how to make shooting sports flourish?

I like Bigbubba's idea about being able to take a son/daughter shooting for a reduced cost. I am a member at our local golf club and that's how they operate their fee structure. Juniors have a lesser rate to play than regular adults but, they have more restiicted playing/starting times. It's a tough balance to make everyone happy as regular members work but, if we want to see a future in the shooting sports, we have to balance shooting times with being fair about expenses. A tough balance indeed. We could also promote junior/senior shooting events that promote involvement of junior and senior shoots..... a novel idea that works for golf.... why not shooting?
 
The Alberta Sporting Clays Association has had a program in place for years that subsidizes Jr, Sub JR, and Ladies entries into all reg'd competitions by 50%. This has been so successful that the Apre Provincial shoot was won by a junior shooter.
PM for details.
 
NZClaybuster said:
The Alberta Sporting Clays Association has had a program in place for years that subsidizes Jr, Sub JR, and Ladies entries into all reg'd competitions by 50%. This has been so successful that the Apre Provincial shoot was won by a junior shooter.
PM for details.
Click to expand...

Who won the privincial and the apre?
 
bdft said:
Young shooters. I don't know how many times I have seen old farts making snide comments about "starting WW3", "machine guns" or "Norinco junk" when some young buck opens up with his SKS/M-14/M4/1022. I make a point of telling guys "don't pay any attention to that old fart". The sad part is that many times that same old fart stood right beside me, back in the mists of time, with an FN or AR15, blazing away with wild abandon. Let the young guys do their thing and encourage them. Us old farts aren't going to live forever.
Click to expand...

This is very true and I have seen countless members leave the club and never return due to some of the "old farts" giving them a hard time about how they should shoot or that they bought a cheap gun or some other thing. When a club is run by the same group of guys for the past 20 or 30 years they can often treat it like its THEIR club, and in a sense bully other members. The way some clubs are run really doesn't encourage young shooters or new shooters.

I left my previous club due to a similar reason. I was shooting under my fathers family membership (supposed to cover dependants that are still in school, including university) and I saved some money to buy a nice shotgun, as I was interested in trap, skeet, etc. After bringing my new gun out a couple times, one of the "old farts" on the executive tells my father and I that I no longer fall into a family membership, cause if i can afford a gun I can afford to pay a membership! This really encourages young shooters! They should be happy that someone young is interested in the shooting sports and encourage them. I have since left and joined a different club, which better suits me anyhow, but it shows how people can be their own worst enemies!
 
Our club encourages families to shoot, they are very open. So many ppl are involved in making the club expand and offer new events all the time. Our senior shooters are a great source of information and spend alot of time with us younger shooters helping us become better at all disciplines we offer. Myself 30 yr on this earth, served my country 5 yrs. And I welcome any and all information I can get from these men. This improves my abilities and makes the events much more interesting. Unlike galt where the members and senior shooters are less inviting to new shooters of all ages. This makes no one want to join. Clubs need to remember, youth is what is needed to continue a great sport.
 
Our local club has a good variety in age and experience as far as our members are concerned, which seems to create a more comfortable atmosphere for new members. In the last couple of years, our membership has grown considerably, and our ranks of RSOs has doubled, which has ensured that we always have enough RSOs to keep things running smoothly.
 
NZClaybuster said:
The Alberta Sporting Clays Association has had a program in place for years that subsidizes Jr, Sub JR, and Ladies entries into all reg'd competitions by 50%. This has been so successful that the Apre Provincial shoot was won by a junior shooter.
PM for details.
Click to expand...

Maybe the association played a tiny part in that juniors big win but that particular junior has a sponsor that has seen to his every shooting need since he was big enought to hold a gun. To claim succes for the association is down right silly.
 
Another reason is just cost. Some clubs charge a reasonable fee to shoot 25 birds, some very costly. Our club charges $20 for 7 rounds. And we make lots of money to pay for the new PAT TRAP we bought....

