CyaN1de Cleans House!!!

hey Pete, you going to make it to the Atlantic Championships?
As for the next FCWC, Terry and I are serious- it's time to start sorting out 2013 ASAP. Watching the Brits and Americans level of organization was a huge eye opener.
 
The nice thing about FCWC-2013 being in Raton is that it is much more accessible to Canadian shooters than the previous two matches (2005 in South Africa, 2009 in UK). And it is possible to drive to Raton, which makes any and all flying-with-guns-and-ammo issues disappear.

Canada has never fielded an 8-shooter F/Open team abroad; hopefully someone will take this as a challenge, and volunteer to captain the first ever Canadian F/Open travelling team.

And, I sure hope we field a 4-shooter F/TR team to Raton in 2013.

Another thing worth considering is to have at least some of the prospective 2013 shooters, fire a match or two in Raton in the year or two preceding the match. Lots of opportunity here for international travelling teams shooting, next door to us.
 
I really really really wish we would give some thought to Canadian regional championships. As I have said, I would dearly love to attend Connaught, but too long, too expensive and too complicated from a home logistics point if view. Given the number of BC F-class shooters (most of us are still working and not retired) attending Connaught, I suspect I am not alone.

My dream would be to see Canadian eastern/western Regional matches, although facilities are admittedly an issue.
 
Facilities will not be an issue for a western regional match if there's enough motivation to organize it.

St Charles range in Winnipeg is more than large enough to host a Western championship.

It has two side by side ranges. Range one is 600 yds and Range 2 is 1000 yds.

There are a total of +/- 30 butts between the two ranges. 15 butts can be shot from the 700, 800, 900 and 1000 yd marks and all 30 butts can be shot from 600 or closer.

Last weekend we ran the provincial championship and only used 5 butts.

With enough markers in the butts we could have 45 guys on the line per relay at long range or 90 at 600 if we shot in threes. In pairs we could still shoot 30 to a relay at long range and 60 at 600 or closer.

How much capacity would you need? I think that there's plenty or room at St. Charles.
 
How about a western Canadian F-Class only match in Winnipeg next summer?

We could probably even allow easterners to come compete if they agree to take an oath and we swear them in as temporary Manitobans.

Similar course of fire to the F-class Worlds, which I believe is only a few days, not the week and ahalf or two week meet that the DCRA and Imperial matches are.

Anyone besides me interested?
 
For the sake of argument, let's say the BCRA Provincials were also labelled "Canadian Western Regional Championships" (or choose some other appropriate title.) The winner of the Grand Agg would be known as the "Canadian Western Grand Agg Winner", etc.

Would this be a useful thing to do?

(the virtue of choosing BCRA APM is that it's probably the centre of gravity for Western shooters, however it only goes to 600m. If long range was desired, either Nokomis SK or Saint Charles MB could do, but more people would have to travel further, in order to shoot there)
 
prairieguy said:
Similar course of fire to the F-class Worlds, which I believe is only a few days, not the week and ahalf or two week meet that the DCRA and Imperial matches are.
Click to expand...

FYI, the F-Class World Championships (FCWC) is five days:
1 day of practice
2 days of individual matches
2 days of team matches

(each day's course of fire, team or individual, is a "Palma course" - 2ss15 at 700m,800m,900m)

The FCWC is scheduled to happen immediately after the host country's national championships (e.g. the Bisley Imperial Meeting, for the just-finished 2009 FCWC). This is so that visitors may shoot the local national championships if they wish, for added practice and familiarity.

Whether you propose a match that is one day long, or three days long, or six days long, or nine days long, you can pretty much expect some shooters to complain that it's too short (so they're not going to bother spending all the time and money to travel that distance for "that little" shooting), and at the same time also receive complaints from other shooters that it's too long (so thery're not going to be able to afford that much time). I wish I knew what a "right-sized" big match was!
 
If one can take a 1week holiday and have a few extra days for travel. IMO that would be an ideal situation.

For example:

Sat-Sun - Travel
Mon-Fri - Shooting
Sat-Sun Travel

I think a 5 day match would almost be an ideal length of time for something like this. I know that a drive from BC to Nokomis can be done in a day (we did it) but it's a looooong day.

The entry fees and travel expenses incurred to go to Ottawa puts me out of the running to go to this event at this point in my life.

My wife does not think that shooting is a very exciting spectator sport so dragging her on "Vacation" for something like this is a lose-lose situation for me. And telling her that I would like to spend upwards of $2500 to go to this event has as much likely hood of flying as a dead cow.

Closer, shorter and cheaper to participate are things that the DCRA needs to look at.

Nowhere else in this county does it cost $120 to shoot a 2 day 300m Sierra match other than Ottawa. Most are $60/person or less (including target pullers) depending on the PRA putting on the shoot.
 
The national matches in Ottawa are close to meeting your travel requirements (5 workdays plus two weekends). You can travel on Saturday (drive if you're in Ontario & eastwards, otherwise fly), shoot Sunday->Saturday (the Grand Aggregate, plus the Gov. General's Match), travel home on Sunday.

Once you're into airfare (e.g. the match is more than ~12hrs driving distance), you're into big $$$ and also ammo carrying hassles, even if it is somewhat cheaper to fly e.g. Vancouver->Winnipeg instead of Vancouver->Ottawa.

Shooting is as dull a spectator sport as there ever was (and that's for shooters doing the watching; it's even duller than that for non-shooters!).

