Dragging a smallbore club into the 21st century...

[The Gun Pimp]

My local indoor smallbore club has the potential to be great, but unfortunately is currently located somewhere in the mid 20th century.
There is a committee meeting approaching and I'd really appreciate some feedback on which of the points below you think I should raise:

No air ventilation system in the range
Poor lighting, with prone shooters firing almost in the dark through 'windows' in a stud wall - apparently the dark helps get a better sight picture...
Bad range design of the FP shooting benches - effectively encouraging shooters to uncase rifles and then point them at fellow shooters before benching the rifles and the reverse when shooting has finished.
Old carpets on and around the FP's
Unpainted floors & walls in the range
Distinct lack of cleaning for many many years
Poor design of the FP screens between shooters, with them not being wide enough and finishing from the ceiling at waist height, so empties from LSR hit the neighbouring shooters legs.
An uneven concrete range floor down range
A leaking roof and trees growing into the roof space
Roof lining falling down due to damp and numerous rounds hitting it...
Lots of 'precious items' (aka. junk) being stored along the sides of the range - along with 10+ tonnes of newspapers for recycling, that are stored for up to 10 months.
There is also a distinct dislike of new members, especially if under 18, (average membership age is probably 60+).
Plus no real formal coaching structure being implemented, for those that do manage to join.

Your thoughts on the above would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Tiff

Wow - sounds exactly like my smallbore club! I guess the loss of pistols just about finished-off most the smallbore clubs. My own club has a dozen or so 'club' guns - which is great for new shooters but the new shooters never progress to get their own FAC and gun. Eventually, they lose interest..............

[Chapuis]

"That being said, there is perhaps one or two on the committee that could be swayed if the 'argument' is solid, reasoned and clearly supported by the literature. Thus the search for supporting literature and ideas on where efforts should be focused most at this stage."

Sums it all up Tiff.
Present a solid argument why there is a need to make change and point out that the officers of the club will be held legally responsible if they don't comply with requirements.

One example of this is the accumulated waste paper. Has a fire risk assessment be carried out by a competent person if not why not? The club is legally required to do so. Has that risk assessment identified any problems in particular the waste paper?

[bigfathairybiker]

As Dromia said... get yourself on the committee at the next AGM.
Spend the time between now and then finding people who will nominate/propose and 2nd your application and also hopefully a majority of membership that will vote for you.
Also try not to upset possible committee members as you will all have to work together!

I was once the youngest on a committee by 25 years+ and it took several years as secretary, PRO and eventually Chairman to sort out the fuddy duddys who were set in their ways.

Mark

[hitchphil]

Please Don't let it die, setting up a new club & getting approvals is way harder than modernising, getting planning for a new range is an appalling bureaucracy! If you have another club to go to then you are indeed in a shooting rich area but my experience is there are 2-3 clubs of any note per county, finding another may not be an option.

What do you want more? - to keep the old guard happy? or to have a vibrant club going forward. To be honest most people will respect you for trying even if it fails, rather than in effect joining in with them & letting it go thru a non plan decline.

You will be pleased to hear that the solution starts with BEER! :cheers: Go get a few like minded members even get some new members on board & go for a pint & develop what you will do. Develop a strategy, get support, say what you want to see & what you are willing to do to get it. Then go do it - Yep a simple coup. Why because the future of the sport lies in your hands, not those incumbent & only interested in on managing their recreational allotment corner.

If they can agree to let go (or create) say armourer & range manager then get a budget #300 to do the place up some lights paint & clean the crap. Then get those on side to help & show what you can do. If they wont do that then just oust them completely & get the key roles of power to your side; Secretary & Treasurer.

Am afraid I have come over club after club that wont look to its future, wont let others in & wont address the fact the small bore rifle is on its last legs. Personally I think it should be one of the requirements of NSRA (even NRA) affiliation to adopt a scout troop, school or youth group but so many are scared of upsetting the FLO, the NSRA, the insurer, the chairman because he won something in 1965. I have sent a number of work colleagues with their kids to a club local to them & they all come back & say the same - 'Great loved it had a smashing time :-) but no the 17year old does not want to hang out in a dingy range with a bunch of +50 blokes'.

Sorry +50year old blokes but its true, move over & let the kids play. Coach & help them & when they start to whoop your butt - Rejoice you created a new shooter.

My daughter did the NSRA meeting weekend agg for the first time this year & noted "Dad they are all fecking older than you !, & I fear she wont do it again because of that.... But it didn't stop her asking "Can you buy me this shiny metal stock please?" why because she shoots in a Jnr Squad & they have fun together on & off range so wants to shoot for competition against her peers, not mine (she can beet all of them) hers!

