Starting a local range league.

I would like to start a Bullseye league at the range I'm a member of. Then hopefully one day host an actual NRA match, if I can get enough people to volunteer to help. My question is, how do I, or how do I convince the Board of the range to work with me on this?

A little story:

I became a member there 3 years ago, after being invited to shoot in a Bullseye league they had. I shot the two practice nights, but couldn't participate in the 6 week long league because of prior commitments. They only had 6 shooters that shot the league that year, so they discontinued Bullseye. I asked the President of the range to reconsider, his reply was "Absolutely not, it ain't going to happen." Why, I'm not sure, but a wild guess is, he doesn't do well at Bullseye, he's lucky to shoot a 200 NMC. But that's okay, every one of us shot below a 200 our first time, or at least I sure did. So the following year, the club had a new President, so I asked him about it. He at least was open minded enough to consider it, but never put it together. This guy was like that, he promised the world, but never followed through on one single thing. So now he's no longer President, we are back to the guy that said "Absolutely not". 

On a side note, they currently have a rolling "Combat Pistol" league year around. Two weeks practice, 6 week league, two weeks off, repeat repeat. Two sessions ago they only had 3 shooters that finished the full 6 weeks. 3 shooters in Combat Pistol is okay, but 6 shooters in Bullseye is cause for cancellation I guess. 

Second side note. This club recently became NRA affiliated. Isn't it a rule that to be an NRA affiliated club, you must host NRA events such as, at the least, local leagues? Maybe not? I'm not sure? 

So, what would / could I say to convince them to give it a try again? Any buzz words or buzz phrases that might work? Thanks.

I don't know about buzzwords, but one of the things that I bring to (and pass around at) clinics that I teach is a scorecard from my earliest days of shooting bullseye, in which I scored a whopping 100 in a National Match Course (technically a Gallery Match Course because it was indoors at 50'). The point of it is that everyone starts somewhere.

You need to find out why it's an "absolutely not", and start chipping away at those reasons. Club politics are fickle, and the smaller the club, the stranger the politics. At one club I belong to, a proposal for spending $400 for target carriers generates 30 minutes of discussion, and passes on a split vote, while a proposal to spend $1,000 on a club dinner passes unanimously with no discussion. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Don't get me started...)

I failed to add: good luck!

I help run a year-round (outdoor!) league in Northern California. It's HFW but we're doing what we can to keep bullseye alive, and AFAIK the participants enjoy it. 

Happy to share more details about how it's run if you are interested.

One thing I did to increase participation (we were getting 4-8 competitors at the monthly match) was to have a marksmanship instruction session the day before for club members. Free to them of course. I'm not in John's class (though I did beat him once in 45 slow fire - the fact that it was blowing a gale and raining had nothing to do with it ) but anyone who is vaguely competent at bullseye is a whole lot better than 90%+ of handgun owners who are generally inculcated with the belief that 15-20 ft is the maximum effective range for a pistol.

Over a year or so I got that up to 20+ participants on a regular basis - so I started an informal match to run after it. Still a no-pressure, have fun learning type thing.  We started to get people moving into the Sunday main match from that.

My job moved me away not long after this but I'm on the mailing list for the scores and clearly the match director who succeeded me is doing something right given the number of competitors he's regularly getting.

The point behind this is that instead of getting permission to start a bullseye league you might be able to grow one organically. Once you have 10-20 (or more) members that want to do something it'll probably happen.

Mike,
Does that club have a Board of Directors or is it just a few Officers? The club Constitution and Bylaws probably state that all events held at the club need to be approved by the BOD and not just the President. If so, talk to the other members of the BOD to see if you can get them interested and on your side. Make sure you are at the meeting when the approval vote is taken, and that a full discussion is conducted prior to the vote with your reasons heard. here is something to consider...get on the Board yourself and change the way the club is run.
As you know, action pistol shooters that shoot bullseye benefit greatly, and see their scores in action pistol typically go up exponentially. Talk to some of the action pistol guys and see if some of them will shoot with you. Some of those guys I recruited for our local programs from IDPA, PPC etc. are the best recruiters for other new shooters to participate.
As Straybrit stated above, free marksmanship sessions help a lot to keep interest and participation up. Run a NRA Bullseye Qualification Program in conjunction with the sessions. The award program is designed around getting new shooters started and the patches and rockers keep folks coming back. Once their interest is peaked, some will typically enter the normal classification system. I run the program in parallel with our normal Monday night program, and folks earn the rockers as their skills improve.
Most of all, keep at it and don't give up!  Hope the above helps. and wish you all the best!

TonyH wrote:Mike,
Does that club have a Board of Directors or is it just a few Officers? The club Constitution and Bylaws probably state that all events held at the club need to be approved by the BOD and not just the President. If so, talk to the other members of the BOD to see if you can get them interested and on your side. Make sure you are at the meeting when the approval vote is taken, and that a full discussion is conducted prior to the vote with your reasons heard. here is something to consider...get on the Board yourself and change the way the club is run.
As you know, action pistol shooters that shoot bullseye benefit greatly, and see their scores in action pistol typically go up exponentially. Talk to some of the action pistol guys and see if some of them will shoot with you. Some of those guys I recruited for our local programs from IDPA, PPC etc. are the best recruiters for other new shooters to participate.
As Straybrit stated above, free marksmanship sessions help a lot to keep interest and participation up. Run a NRA Bullseye Qualification Program in conjunction with the sessions. The award program is designed around getting new shooters started and the patches and rockers keep folks coming back. Once their interest is peaked, some will typically enter the normal classification system. I run the program in parallel with our normal Monday night program, and folks earn the rockers as their skills improve.
Most of all, keep at it and don't give up!  Hope the above helps. and wish you all the best!

+1

According to the By-Laws, it's a Board of Directors. I see no mention of events, or a Director of events in the By-Laws. Guess I'll have to ask about it.

I like the idea of running a NRA Bullseye Qualification Program. Maybe a few people will get hooked on it and we could start a League.

Mike, i see you are in Illinois. Where do you live and where is the range?

weber1b wrote:Mike, i see you are in Illinois. Where do you live and where is the range?

I live near Princeton. Range is near Rock Falls.