a good hand from everyone tearing down.

IDPA: MD is Free. Everyone else pays the same match fees. Normally its the MD and maybe one other person putting together targets and the match gets set up as people roll in. Tear down gets good help here too.

In USPSA we have thought about the concept of sweat equity, but nothing ever came from it.

[Greg Bell]

BOD free, SO has choice of free or credit toward club work hours

[Chills1994]

I am the MD for a new USPSA club at a state run range. The state charges $3 per shooter. USPSA charges us $3 for each classifier score submitted.

Our matches are on Saturdays, so that means setting up occurs on Friday, most likely, during the work week when everyone else is...well...at work...or school. Our match fee was $20 and we recently dropped it to $15, which basically matches what the other clubs are charging (where a membership is not required). Those who help set up get their match fees knocked down to $6 (3 bucks to the state, 3 bucks to USPSA HQ).

No one shoots for free.

Like someone previously mentioned, regardless of match fee, discount or not, it is the same handful of guys who I can count on to set up...which is sad, one because they are older and I don't want the heat/humidity to take a toll on them, and two, I don't want them to get burned out.

[furyalecto]

No one shoots free.
Right now:
$10 for people who setup on Saturday (They can shoot Saturday if they help setup & show up for setup by 9am.)
$15 for Sunday shooters.

[Avezorak]

New USPSA shoot thier first match free. Other than that we all pay. And its always the same 4 or 5 guys setting up every month.

[bbbean]

Without getting too much into whether I think people should or shouldn't shoot free if they work, I am always amazed at how worked up people can get over a $5-20 match fee considering the fact that most of us show up with several thousand dollars worth of guns, gear, ammo, and specialized clothing not to mention tools and reloading presses. When you consider the folks who regularly travel 100+ miles for "local" matches and the fact that most of us run through 1K-5K rounds per month in practice, an extra $20 fora match fee doesn't really seem like enough to argue about.

Edited by bbbean, 07 August 2011 - 06:42 PM.

[spanky]

No one at my club shoots for "free." Those who help setup and are club members only pay the $3 classifier fee. That's as cheap at it gets.

[BeeVee]

Fellow shooters,
Sorry for the length, but I could use some feedback.
We're having this discussion at our club now. SO's and MD always shoot for free since it is usually the same 6 or 7 people who do the planning, stage design, setup, tear-down, score keeping, & officiating. Granted, the club brings in less money because of this, but it has been like this since I started in IDPA back in 1998. Another thing to consider is, trained SO's and MD's often get asked at other clubs to help out. So what happens is, you wind up working at every club you go to or you look like bad if you just want to pay your fee and shoot. That doesn't seem fair to the minority of people that fall into this classification. I actually know people who stopped shooting for a while just to shed their dependable reputation for being there all the time, just so they could resurface and just pay their fee and shoot. Consider that some people shoot 3 to 4 times a month at local clubs and wind up working it. This could lead to some serious burnout.

I don't see where it hurts a club because if people decided not to run the sport, the facility would be empty (at our club anyways) and no money would be coming in. I'm sure many clubs work differently, but one problem I have at our club is the money we bring in with IDPA goes to the general fund and supports the entire club. If we want something for IDPA, the request goes to the BOD and there is no assurance that we get what we want and/or need to build our sport. It all depends on who is in charge. One solution discussed, but not yet implemented, is to have a rule that a percentage (50% was talked about) go back to the sport that brought in the money. Please send some feedback, I would be interested in other opinions.
Thanks BV

[Supermoto]

[size="3"][font="Arial"]Fellow shooters,
Sorry for the length, but I could use some feedback.
We're having this discussion at our club now. SO's and MD always shoot for free since it is usually the same 6 or 7 people who do the planning, stage design, setup, tear-down, score keeping, & officiating. Granted, the club brings in less money because of this, but it has been like this since I started in IDPA back in 1998. Another thing to consider is, trained SO's and MD's often get asked at other clubs to help out. So what happens is, you wind up working at every club you go to or you look like bad if you just want to pay your fee and shoot. That doesn't seem fair to the minority of people that fall into this classification. I actually know people who stopped shooting for a while just to shed their dependable reputation for being there all the time, just so they could resurface and just pay their fee and shoot. Consider that some people shoot 3 to 4 times a month at local clubs and wind up working it. This could lead to some serious burnout.

Before I moved, the clubs I shot at, it was kind of an unwritten rule, that if you design,built and ran a stage, that was your sacrificial match. You worked first, shot second. When you went to other matches, you were there to shoot not work. We would help out as ROs and tear down. But it was our time to shoot and have fun, just as the people that ran this match did at ours

[Jim Norman]

ASK

Yup, that is the answer. All the clubs that are out there with 20-40 shooters and only 4-5 workers, ASK

Ask for designs, ask for builders, ask for tear down. Tell the shooters we need you to own this match. You will either own it or it will eventually cease to be. A small cadre can do it forever if they really wish, but the match will generally stagnate, the stages will have only one or two people coming up with ideas and after a while since those few people are the builders the idea will be, how simple a build can I make, I want to shoot and get home on the same day. I am TIRED.

ASK for help. When you get the help, nurture it. They will not do it the way you do. That is a good thing. You want variety. You want people to learn to think on their own. As long as the stages are legal and safe, that is all that matters. Make small corrective comments. Only in extremis should you ever get into an argument. Even then try every way first to make the corrections with respect to Rules or Safety. Really try hard (then try even harder) not to make changes on how you would do it. The whole reason they are there is so you don't have to be!

At both CJ and OB we have managed after many years to have a cadre that can take over so that we can go to other matches or take a vacation.

Ask for help and stand back. You just might be surprised.

[kevin c]

NC for MD, stats, signups, stage builders and helpers.

And, as pointed out above, it's still mostly the same folks, and Jim's points are right on: new help rarely volunteers itself. Ask, and then groom and nuture the willing and able.

[Nik Habicht]

NC for MD, stats, signups, stage builders and helpers.

And, as pointed out above, it's still mostly the same folks, and Jim's points are right on: new help rarely volunteers itself. Ask, and then groom and nuture the willing and able.

And some folks will volunteer when you ask and quickly become reliable, dependable assets to the team.....

Others will burn out, drift away, or figure out that they can't do the job for any number of reasons -- don't let those experiences discourage you from recruiting again....