[dave_303]

There is also a distinct dislike of new members, especially if under 18, (average membership age is probably 60+).
Plus no real formal coaching structure being implemented, for those that do manage to join.

Tiff, this is a piece I wrote for Firearms UK earlier this year on this very matter,

http://firearmsuk.org/2014/04/18/young-guns/

as stated it's purely a piece of brainstorming but I do hope it is of some use in how to introduce some younger shooters in.

[TattooedGun]

Funny as it sounds, my club was exactly the same when I joined up.

A lot of old people trying to justify their existence in the club and claiming to do stuff but never actually following through.

Since I joined there have been massive stir ups in the committee and it finally feels like it's pulling in the right direction.

Plans for expansion are underfoot, a new treasurer absolutely bollocked the club back into some kind of reasonable state financially by cutting every cost possible without losing any services we had. Which meant upgrading the alarm system so we didnt need "business" telephone lines to pay for every month, water meters and water rates reduced (slashed) as well as claiming back what we were paying in drainage fee's since we had a bonafide soakaway. Aswell as cutting the electricity bill and pretty much everything else.

Now we're getting some cash in the bank the plans to expand are speeding up, we're trying to bring our facilities into the 21st century and have as many Olympic standard ranges and equipment as possible. Talks are underway with the national bodies and local councils to get funding for this.

We're also investing in turning targets among other things, so it's looking up.

What i want to happen is to upgrade the range/backstop to shoot pistol calibres, as at the moment we're only allowed to shoot .22lr, however I'm not sure thats not more to do with club policy rather than a Range limit...?

It's taken 5+ years to get it to a place where it feels like it's moving forward. But theres only one way to do it... Hard work and putting yourself into the thick of it. I've been on the committee for 3 years, and my Dad's just become secretary. My friend who I shoot full bore with became treasurer and we are all pulling in the same direction, with similar visions for what the club should be.

That's how you'll do it... get stuck in...

Get the 8+ people who want change to get stuck in and vote for new blood, convince the 1/2 club members who are sitting on the fence not wanting to rock the boat that the time is now to move forward, and the last 1/4 who are stuck in their ways will have no choice but to push forward or give up their sport/club...

[Tiff]

Thank you for all the advice and information so far. I've just finished reading the "National Governing Body Advice on the Design, Construction and Maintenance of Target Shooting Ranges"....basically pages and pages of it, pretty much the whole section on indoor ranges, the club is currently in breach of!

Of particular interest (for it's simplicity to raise the point at a committee meeting) was the 'Monthly Inspection of an Indoor Range' document - by my count out of the 23 relevant points that should be answered YES, the club scores a NO on 16 of them! Rather impressive for all the wrong reasons...

[TattooedGun]

Thank you for all the advice and information so far. I've just finished reading the "National Governing Body Advice on the Design, Construction and Maintenance of Target Shooting Ranges"....basically pages and pages of it, pretty much the whole section on indoor ranges, the club is currently in breach of!

Of particular interest (for it's simplicity to raise the point at a committee meeting) was the 'Monthly Inspection of an Indoor Range' document - by my count out of the 23 relevant points that should be answered YES, the club scores a NO on 16 of them! Rather impressive for all the wrong reasons...

Got a link to the document...?

[Blackstuff]

Sounds SO familiar! My indoor clubs range is shockingly bad, i'm always amazed when i find out there are any young or female members go there its that grim. And to be honest i think its the lack of female members that is the problem, especially with the cleanliness of ranges! But i'm not saying that the women should be doing the cleaning, i'm saying the lack of women to EMBARRASS the men into actually doing some cleaning is the problem!

All i can say is i echo whats already been said; you need to get on the committee and get things moving yourself. Beware though, i've seen such a 'coup' go wrong twice and it didn't end well for the main instigators both times

[Mezzer]

No ventilation is a H&S hazard due to lead particulates building up in the air. If it was a military range it'd be closed.
Lighting - doesn't the NSRA have rules on range conditions for shooting in postal leagues etc? My home club used to turn all the lights off, until someone evidently had a look at the rules. Now we shoot with them on, and it's much nicer in general.
Carpets - again, fire hazard, particularly with retaining unburnt propellant if positioned on or in front of the firing points.
Paint - volunteer day with a few buckets.
Down-range clutter - presents a ricochet hazard if someone clips it, claim it or bin it.

I'd be inclined to find a few club and let this one perish to be honest, it sounds like it's in a physically awful state as well as being populated by people who have done what they do for many years and who may be very set in their ways.

Agreed!

Either flatten the place and start again or just let it die.
Turning around a club like this is a truly monumental task and unless you are very thick-skinned, immune to all insults, have the patience of a saint and the energy output of a small tactical nuke ... you are just wasting your time.

Mezzer