TargetTalk

This "vent" will either stir the pot or someone will explain what is up.
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Last year we had a set of Air Rifle league matches between various clubs and teams ... 4-H and JROTC (Sporter & Prec). We were able to sanction these matches thru USA Shooting by filling out a simple form, and then submitting $8 and our match program to USAS.

Towards the end of the year USAS informed us that we no longer had to submit the $8 sanctioning fee.

We felt that this was a much preferred sanctioning option than say an NRA match or a CMP match as we did not have to charge an entry fee to each shooter for the match.

Now, this year we have been told (by USAS) that they are essentially out of the Air Rifle sanctioning business, although you will not see this on their website ... you will still see all the previous procedures for sanctioning a match.
("Too many people griped at the $8 sanction fee" ... WHAT??? This was the most effective sanctioning method available. I'd like to know if ANYONE griped about this....)

To me this means that all USAS is willing to do is sanction the JO's and not any other matches. How do the rest of you all read this? To me I think this is an "interesting" way to try and grow these programs.

Heck, if they don't have the manpower in CSPR, then I >>think<< there are a few volunteers that could help them out ... I see a lot of committed people at the coaches conferences......

OK ... Vent over
(I thought about adding a poll, but this post will put me in the doghouse enough)

To answer parts of your question, I had some questions I asked USAS about what they were sanctioning this year before I put on my Regional. The answer I got was that you can still put on the 3P Air for a USAS match, but they are no longer taking the scores and therefore no longer needed to send in the $8 fee for3P Air. The reason for the decision is that they could no longer justify the program because it wasn't having the effect of increasing the smallbore rifle pool. The size of the pool wasn't growing any bigger since they started the program.

I imagine it was done because of cost and staffing considerations and I suspect that is one reason the NRA and USAS are know talking about combining the 3P airgun events into one event instead of two separate events. They are under considerable pressure to produce medal winners and their operating budget isn't all that big considering what the other nations are pouring into their programs.

USAS has a major PR problem to overcome. A majority of the people (including shooters) in this country don't even know they exist. It is hard to get financial and material support if few people don't know you exist. We have a similar problem with just our little club. Our events our published in our main parent club and the 4H newsletters. The local newspapers has published articles and pictures of our matches and most of the people in the community after seven years still don't know we exist. The main problem with these avenues of advertisement is that people do selective reading when they read newspapers or newsletters and I suspect for those that bother reading these forms of media filter out these articles. It dosen't grab them as much as an articles that says "the price of gasoline is going to go up another $1".

They are still sanctioning the other airgun events. USAS is just not doing anything with the 3P Air Rifle event at this time. We continue to hold the 3P Air event even though they aren't doing anything with the score. It hasn't affected interest in shooting the event. In fact it generated more interest because we only charged half as much because we didn't have to send the $8 to USA Shooting.

jhmartin wrote:This "vent" will either stir the pot or someone will explain what is up.
============================================

Last year we had a set of Air Rifle league matches between various clubs and teams ... 4-H and JROTC (Sporter & Prec). We were able to sanction these matches thru USA Shooting by filling out a simple form, and then submitting $8 and our match program to USAS.

Towards the end of the year USAS informed us that we no longer had to submit the $8 sanctioning fee.

We felt that this was a much preferred sanctioning option than say an NRA match or a CMP match as we did not have to charge an entry fee to each shooter for the match.

Now, this year we have been told (by USAS) that they are essentially out of the Air Rifle sanctioning business, although you will not see this on their website ... you will still see all the previous procedures for sanctioning a match.
("Too many people griped at the $8 sanction fee" ... WHAT??? This was the most effective sanctioning method available. I'd like to know if ANYONE griped about this....)

To me this means that all USAS is willing to do is sanction the JO's and not any other matches. How do the rest of you all read this? To me I think this is an "interesting" way to try and grow these programs.

Heck, if they don't have the manpower in CSPR, then I >>think<< there are a few volunteers that could help them out ... I see a lot of committed people at the coaches conferences......

OK ... Vent over
(I thought about adding a poll, but this post will put me in the doghouse enough)

That's basically the story we got back in April and May as well.

However, just last week we were told that they aren't really interested in 3-P air sanctioning at all.

(However, they have not given up the JO 3-P air events)

I do understand their frustration, but I don't really understand their explanations.

I'll agree that 4-H (nationally) does nothing to move shooters from 3-P air sporter to 3-P air precision (some states like Nebraska do), but we do in fact move kids from 3-P air to INTL and 3-P smallbore

JROTC cannot move kids from air to smallbore within their programs.

I'd rather they say "well, we just cannot afford to do that" than to come up with the "lack of progression" argument.

If they were serious about progression, then they would find people that would help out without the pay ... i.e volunteers. They do have quite a few people that would be willing. They have the state coordinators for Youth 3-P Air Rifle (if they are out of the 3-P air rifle for youth what are these folks to do, other than coordinate JOs?)

If they want the progression they should have (volunteer) coordinators for:

3-P Air Rifle
INTL Air Rifle
3-P Smallbore
Prone Smallbore
Intl Smallbore

AND ideally, they should NOT be the same person ... there is a lot of work here.

They could find a (volunteer) person to coordinate the scores from across the US in all these disciplines .... but they have to ask for the help, not just determine that their staff is overworked.

(oops .... I guess the vent switch was still in the ON position...)

Did you make those suggestions or arguements at the coaches conference? They are getting the same number of smallbore rifle shooters without the 3P Air program, so in their minds it just wasn't worth running the program. However, if you thnk there is enough volunteers to do the work you can make that suggestion. I know some of the state coordinators and for most of them they wouldn't have time to take on a task like that plus do their full time job.

Getting enough volunteers to do this task from across the nation would be a huge task. I can't even think of anybody that would want to take on a task like that as a volunteer. I don't even know of anybody that is retired that would want to take on a task like that full time. I have dealt with getting volunteers for many years and for most of them with jobs this task would receive a low priority. They would only do the task if they had any spare time. I have that problem with the volunteers I can get. They will do a task for the club only if it is a short time task and nothing long term.

If the NRA and USAS can settle their differences the program can probably be resumed.

jhmartin wrote:That's basically the story we got back in April and May as well.

However, just last week we were told that they aren't really interested in 3-P air sanctioning at all.

(However, they have not given up the JO 3-P air events)

I do understand their frustration, but I don't really understand their explanations.

I'll agree that 4-H (nationally) does nothing to move shooters from 3-P air sporter to 3-P air precision (some states like Nebraska do), but we do in fact move kids from 3-P air to INTL and 3-P smallbore

JROTC cannot move kids from air to smallbore within their programs.

I'd rather they say "well, we just cannot afford to do that" than to come up with the "lack of progression" argument.

If they were serious about progression, then they would find people that would help out without the pay ... i.e volunteers. They do have quite a few people that would be willing. They have the state coordinators for Youth 3-P Air Rifle (if they are out of the 3-P air rifle for youth what are these folks to do, other than coordinate JOs?)

If they want the progression they should have (volunteer) coordinators for:

3-P Air Rifle
INTL Air Rifle
3-P Smallbore
Prone Smallbore
Intl Smallbore

AND ideally, they should NOT be the same person ... there is a lot of work here.

They could find a (volunteer) person to coordinate the scores from across the US in all these disciplines .... but they have to ask for the help, not just determine that their staff is overworked.

(oops .... I guess the vent switch was still in the ON position...)

These 3P air rifle matches will be sanctioned through the CMP. My understanding is that the CMP is working on the details and the enty forms during October. Hopefully by the end of October they will have it put together.

I am waiting on further details.