Section and Points Matches and Juniors

[dbenoit]

Howdy Everyone,

I received and email voicing some concerns regarding a potential consistency issue between the matches held at section affiliated clubs.

Concern #1:
For the new Single Stack Division… their concern was directed at adhering to the rules as posted on USPSA and pertaining to the requirement that the gun fit within a box of specific dimensions.

The concerned person felt that the section should stress that if the gun does not fit entirely into the box in accordance with special conditions #20, then the shooter in question gets moved to the open division. This person's thought that for consistency reasons, the Section should purchase boxes or have boxes made and then distribute them to each of the MN clubs whether they are affiliated or not.

I do not have a problem with that; however, getting or making those boxes that are within the specified tolerances is a consistency problem in itself. Therefore, it was suggested and I agreed to contact Gary Stevens from Area 5. See below.

Good Afternoon Gary,

I am the new Section Coordinator for MN, and there has been a good deal of interest in the Single Stack Division. There has also been one concern that prompted me to right you. The concern is with # 20 "…must fit wholly within the confines of a box which has…" The concern is with consistency between the boxes used at each club as it relates to the Section Match.

As the SC, I thought about having someone build a box for each club and have the Section pay for it. However, having multiple boxes presents a challenge in itself, because each box would have to be identical. Therefore, my question is… is there anyone building boxes commercially that is approved or are there any suggestions you can offer or am I blowing this out of proportion?

Again consistency is what I am looking for as well as a reduction in headaches.

Your thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Doug

Here is Gary's response:

I am very glad to hear about the interest in the new Division. Also your question about the IPSC box is most timely. I have asked the President and BOD about the need to have an "official" IPSC/USPSA box just as we have an "official" magazine gauge. So far I have not had any real response, but I have contacted George Smith at EGW, who makes the magazine gauge, about the cost factor of such a box. George has had some illness to deal with, and said he would get back to me as soon as he could.

With your permission, I will forward your initial e-mail to the BOD and President, with the hope that we can adopt an "official" box for our membership.

In the short term though, you could construct a box and use it for "educational" purposes to help our members get their equipment up to specifications while I try to expedite the "official" box process.

Thanks for your work as SC. You are a vital part of our organization.

Gary

Concern #2
The person expressed concerns over clubs not running a chronograph for points matches and offered for consideration that the section utilize a portion of the funds available to purchase chronographs and have boxes built for affiliated clubs to be used at points matches.

Concern #3
Does the section have enough juniors who are dedicated to the sport to justify sending them to a shooting camp? If the section pays for a junior to go to camp and then next year decides that the grass is greener somewhere else… was the money wasted?

My question to you is… what are your thoughts and suggestions on the following?
-Single Stack Division.
-Chronographs / boxes.
-Junior shooters.

Thanks

[crbutler]

From my perspective:

Boxes. Well, if its a big deal at the sectional, maybe it would be worthwile to do this, but I think most of the fellows and gals shooting single stack know what a box 1911 is. This is a "provisional" division. Lets wait and see how it turns out before we start wasting time, money and effort here. As to providing non afilliated clubs with a box- tell whoever to STFD and STFU.

Chrono: It would be noted that the section has had a chronograph that any club could use (and a box too, if desired)...no one really came forward with this, except I think one time....In my experience running matches, it becomes a choice for most clubs to either run a chrono or a short stage...most of the shooters would rather shoot an additional stage. 2, it is a local match- the section cannot require this, even if its strongly suggested the club may not use it, and you have no defense there- if someone is suggesting to go to a Level II format for each of these matches, remember that there is an increased fee for level II, and I think that these need to be reviewed at the national office level.

As someone who was running a lot of matches, I would tell this person that I would consider doing so when they were running 10-12 matches a year this way (and then I probably would quit running matches and just shoot their matches instead... )

As a more serious note, in my recollection, we have thrown out a lot of chrono's in the past, and this is just another thing that makes me think twice about doing it. Its expensive, mostly irrelevent, and a major PITA. Yes we should use our declared PF, but honestly, its easy to cheat the chrono the way we do it, and barring a sudden influx of folks who would rather RO than shoot, I just take the few cheats in stride, as most are just errors of omission rather than deliberate- and if you go to the section, or higher level matches you will not continue to have this advantage.

Junior shooter camp-

I was the lone voice when this was voted on before who objected. Either we send them or we find a different use for the money. Lets face it, the vast majority of folks leave this sport within 2-3 years, so we would LIKELY be sending kids who no longer participate afterwards. Its the nature of the beast, and I don't think you can eliminate it. It was voted on before, but no set amount of money decided. I feel we are obligated now to do it- but how much is the question, and will it be recurring?