The entry fees for the DCRA matches in Ottawa are expensive, for a number of reasons. Would love to hear suggestions on what to do about it (if you're interested, I can show you the detailed financials of it). The ISSF match might not be the most representative example to choose. The Grand Aggregate is $680, which is nineteen matches over five days of shooting - so about $36 per match. About 75% of the gross revenue goes to direct labour costs (paid markers, paid range staff, paid QM staff (target rigging and repairs)).

The meals and accommodations available at Connaught are a bit of a screaming bargain - $30/day for a room (admittedly spartan dorm-style) and three meals.

As things are now, the Canadian Championships are a "match of a lifetime". That's the good news. The bad news is that they are pricey. I've written a blog posting asking for advice; surely there are good ideas out there on what we could do better?
 
rnbra shooter,

no where did I suggest that my proposed western Canadian F-class match would in any way be associated to a provincial championship nor the DCRA or result in any kind of "Official" recognition for the winner. I cannot believe how fast you've chimed in with nonsense about grand aggs and having it in BC.

I'm in Mb and so is St. Charles. With the blessing of the MPRA, I can run any match (at any distance) I feel like if I decide it's worth the effort.

If you'd like to organize it in BC fill your boots 'cuz I'm not, otherwise .....

The question was "are you interested in coming to a World Championship styled F-Class match in Mb?", not how do we drag the DCRA politics into something still at the conceptual stage.

This is a huge hijack. I'll start a new thread tonight when I get a better chance to lay out my thoughts.
 
Here's the numbers I have for the western provinces....

F Class Shooters by Prov
BC 10
AB 10
SK 35
MB 11

I would say SK is the centre of gravity for Western shooters, plus this range is private range so no booking required really and you can drive to each yardage and the accommodations in Sask are really cheap too. We could make it super long there too, we have berms out to 1200 yds! Maybe just shoot 1000, 1100 and 1200, one yardage per day, 2+15's and have many many relays, or maybe 3 or 4 days of 1000 yd shooting only and skip the point blank stuff (under 600 yds).

If we want to go really cheap, we could have competitor marking and charge only say $10 per day per shooter, so 4 days for $40, only real problem is we only have 6 frames so that limits us to around 36 shooters per day (3 relays) and that is a BIG day based on the Driller's Match this year were we had these numbers. I would think we should call these Regionals, not Nationals, since it is a regional thing. The CFRC is still and always will be the Cdn Nationals.

I have heard thru-the-grape-vine, the CFRC has only around 17 FClass guys registered. One of the issues we have for getting the numbers up for the CFRC, in my eyes, is everyone is on a different schedule. Some guys, just getting back from Bisley will not go or just for the weekend matches, some guys have used up all their holidays for going to Provincial matches, some guys refuse to travel at all, some guys are saving their holidays for the US FClass Nationals, and some are saving up holidays and $$$$ for 2013 Worlds already, the list goes on and on.

If we could just plan something semi-big numbers wise and semi-small number of days wise, and super cheap for us poorly paid westerners (LMAO) were everyone from all provinces go, it would be great!
 
I do not want to sound confrontational, but their is a fundamental priciple forgotten by too many match organizers, and that is the fact that participants are PAYING CUSTOMERS, seeking value for their money.

When you start dictating to the customer what they are gonna get instead of asking what they want, you will end up losing customers. Unless and until the DCRA adopts a more "Generation -Y friendly" mentality, it will continue to struggle - in isolation - with declining numbers, and simply trying to build a grander event, will fail to address the fundamental problems that impacts western participation.

FYI, based on past match attendance, I can count no less that 42 F-Class shooters from BC between Abby, Mission R&G, the Okanagan and Kamloops alone. Many are family guys/gals with limits on their ability to pay-for and attend lengthy expensive shoots.

I care less about what they call the ribbon you pin on the chest of the winner and more about the fact that people feel that the match is where they would like to spend their precious money and time.
 
Prairieguy, sorry; no hijack intended. Ian suggested in post #29 that perhaps there ought to be a regional championship. I was responding to that (e.g. why not sanction an existing major match as the regional championships?). I didn't mean to suggest that your idea of holding a new or different match was a bad idea - sorry if it came across that way.
 
Keith - am pleasantly surprised to see so many SK F-Class shooters. FWIW there are 21 F-Class shooters firing the Grand Agg at the Canadian Championships (plus a couple of more F-Classers firing some of the warmups). Most of those 21 are Canadians, so there are an unusually high number of Canadians this year. There are also an unusally low number of foreigners, a good reason might be that the FCWC just finished, and we are in their "wake". If we can keep the Canadian F-Classers we have this year, and return to a more normal entry level of USA F-Class shooters, we may well have 30 or more F-Class shooters next year. We are now offering F/Restricted (just recently officially renamed to "F/TR"), so the Americans really don't have any good excuse not to show up now ;-)

Ian, I definitely agree that shooters, as paying customers, have every right to get good value for their money. And that they will, quite sensibly, go where they get an experience that best matches their desires. I think that we don't have nearly enough shooters firing the Canadian Championships - what can/should we do about it?

The DCRA has problems attracting F-Class shooters in particular to shoot the national matches in Ottawa. There are all these F-Class shooters in BC, SK (and even Ontario and Quebec!) who for whatever reasons don't travel to Ottawa in any large numbers to shoot the nationals. If these F-Class shooters have no interest in shooting the nationals, that's fine; but if they would like to shoot, but are being kept away for some reason, we need to find out why, and what we can do to make it feasible for them to come shoot.
 
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