Forum Suggestion

[jrywho]

At this point in time there is no reason for someone to join IHMSA unless they travel to Championship matches.

What??? Man, are you ever wrong about that.


Mike

Okay I am open for suggestions!
As a match director I find this the hardest thing to sell to monthly match participants. Most have memberships at Jackson and feel this is adequate. Then there are a few that are members of zero organizations. They are permitted to shoot and are welcomed with open arms. I try to emphasize the value of our Classification cards as a member but most show no interest. The only driving point without compromise is they must be a member to shoot a championship match and win a trophy.
I personally wouldn't think of attending a match without a current IHMSA membership card in my pocket. That is who I am like so many other IHMSA members. We are committed to the growth of the organization. Not everyone attending matches see it this way. They just want to shoot....
So please give me some other advantages of membership. I promise to pass it along to the not so committed this year!!

Thanks

[borregos]

At this point in time there is no reason for someone to join IHMSA unless they travel to Championship matches.

What??? Man, are you ever wrong about that.


Mike

Okay I am open for suggestions!
As a match director I find this the hardest thing to sell to monthly match participants. Most have memberships at Jackson and feel this is adequate. Then there are a few that are members of zero organizations. They are permitted to shoot and are welcomed with open arms. I try to emphasize the value of our Classification cards as a member but most show no interest. The only driving point without compromise is they must be a member to shoot a championship match and win a trophy.
I personally wouldn't think of attending a match without a current IHMSA membership card in my pocket. That is who I am like so many other IHMSA members. We are committed to the growth of the organization. Not everyone attending matches see it this way. They just want to shoot....
So please give me some other advantages of membership. I promise to pass it along to the not so committed this year!!

Thanks

My experience is just the same as this. We are the only range in Ontario now and if anybody wants to shoot silhouette anywhere else it involves a six hour drive and a border crossing into either Ohio or Michigan. I do this four times a year and the only others who do are my daughter and her family! We are very lucky to have the members that we have at our shoots.

[Rodent]

I must have misunderstood your post. I read your post as saying that people should not be a member unless they go to a championship match.

[260 Striker]

We have several shooters who infrequently attend our matches. They just want to shoot maybe once or twice a year. They are always welcome but don't see the "advantage" of belonging to IHMSA since they don't shoot that often. Years ago a non-IHMSA person could shoot as a guest one time but we overlooked that and let them shoot as long as they showed up at our match. Since they only shot at our club, and not that often, there was no incentive to join IHMSA. The economics of shooting steel is also against some people if they do not reload and find factory ammo expensive, or non-existent.

For us die hard steel shooters, we just want to belong to IHMSA even if we only shoot at our local range.

If our prospective Presidential candidates would present their views here or on some member-only forum, then we could possible get some suggestions to entice these occasional shooters to join IHMSA.

If a person was interested if shooting at multiple matches and/or championship matches then they would surely join IHMSA. Otherwise they just show up every so often at local matches to shoot when they can afford it. I think that was the intent of the previous comment.

[jcunclejoe]

It sucks when a match director won't send in the scores and a match report. Us die hard IHMSA shooters love to see our name in the paper. In fact it can be a huge source of pride. Maybe someone could volunteer to do that part for them?
That is actually one benefit of being a member is seeing your name in the standings and how you compare to other shooters around the country.
Another thing to mention to shooters that have no interest in joining is that their membership and fees help keep the sport going and provide for their entertainment. Without the support of members, it could go away someday.
Not to mention that they are "living off the system" shooting a sport that is financially supported by others.
From what I have seen many of those shooters don't show up early or stay late to help set-up or tear down. Also known as ASS shooters, (Arrive, Shoot, Split)
I shoot with many of these guys and it is nice to have them come and shoot, in fact without them one of our ranges would probably close. I would always send in the $1 sanction fee for their entries anyway as there was no discount for not being a member.
Perhaps an extra dollar per entry for Non-members would be an incentive.

I joined IHMSA 19 years ago and have never regretted that decision for a second. I hope my enthusiasm is enough to convince people to join but it does not always work.

Lead by example but don't be afraid to ask for help. it can increase their involvement and perhaps lead to a new membership.