CB

[DAVE.KILIAN]

I don't know what the big deal is about sending a kid to a shooting camp?

Do you remember when your dad took you squirel hunting for the first time?
I remember when my dad took me.

My wife and I wern't blessed with any children but if we had I would do everything in my power to give them the oppertunity to try all kinds of sports weather they continue with them after a few years or not.
Trying builds carictor weather you exceed in your endevor or not.

If you look at it as adults now, how many jobs have we all had over our lifetime?

If we can't give a kid the experiance of his or her lifetime what are we doing in a sport that promotes fairness and equality to all competitors.

I wish this thing had spell checker.

[crbutler]

Well, how are we going to choose the kid?

How much are we coming up with? (air fare, tuition, spending money, part of the above)

How many kids will we send?

The Clarks have been really generous of their time and money with this, but where does the section draw the line? How long does the kid have to participate in order to be concidered, etc.

I thought this would be a barrel of trouble at first, and still do; not to mention some seem to think that the EC overstepped its bounds with collecting the money in the first place.....

cb

[achey]

I would like to say that I know I am not an unbiased contributer to this thread. This statement should clear that up. My son and I have talked about this possible opportunity for him. He did express some interest in going ,but he did before the idea of a FREE RIDE came up. I feel that the money should be DONATED to the national juniors program. That way it can be wasted NATIONALLY ,insted of locally, following thier criteria.



Craig

[AJL]

If we want to send a kid to camp why don't we do a fund raiser for that purpose. We could do a raffle or a match where the profits go to send a kid to camp. I think there are enough people who care about the sport that it would go over well.


Aaron

[crbutler]

To reiterate:

We have excess money in the section account more than as a group we feel is neccessary to have an adquate reserve.

We want to find a way to use it.

Some suggestions were made in the spring.

Last summer we had a meeting at SCAPSA and essentially decided to continue to collect the activity fees, and use the excess money in principle to send "juniors to camp shootout".

No exact delineation of how or when these funds would be disbursed was made then, it was to be taken up by the EC in the future.

That is where we are now with regards to that.

Since then some more concerns have been raised with regards to the money.

Now apparently, there is some more concern with what to do with the funds and people are suggesting we cannot fund this.

As I said, I personally feel that the EC made a commitment here do do something but perhaps a full free ride is not reasonable. In any case, it is now out of my hands as I am no longer on the EC.

My OPINION is that we should subsidize a portion per our commitment to a deserving junior this year, and consider some other option for this in the future- a benefit match may well be a good choice.

cb

[Travis Ahrens]

Personally, as we do have, what I believe to be, a qualifying junior, and, what I believe to be, a PR problem as gun-owners with the general public, and a PR problem as dangerous runners-n-gunners (I was told just last month by the range master of Dakotah, after he explicitly allowed it just the week before, that I could no longer shoot SASS Gunfighter style as it "concerned other shooters" ) ... anyhow, my preference would be to split the money between assisting a qualifying junior to some big match and taking out the biggest ad we can in the Red Star to inform the public, and other gun-owners, of the fact that we did financially assist that junior (preferrably with his smilin' face on there ... holdin' a pistol) and precisely what that junior is gonna do when he gets where he's goin' ... with his parent's approval, of course.

I believe I've suggested something like last summer. One comment against it was that if most "normal" people had a clue what we were up to, they'd make a significant effort to put a stop to it.

Considering the recent success of Shall Issue ... twice ... while I agree that could occur ... I don't believe it would be in any significant numbers ... and I believe their success would be extremely minimal, if not non-existent.

Regardless, I don't believe we, as gun-owners, and dangerous runners-n-gunners, will ever make any forward progress in reclaiming many of our lost rights (like shootin' Gunfighter style at a public firing range), unless we make some attempt to have our voices heard. Put another way, for many, I believe perception is reality. And perhaps if we publicly represent our activities as commonly accepted, maybe many will perceive that as so?

At the least, maybe next year we'd have a dozen qualifying juniors ... believing maybe some kids will see the ad and become inspired.

Maybe even a few more adults as well?

FWIW, YMMV, $0.02, et. al.

[Travis Ahrens]

I forgot to mention ... I recently ran into a problem at Oakdale Gun Club during public hours last November where the RO's on-duty said my official IPSC target was "inappropriate" during public-hours and "could not be used". This led to a serious confrontation. One possible outcome of this incident may have been the end of IPSC at OGC. That's not how it ended up. But it was a quite serious incident.

And all because a half-dozen RO's believed that an official IPSC target is "not appropriate".

If anyone thinks we don't have a PR problem ...

FWIW, YMMV, $0.02, et. al.

[normw]

Travis that is pretty scary, I wonder what their problem is??