STEVE WARE'S LETTER TO EDITOR

[338whisper2]

xp-100 is right,it should be 100% none profit.besides that I think before you can become a regional director you should be a life member not just an annual member and at least support your regions.

[KickBass]

With the financial health and uncertainty of IHMSA right now, who is willing to sign up for a life membership?

[TEFREY]

Here's my thoughts. They have not been well received in the past, but I'm not gonna give up.

1. Cut the office to part-time. If you are going to pay someone $16.83 an hour, they should be able to get their work done in 4 hour days. They don't need 8 hours a day to work our tiny membership. If they do, farm it out to volunteers. We're out here.

2. Print the IHMSA News quarterly. Seems like the reports get submitted like that anyway. (not complaining about the directors. Never complain about volunteers. I'm the treasurer for the Cheyenne Rifle and Pistol Club. It sucks, May actually help the directors to make it quarterly) And sell some advertising. as anyone tried to sell advertising for the IHMSA news lately? If we are doing our int's in a city, go sell some ad space in those places. Sell some to other places like Graf, Midsouth, Midway, etc. Offer buy one, get one. We have the space. Drop the price and work off volume. Surely we have an ad exec out there that can guide us, if not actually going out in the field.

3. Cut the travel cost for internationals. We should pay for them to get there, attend the annual meeting, and go home. And only the people required to be there, per charter. I see no reason to pay the freight for those not required to be there for the annual meeting, especially if you can't get their ass on the line to help out. Joe and Teresa Coleman are always on the line with vests, and poor Allen Gaskin got railroaded into spending a hell of a lot of time running the line last year, and it was his first international. Not cool. And there are some people who we pay to be there that won't participate in running the show at all, as I have heard. Pay to get them there, if you must, the one overnight stay to attend the meeting, and FMV to get home. If the charter says we have to bring all these people in, we need to change the charter. Maybe to a conference call.

Anyway, that's what I see as the big financial problems. Take it or leave it.

[TEFREY]

Oh, and one more thing.

It is up to us to recruit more members, as Steve said earlier. Like my business, my clients bring me more new clients than I can buy in a year. IHMSA Corp can't grow the membership. period. We all have that person that wants to check it out, but when we get a chance to go to the range, we need to get work done, and don't have time to mentor. New membership isn't the answer-living within our means is-but even though I hang out with a bunch of clowns who are too long in the tooth to start a new hobby (drunks) I still have a body who is interested and I have not made the time to get him to the range.

We may not all be guilty of my sin, but I'm sure a bunch of us are.

[xp-100]

TEFREY, best I have heard yet. Now, this makes sense.

[LOCKHART]

What about lettin the match directors take in the annual membership
renewals at the club level? I sent mine in first part of January, as it
expired last day. I finally got mine this week! I know its more work
for the director, but its just a suggestion. I'm ready to be flamed by
all the match directors, now!

[DaveC]

My 2 cents.

First, new shooters – no-so-much. Weekend Glock/IDPA matches at any local club draw more shooters than most Regional IHMSA matches. Is that something we can fix? Probably not, just look at NRA’s change in focus in the 1970’s from hunting to self-defense, the shooting public has changed, as hunting in general has declined the handgun hunter has also declined. And face it, it’s not easy to get good at IHMSA while IDPA is simpler, more action packed and fairly inexpensive to start and much more relevant to the majority of new shooters.

Second, new clubs offering matches. It’s unbelievably expensive for a club to add metal silhouette for their membership. As clubs drop silhouette maybe we need someone to acquire/track the targets and make them available to other clubs for expansion or to start new programs. Maybe we need to change the rules so that a club can start offering or even continue offering silhouette with paper targets.

Central organization. I for one think we need a central organization to coordinate state/regional/national matches but I’d be fine if that was NRA. Monthly results can easily be posted on line as is done here in Georgia by Mr. Walker, Mr. Dixon and Mr. Calliham. The big problem today is that nobody is coordinating state/regional matches so that they are complementary and not in conflict. Well run and advertised regional matches are cheaper to attend and might get more shooters involved while the national match could easily become semi-annual. (How many of YOU shot at more than 2 clubs last year - not more than 2 matches but more than 2 locations).

Finally, IHMSA is never going back to the 1970’s. I appreciate the job done by today’s IHMSA leadership but we need to look forward not fondly reminisce about the past.

[high standard 40]

Dave C.
I agree with most of what you offered, and thank you for thinking about and attempting to address the issue. The fact that society and the general shooting public has changed is what I believe to be the single largest factor in our slow decay and we can't fix that. But in regards to paper targets, if that is the future of the sport, then I will have to take my toys and go home. The metal targets and their reaction when hit are what drew me to the sport. Paper just won't cut it with me. I'm not sure there is an easy answer. It all saddens me greatly. As far as attending matches at different clubs, I made it to 3 different ranges last year. One range is local to me (but no Big Bore), one is 160 miles away (and this is their last year to sponser matches), and I made it to the Region 2 match in North Carolina (a 2 day drive). When 2015 arrives, the closest Big Bore range to me will be a 4-5 hour drive, unless we can complete construction of a new range I am trying to helping to push through which will be an hour from where I live. When completed, we will have to share match day with the NRA Cowboy Lever Action shooters, and this is something I think perhaps many clubs can benefit from and may help keep us viable for a while longer. Follow my logic here as it applies in particular, to my local matches.

Like many clubs, our participation has been in decline for some time now. I have had matches where only two entries were fired. Our best matches last year had on average only maybe 12 entries. I struggled on, refused to throw in the towel, and started looking for ways to keep the program alive. The question has been asked, how do we grow IHMSA? At least in my area of the country, I don't see that happening. I've tried for years. So how do you get enough people at the match to keep the program alive? I started this year adding NRA Smallbore Lever Action to my match. I immediately doubled participation at my matches. The targets are 1/2 scale so I already had those, the distances are similar ( I had to add a few more rails), and the load and fire times are the same as IHMSA. I now have double the shooters. NRA does not require a match sanction fee but I go ahead and send IHMSA $1.00 for each rifle shooter anyway. I'm smart enough to realize that this small monetary contribution to IHMSA will not stop the bleeding but I send it along anyway. So again, how does adding NRA Cowboy grow IHMSA? Well obviously it doesn't. But it does allow a club to continue a silhouette program because of increased participation at the club level. And consider this, if there is no silhouette program, there is no IHMSA.

Food for thought.

[Richard Pickering]

I believe Dave's reference to using paper is directed toward having clubs try out IHMSA without having to invest heavily in targets they may not find they will need. Certainly the clang of metal is lost. If there is interest in bringing a full IHMSA program they can locate and buy proper targets. rp

[danhornet]

hi folks,
just would like to add my 2 bits here. i have not shot ihmsa for about 4 years now, that 6 hour round trip gets longer and longer. as you know, most shooting has dropped off quite abit, but two things that i see are, one most of our shooters are in their late fiftys and deep into the sixtys. so it will be hard to get new shooters to try. travel and other things in life have taken over. for ihmsa to survive, i think we may have to shoot the nra distances of 40,60,75,100., not saying we have to join nra, but may then have a place to shoot. i still pay my dues, trying to keep ihmsa afloat, but for a non shooter that is a good chunk of change. yes i will try and make that long round trip this year, but this was my 2 bits.....danhornet