You can repeat the lie of BRRC being in trouble or being a bureaucratic/political club all you want. Do it often enough, some dim bulb might even believe you; lemmings always do. In the end, its still a lie. Our membership and accomplishments speak for themselves. The club is strong, well funded, protected from urban encroachment and is still accepting new members. Its an enviable position for most clubs anywhere.
Our biggest negative is that we are located on land-locked park land. We can't physically expand the facility to increase the length of the range or add a 24/7 plinking gallery.
Skeetgunner, you seem like a nice guy, and i can see where you're coming from being on BoD in BRRC, but you also seem out of touch with reality.
I'm not going to quote your posts word for word, but here are my thoughts on some of the points that you brought up:
- Your comment about the guy who dropped in, talked to some members and got a negative impression...
His sample size might've been small, but his conclusions reflect my findings also. Nearly EVERY SINGLE Burlington member that i spoke with complained about the politics in the club. The only people who didn't complain were either the FUDDS or people who only come to shoot after midnight (therefore not exposed to most of the politics).
- You keep going on and on about your 1700 "and growing" members. Ill tell you exactly why this is the case. Its because there aren't many other options... Short of Target Sports (nazi club, as well as being the most expensive in Canada), you're the closest real club to GTA. Heated indoor 24/7 facility is great too. Most gun owners in GTA (of which there are tens , if not hundreds of thousands) that want a place to shoot don't wanna drive for hours. This is why you have 1700 members. Its not because there is nothing wrong with the politics.
Do you honestly think that you would even have 1/10th of the members that you have if switched locations with Silverdale?
The funny part is that Silverdale is almost twice as far from GTA, has no indoor range, and it STILL has more members from GTA area than Burlington... What does this tell you?
-Finally, you say that short of Hamilton and Silverdale, Burlington has the most reasonable joining requirements west of GTA. Sorry, but that's almost like saying that in the city of Burlington, BRRC is the easiest to join. What black rifle/handgun friendly clubs in the same area have more joining requirements?
-Another reason why BRRC is growing is because other clubs are following the same path. Not long ago, there were NO probationary shoots required in Silverdale. Now you need 3. If they up it to 6, I'm sure there will be many new members that will decide that its no longer worth the drive, and join BRRC instead.
-What i never understood is why different clubs in ON have different joining requirements and blame the CFO for it. There is one CFO in Ontario. Why is it that some clubs can get away with no probationary shoots for new members, while some need 3, 6, 8, etc to please the same CFO?
Perhaps its not only the CFO that is at fault here. Are many of these clubs coming up with these rules on their own, for the sake of "safety"? Same reasoning the anti's use to take all our guns away.....