Joe

[i26963]

I haven't posted on this subject, but feel it is time. These are my personal views, and not those of Robert W. or Little River Gun Club.At our first SB match on 2/7, we held an informal meeting at lunch break. General consensus was that we are not getting anything from IHMSA sanction. The match director has said that we will continue to shoot silhouettes, sanction or not, but unless some things change, he doesn't see any benefit to sanction matches. We sort of agreed to wait one more year to see if the new Pres. and organization would be more responsive. Unless the officers of IHMSA make the decision to come on the forum to discuss member's concerns, or address them in some way in a timely manner, IHMSA will lose another range.With the decision to drop the printing of the paper, I don't see anyway for them to eep in touch unless they use social media. The increase in membership fees(not really a concern for me), the continued loss of funds to run the Internationals( a big concern for me), the lack of financial statements(a BIGGER concern for me!), etc. were some of the concerns discussed.
I have shot IHMSA for 33 years and would hate to see clubs drop sanction, but if there are not some substantial changes, it IS going to happen.
Robert Walker and myself will continue to run matches at Little River Gun Club, it will be up to the organization to decide if they will make the effort to assure that we will do it under sanction.
Melvin

[260 Striker]

Melvin, We have had similar discussions at our club. Not that we would pull out of IHMSA but if IHMSA should cease to exist we would still conduct handgun silhouette matches. I think many clubs would continue to hold matches too. The issue then would be to have some common way to share match information/schedules so shooters could continue to shoot at multiple ranges and not just their local range. I'm hoping we will never have to face that situation and share your hope that changes may be coming that will strengthen IHMSA. Two way communication is probably the most important improvement that should happen. When the membership feels they are a part of the organization and not just paying dues then interest will grow. IHMSA still needs to get more word out to the shooting public about our sport. Hopefully TV coverage for one of our major events will stimulate more interest in our sport. The local clubs are the life blood of IHMSA. While I support championship matches and hope to attend some in the future the local clubs are keeping our sport alive.

[19 Turkeys]

I certainly understand members' frustration with IHMSA's decline, reduction in services, failure of leadership to be transparent (financials for one, refusal to come on the forum (except for a couple of really stand up region directors). Now, I would like to propose a solution which I plan on bringing up at the membership meeting at the Internationals (it will always be the Internationals to me) this year. This plan does have one assumption, that being we will have positive cash flow. Let's look at the following. How many dues paying members do we have? Let's say 600. That will generate $30,000 in revenue. If we shoot 2,000 entries (a really low number I would think) that's another $2,000 in revenue. Expenses have to be low. (We need to demand a budget at the Internationals folks.) We can't have $32,000 in expenses. The excess cash revenue should be spent getting some public recognition for this sport. How much would it cost to hire a public relations firm? Advertising in some really big magazines like American Handgunner with PROFESSIONALLY created ads, not some member generated mediocre piece.

Just some positive ideas to kick around.

Steve W.

[hardtoseeovergut]

If they're in Region 3 they could win an unlimited 22 pistol for joining!

[260 Striker]

Steve,
Even if we have 600 active members, how many of them are life members? Since they have bought a life membership, do they pay any annual dues? I don't think so. I made a decision years ago to renew on an annual basis. Probably could have saved lots of money by now having been a continuous member since 1980 but felt it was better to pay annually instead of paying a one time fee. I'm not trying to give the life members a hard time but the annual income from dues cannot be accurately determined just by counting active members. All the other comments I totally agree with. We are a satellite club of a county conservation club and conduct our matches on their property. Many of the new people who stop at our matches really showed up to use the conservation club target range and we just happened to be conduction a match so they stop and watch. Usually their comments include "I never heard of handgun silhouette shooting" or something to that affect. I have said for years the IHMSA is one of the best kept secrets of all the shooting sports. That is also why I tried to stimulate some TV coverage by Shooting USA for one of our championship matches. We can't get new people interested if they have never heard of IHMSA and silhouette shooting. IPSC, 3-gun, cowboy shooting and others seem to get their fair share of TV exposure so I think it is about time for IHMSA to get some coverage too. Paying for a professional advertiser may be a step in the right direction.