Some clubs charge $6-7-8 a round. Way too much IMO.

One club I was a member of charged a USER fee for the 100m range...WTF? on top of my dues? I dont get that. I bring my own targets etc so what is it I am paying for? The priviledge to shoot there? Thats what my dues are for IMO
 
"Our club charges $20 for 7 rounds. And we make lots of money to pay for the new PAT TRAP we bought"


Obviously you are getting targets at one hell of a good price. Our cost with freight and taxes is just over $0.12 per target or $3 per round of 25 targets. By the time you pay your provincial Gov't for HST you are netting less than $2.70 per round. Even getting targets at the unheard of price of $5.00 per case means one hell of alot of shooting to pay for a Pat-Trap.
 
Learn to share the range! I can't tell you how many times I've brought a guest to the range to take them shooting for the first time, only to have some cranky member, who feels like they own the range, seemingly go out of their way to make everybody around them uncomfortable. As a long time member I'm used to this, but for a first timer it can be a very negative experience.

As shooters we need to do what we can to promote our sport in a safe and positive manner. Scaring away potential new-comers by being a d*ck about not wanting to share the range is a good way to ruin that
 
salter said:
"Our club charges $20 for 7 rounds. And we make lots of money to pay for the new PAT TRAP we bought"


Obviously you are getting targets at one hell of a good price. Our cost with freight and taxes is just over $0.12 per target or $3 per round of 25 targets. By the time you pay your provincial Gov't for HST you are netting less than $2.70 per round. Even getting targets at the unheard of price of $5.00 per case means one hell of alot of shooting to pay for a Pat-Trap.
Click to expand...

I dont know what we pay, I just know we buy about 3 skids of them and they are gone at the end of the year.
 
Maverick22 said:
Learn to share the range! I can't tell you how many times I've brought a guest to the range to take them shooting for the first time, only to have some cranky member, who feels like they own the range, seemingly go out of their way to make everybody around them uncomfortable. As a long time member I'm used to this, but for a first timer it can be a very negative experience.

As shooters we need to do what we can to promote our sport in a safe and positive manner. Scaring away potential new-comers by being a d*ck about not wanting to share the range is a good way to ruin that
Click to expand...
Hey..I think I met that guy too..
 
Bigbubba said:
Another reason is just cost. Some clubs charge a reasonable fee to shoot 25 birds, some very costly. Our club charges $20 for 7 rounds. And we make lots of money to pay for the new PAT TRAP we bought....

Some clubs charge $6-7-8 a round. Way too much IMO.

One club I was a member of charged a USER fee for the 100m range...WTF? on top of my dues? I dont get that. I bring my own targets etc so what is it I am paying for? The priviledge to shoot there? Thats what my dues are for IMO
Click to expand...

Depends on what kind of club. One club I shoot at charges $10/round, shells included, that makes profit at maybe a dollar a round. However the range has never paid a cent in labour for anything, and also has a pile of equipment usage donated. When they need a new cellar for a trap house, a backhoe and operator show's up. When birds arrive, 5-10 volunteers show up to offload the 700+ cases of birds. When we show up to shoot, several people go open up and turn on all the machines, when it's done, several people clean up empties, turn off and lock up machines, etc.

When I go to a sporting clays range, where all I do is show up and shoot, I expect to pay more, since someone's being paid to fill machines, pick up hulls, repair machines, clean the clubhouse, set the course etc.

I wish every range was cheaper to shoot at, but you have to remember what your getting for your money. I have more time then money, so I'm fortunate to have a range I can shoot at cheaply, even if it means a few hundred hours a year of volunteer labour.

Maybe some ranges are gouging, but have a look at what your getting for your money before you complain too loudly. It's just to bad our ranges are so spread out, you may have to shoot at the only range you can, and that range may not be set up for your lifestyle. Some people would rather pay more and be catered too.
 
