GregG wrote:I may be the exception but I can say almost all of the new shooters here in Houston have been and are well into the adulthood. I was 40+. Almost all are 30+ here. Not discounting the young but how many truly young shooter show up, for us it if pretty close to zero. Unless you count for Fathers dragging their kids to the range.

That's my experience as well. If I see someone <18, they are either a child like I mentioned in my first post or a program shooter (like 4H or something). Not counting children and program shooters, I'm usually the youngest at a match at the age of 30. This holds true in benchrest as well, except I've never seen a program shooter.

I agree with you. Not all of the shooting sports have really evolved with times and it's starting to show. I run the website for a couple or ranges and make sure I keep it as up to date as fast as I possibly can. I doubt people are looking at them, but my comment about stagnation not being appealing is the motivator behind that. For the regional indoor air rifle match I have live results being posted in spreadsheet format on the site. Not a picture of a scorecard after the fact. Does it help? Maybe. I can only think of one person that was checking the scores during the match, but it certainly doesn't hurt. At some point, I'll likely live stream the match. My point is that I'm trying to make it as modern as I can to have an appeal to someone my age or younger and it should be done before those shooters are involved. Proactive measures will yield better than reactive or no measures at all.

Dodaddy, you did fail to mention that you were one of those kids that was drug off to shoot the Chipmunk when you were very young. And we didn't have a range to go to, but just one time. Me you and your brother. Precious Memories for a Dad.

dhatch wrote:Dodaddy, you did fail to mention that you were one of those kids that was drug off to shoot the Chipmunk when you were very young. And we didn't have a range to go to, but just one time. Me you and your brother. Precious Memories for a Dad.

I feel like most shooters here that weren't program shooters grew up that way and that's why we shoot now.

I'll never forget having to shoot mistletoe out of a tree. That was tedious.

I know of a few of our new silhouette shooters that came our way by electronic means. We also get club members who have never even heard of silhouette coming to check out a match because they saw it on the club website calendar. I'm over 40 now, but still look for matches of all types on club or competition association websites. I can't remember the last time that I opened and read any paper mail other than a bill, and I often ignore what few of those still come in paper form because I pay them electronically anyway. As a match director, I don't remember the last time someone asked for a printed copy of a match schedule. Everyone asks for a text, email or says they'll just look on the club website calendar. That goes for the 20-somethings as well as the 60-somethings.

Good luck getting the booger eaters who live in virtual reality to join the real world. Play stations don't have rain outs.

Our silhouette matches don't have rainouts either. We're in western Washington. If we didn't shoot in rain, we wouldn't shoot much.

I like club sites that have a lot of photos!

GregG, Times are changin but................... how many new shooters are we going to get that have not shot anywhere before? Now if you are talking about some game on the net, that's different. Them people are a slave to their phones and pads.

Jason a long time ago someone at a CMP match said "We shoot even if its raining mud!" You have to have the dedication for any sport be it ping pong or darts if you expect to be good. I use to teach the boy scouts in marksmanship. I always had to tell the Xbox warriors how none of that works in reality. Most had to learn the hard way.

Another Dang 9 wrote:Jason a long time ago someone at a CMP match said "We shoot even if its raining mud!" You have to have the dedication for any sport be it ping pong or darts if you expect to be good. I use to teach the boy scouts in marksmanship. I always had to tell the Xbox warriors how none of that works in reality. Most had to learn the hard way.

As the match director, I think I owe it to the shooters to give them the opportunity to shoot if they put the time, money and effort into travelling to my match. My only exception to that is if there is some sort of safety issue, of course. I am lucky in that most of my shooters are great about helping set up and take down for the matches. They know that I pay the same match fees that they do and volunteer to run the matches, so we're all in it together. Even if it's very cold, or even snowing, and only a couple people show up, I give them the option of us setting up all of the targets and shooting. They know the effort involved in setup and takedown. Just a couple months ago on a very cold day with questionable weather, we only had three shooters and their kids show up to shoot. Instead of having a match, we just set up the targets and shot at them from whatever position we wanted. The kids shot at the targets from the bench. I didn't shoot and just did my range safety officer duties to keep an eye on everything, as well as helping out with advice and encouragement where I could. We all had a great time, and none of us cared that there was no score in our scorebooks that day.

Back on topic, we use both the club website and Facebook to notify shooters of upcoming matches and if anything changes in the plan (date correction, unexpected circumstance, etc.). Our "President's Message" to members goes out via email. We also have online membership signup and renewals, but members can still do things the old-fashioned way if they choose to. Most use the online way. It seems to work well for us so far.

Jason my point wasn't against those who are dedicated to the sport. I also have been a match director and know all to well how difficult it is to run a match. I stopped because the club did nothing to help and was even actively blocking it.

GregG wrote:If there is a chance a new shooter NOT old as dirt is going to take up the sport they will find it via the world wide thingy.

Jerry G wrote:We keep getting a new batch of old people.

I'm one of those new, old people. Discovered this sport on the web, and was lucky to find 2 clubs within easy driving distance with monthly small bore matches, and another a few hours with a monthly high power match. I don't think I'd be a silhouette shooter if I hadn't found nearby match information on the internet.

Jason wrote:I know of a few of our new silhouette shooters that came our way by electronic means. We also get club members who have never even heard of silhouette coming to check out a match because they saw it on the club website calendar.

same at our club - people come to check out our matches because:
- they heard about silhouette at the orientation session for new club members
- they read about silhouette on the club web site
- they didn't read the range closure schedule on the club web site, and stay to watch after finding out they can't shoot (of course we invite them to join if they have a .22)
Of course these observations are not surprising since we don't do any other promotions (yet!)

OldRanger wrote:p.s. go look at it and tell me what needs fixin! http://www.hellgatecsa.org/id9.html

nice - I was able to find everything I expected

I'm not local, so area codes for the phone numbers would help. I'd prefer an email contact instead of a phone number, but this should be the contact's preference to share phone number and/or email.

Bob Mc Alice wrote:Now here is a club website to be admired.....

http://crci.org/

very admirable - found everything I expected except the start times

Our start times generally are 9 am. Most new shooters contact the match directors for other info related to that particular event. Start time is usually the first question followed by how much $$ and is my gun suitable, how much ammo needed, should I bring lunch, etc.

We did have a non member show up last week to shoot HP with us. He had contacted me through our website. All he had for a gun was an 8mm Spanish Mauser, all military original. I paired him up with an experienced shooter and he shot one 40 shot match. He hit one pig and was thrilled. He vowed to be back with his Dads .270 hunting rifle and plenty of factory ammo. I gained another new HP shooter early this year that had just joined CRC by using our website. He now is shooting the local SB matches, too.

I believe that maintained club websites are a valuable tool to gain new shooters.