This is not a clays only club, it's a club that offers rifle/handgun/shotgun shooting, and in fact, only a small portion of the membership shoots trap. My previous club was also a combined club with over 2000 members, and my other current club is also a combined club with over 700 members. Of the three clubs that I currently belong to, only one is a clays only facility.
Trap/Skeet Shooter Numbers
- Thread starter stubblejumper
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This is not a clays only club, it's a club that offers rifle/handgun/shotgun shooting, and in fact, only a small portion of the membership shoots trap. My previous club was also a combined club with over 2000 members, and my other current club is also a combined club with over 700 members. Of the three clubs that I currently belong to, only one is a clays only facility.
Falconflyer
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I'm a member at 3 clubs and I've never heard such a thing.
Looking at the actual wording of the rules, it states that only members may discharge a firearm. I am thinking that the person that told us that non members couldn't handle firearms on the firing line was giving us his interpretation.
the spank
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That makes better sense. Lloydminster Fish & Game Ass’n runs axlarge membership like those above also. You had me wondering? I’ve never heard of a clays club in Canada with as many members as attendees at The Grand American?!!
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A local club I visited told me about their cap. Then told me about how some members only use the range 2 or 3 times a year, and don't want to volunteer much because of that. There might be a better way to do it, I guess.
Having been a member of several clubs, and having served on the executive for two, it always comes down to the same half dozen people doing 90% of the work. You can have a volunteer day or two during the year, but you will never get more than a couple of dozen people to even show up for a volunteer day; let alone do any volunteer work the rest of the year.
Falconflyer
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I've been volunteering at one club for over 25 years and in that time it's been maybe a dozen regulars doing 98% of the work. Lots of people want to shoot but not do any of the associated work, it's a major reason why there aren't more places to shoot.
My club has Trap, Skeet and 5 Stand. Trap is growing to the point where there are often so many people, some don't get a turn. We need more trap fields (good luck to us!) Skeet and 5 Stand are growing at a much slower rate. Both are much harder than trap of course, which would explain the rate difference I think. I shoot 5 stand almost exclusively because it is so hard and I never want to know if it's a single, double, direction, true or report. This provides me with the closest to a real hunting environment.
Yes, I get it. But here you have a situation where a shooter who wants to shoot and wants to do a more than reasonable amount of volunteering is basically being turned away, because a number has been reached that includes people who want to do neither. Wouldn't you rather have one more shooter, if he's actually going to help out a bit here and there? Now this shooter is going to drive an extra 45 minutes each way to a more receptive club, when even a fraction of that time could have easily been spent making the club better instead.
I don't want to go overboard with criticism of the way a club decides to go about their business, especially while I am interested in joining one. However, if volunteer time is in such short supply, why wouldn't a club just make a small amount of it compulsory? Even just proportional to use, in a flexible way? Or alternatively, even better... why not have volunteer time go towards a reduction in dues as an incentive? Most members probably wouldn't care, but I'm sure enough people would step up to the plate.
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Has there always been a culture like that? Or, were older shooters somewhat patient with having a new guy on the line when they were starting out?
We tried giving reductions for volunteers at my previous club, but it was more work keeping track of who was actually working than it was worth.
bdft
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Here too, we have e a few older shooters who think the new people starting out take too long. I don't mind new shooters and helping them out. Our problem is our club only has two skeet fields , one of which is also trap so it gets a bit crowded on weekends. If we ever get Connaught back up & running the crusty old farts will go back there.
Falconflyer
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
For our junior program, the kids get greatly subsidized targets and ammo as well as shooting vests, glasses, etc so we ask that the kids and parents help out a bit and the kids are fine but the parents mostly want nothing to do with it. They drive in drop the kids off and leave, come back later to pick up the kids from the babysitting service and leave! Some times I wonder why these parents had kids if they don't want to spend time with them, that aside my point is that offering great deals to them isn't any assurance that you'll get help.
We have received many compliments from new shooters, for taking the time to help them learn, but it does make things much easier if the person at least knows how to operate their own shotgun. Andl while we have no problems throwing a few extra targets, throwing 35 to 40 targets because you can't operate your safety or your barrel selector, or because you freeze when the target is thrown, is not going to continue round after round.