Bigbubba said:
I dont know what we pay, I just know we buy about 3 skids of them and they are gone at the end of the year.
Click to expand...

My math could be off here, but I would suggest you have other revenue streams to pay for the trap.

3 skids of targets with 63 boxes per skid (I think)

This gives 189 boxes of targets. Assume 5 rounds of 25 per box of 135 targets (allow 10 targets for breakage)

189 * 5 = 945 rounds of 25. Say it is $3/round (you said $20 for 7 so that is close) and this gives you $2835 in gross revenue off those targets.

Even if the targets were free (and I think they wholesale at over $10/box prior to transportation) it would be a few years to pay off a Pattrap.
 
Yeah my math has that as a net profit of $364.50 if your targets cost 10 cents each, have no breakage and shoot 3 pallets a year. Targets may be cheaper in Ontario then Alberta because of shipping costs. None the less 7 rounds for $20 is a fantastic deal, and I wish every club could throw targets for that price, but it's just not feasible for every club to do that, obviously the overhead there is very low. Our club spends more then $365 on garbage pickup for the empty hulls then that. We also probably spend that much just on basic service fee's to be connected to power, let alone actual usage. At $10 a round including shells it's our membership fee's, an outrageous $30, and our annual raffle that allow us to buy more machines for our 5 stand etc.
 
Back to the question of how to make shooting sports more popular, of course the answer is to get more people to try and then join clubs.

The trick is, how to get them to do that. Certainly lots of good people here who take out friends and family to give it a try. Great. But the scale is small, and the ranges tend to be hiding away in corners of cities and towns and rural areas, afraid to make a noise.

Like any other popular sport, shooting needs fans! To get fans, it needs cachet. It needs cool. It needs characters. It needs bigger scale.

Getting back televised on the Olympics would be huge. International competition? Cool.

A reality series about competition shooting? Cool. Play up the characters and show their skills. A hipster collectors show? Cool. Show off your mancave/storage vault? Cool.

It's not about violence. It's about doing something AWESOME with your pals, with cool tools, hopefully in cool places. Not taking the toy guns away from the kids when they're young, but bringing back cool toys celebrating the champion heroes.

Some paths to follow? Learn from the rise of Nascar or MMF maybe (dangerous and very, very male - when was the last time you saw beer babes at a shoot? Something to consider). Learn from the rise of golf (stars/characters were key to this). Learn from and co-opt the "real food" movement - kill it yourself/use everything/all organic. Use segmented TV to find and build an audience. Find edgy advertisers and sponsors (Red Bull is sponsoring some crazy sh*t).

Just focusing on clubs doesn't drive newbies fast enough... need to create a wide base of fans who dream of being the star one day.

Or sumpin' like that...
 
salter said:
"Our club charges $20 for 7 rounds. And we make lots of money to pay for the new PAT TRAP we bought"


Obviously you are getting targets at one hell of a good price. Our cost with freight and taxes is just over $0.12 per target or $3 per round of 25 targets. By the time you pay your provincial Gov't for HST you are netting less than $2.70 per round. Even getting targets at the unheard of price of $5.00 per case means one hell of alot of shooting to pay for a Pat-Trap.
Click to expand...

Agree. That's an unheard of price. At the current price of targets, it's a losing proposition.
 
bmcrae said:
My math could be off here, but I would suggest you have other revenue streams to pay for the trap.

3 skids of targets with 63 boxes per skid (I think)

This gives 189 boxes of targets. Assume 5 rounds of 25 per box of 135 targets (allow 10 targets for breakage)

189 * 5 = 945 rounds of 25. Say it is $3/round (you said $20 for 7 so that is close) and this gives you $2835 in gross revenue off those targets.

Even if the targets were free (and I think they wholesale at over $10/box prior to transportation) it would be a few years to pay off a Pattrap.
Click to expand...

10.60 per case plus taxes and shipping to be precise ;-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom