My last gunshow

[10x]

I have been organizing and running the local gun show to fund raise for the local gun club for the past nine years.
For the first 7 years there was no problem getting volunteers out to move tables and work at the show. I have never taken a nickle out of the cash the show generates and probably spend about $200 every year on expenses I do not claim.
Every one was happy with the show I organized Sunday but of 300 club members only 2 stepped up help move and place tables.
We borrowed tables from 2 community halls and one town recreation board to make 120 tables to move.
On Sunday the show ended at 3:30, Three gun club members and myself were folding table legs and stacking the tables by the door. About 3/4 of the tables were stacked by 5:00 pm I had 80 tables to move back to their owners that evening and at 5:00 pm just when it was time to load them and return them to the community halls I had borrowed them from the club president said " I have to leave and have supper with my wife." His buddy said " I have to go too , I'm driving him". At that point I felt just like the guy who's girlfriend told him "We can always be friends". That left me and my friend Mike to haul the tables. Mike is 51 and recovering from a heart attack and heart surgery from two years ago. I need to have both knees replaced and may need a hip replacement in the next two years. I got home at 9:00 pm Sunday night and I just finished hauling the last of the tables and doing the clean up an at 5:00 pm on Monday - all by my self.
Apparently the club doesn't need the $6000.000 raised by the gun show so there is no point in doing it any more.

To add insult to injury two years ago I set up the application for a $40,000.00 government grant to improve the range and made sure the club got it.
Sometimes it just does not pay to do anything nice for anyone.

[Fishman]

I think you need to tell them how you are feeling and not us. I can sympathize but that is of little practical use.

[Plinkster]

I agree with Fishman, that's a terrible situation you were left in and I would probably feel the same way however, unless you've made clear how much help you really need for the event it's just useless complaining. Now don't get me wrong I'm not try to lay any blame at your feet at all. Our club puts out a number of volunteers needed at an event in the newsletters running up to it. Say we need 40 volunteers for a show, the news letters will ask for 50 or 60 and count down as slots are filled that way when you end up with extra volunteers and tell guys they can go early they usually are happy. Then they are likely to either volunteer again or just stick around and make sure you have extra hands. Might be a good route for your club, any direction you go make sure they know how little help you've received and that its just not possible to put on another one without more help.

[starmac]

Personally I wouldn't talk to anyone, or even tell them I was not going to do it until the last minute. I'm pretty sure I would give the club president about as much respect as he himself showed.

[gandydancer]

I'm with Starmac that's the way to go about it IMO. ( but I have been wrong before)

[10x]

There were signs at the gun range.
There was an email sent to over 200 club members requesting help.
There were a number of club members who promised to help but didn't show.
Club members were aware of the need and the routine to help.

The real kicker was that the Secretary of the club held a shoot at the range on the weekend of the gun show and never even bothered to show up. The date of the show was set in November of last year. And that was when I started advertising and soliciting help.

I am starting to believe our gun club members are simply consumers and do not realize that when they buy a membership they become part of the club. I am also starting to realize that they do not understand the importance of fund raising to keep the cost of membership down and to allow major capital development at the gun range. Replacement value of what we have may well be between $750,000.00 to a million dollars. Membership fees are $75.00 a year with no supervised use and very few days of closure due to rentals.

An example of the attitude is the trap coordinator. He will stuff cardboard boxes from clays into the dumpster - filling it in two to three weeks. We can return the boxes if we carefully flatten them and get a small credit. The company that manufactures the clays and can take the flattened boxes on the backhaul when they deliver clays once or twice a year. Or he could flatten the boxes before tossing them into the dumpster. Or he could take the boxes over to the fire pit (about 60 yards away from the dumpster) and burn them, or he could take them to the cardboard recycle place. In fact he said "some one should be taking these to the recycle bin". My reply was "be my guest" as he continued to toss them into the dumpster. The garbage company charges $160.00 to dump it and there is no other option...

btw: our fire pit is an 8 foot diameter rim from a large rock hauler - it is a thing of beauty...
Ask not what your gun club can do for you but what you can do for your gun club.

[Czech_too]

At the club/range, to which I belong, there are a group of 4 individuals, out of 750 members, who do the bulk of the maintainance. We are there every Friday mowing the range or doing routine maintainance, whatever needs to be done. Occasionally another member will thank or compliment us on the work that we do, but only occasionally. So I have to agree when you say "I am starting to believe our gun club members are simply consumers and do not realize that when they buy a membership they become part of the club."

[Plinkster]

Yeeesh, sorry 10x my answer now changes to +2 on starmac.

[Splatter]

In our little town, we've put on a rodeo since 1919, all run by volunteers.
In the past 3-or-4 years, it's been getting harder and harder to find the people to run it.


We have a volunteer medical first-responder society, because the nearest provincial ambulance station is about 30 minutes away.
When I joined, about 15 years ago, there were 24 members, today there are 7, and we still respond to about 80 calls a year.

The Rescue Unit is also a society of volunteers, and it's down to about 4 members.

In my conversations with other similar orgs around the province, they are also having a tough time keeping their organizations going.
I guess it's not just a local trend, it seems to be affecting much of the western world.

[largom]

Have belonged to several gun clubs in the past. Your experience is the reason that I do not belong to any today.

Larry

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

the Elks Club runs the local Gunshow in my area (not my sportsman club).
they hire the local Boy scouts for setup and cleanup, and tear down.

IF you change your mind about not running the gunshow, and chose to run it again,
a healthy donation to the Boy scouts (like $1000) for their help wouldn't be out of order.
the money goes to an excellent cause...and it may be a burr in some of your club's members
that $1000 is funnelled off from the take for something they could easily do.
Jon

[Boyscout]

I have always worked demanding jobs with long hours which leave little time for family or church. I put a lot of time into Scouts while my sons were in. I belonged to a gun club one year and the work parties were always on Sunday mornings. The best I could do is take extra time with my boys policing the area around us cleaning up after ourselves and others who were not so courteous.

Sunday shoots were the main reason I never got involved in any competitive shooting. Don't have a problem shooting on Sunday afternoons but I will be somewhere else that morning. Obviously a Friday work party would not work in my situation so that leaves me in the position of "consumer."

[felix]

Yep, everyone wants to be democrats, knowingly or not. I want it, and I want it NOW. It's everybody else's fault! I paid for it, so I am king, and everyone else is my slave. On and on. ... felix

It appears Splatter, above post, is correct. ... felix

[craig61a]

Sounds familiar... I belong to a gun club and a Legion post where the number of volunteers vs members is a very small group and always the same people.

[captaint]

10X - You're doing the right thing. And you're doing it by yourself. That can't continue. You need to get firm commitments from members (and yes, they are just consumers). We're all busy with our lives. Some folks just seem to think that their time is more valuable than everyone else's. Their time is special. I think once they believe you will quit doing these things unless you get help, they'll listen and understand. Obviously, you really do care. Now, if you can get some other folks to care too. enjoy Mike

[LAH]

10X I can't speak for anyone but myself but giving the way things are going I would just stop. They will figure it out when the show doesn't happen. Might be a good day to be at the range.

[bowfin]

+# on Starmac.

Don't tell anyone this is your last gun show. Otherwise, you will be persuaded that next time will be totally different...and it will be, for half of the next gun show. Then you will be right back to where you were, loading all the tables yourself the one after that.

We had a local conservation organization that had 300 members who regularly used the camping, shooting, and fishing grounds. The ten that took care of it passed a rule (no one showed up to the meetings, either) that everybody had to put in a certain amount of work to keep their memberships, since the campground upkeep was eating up all those ten people's free time. Over half of the people quit, giving long, melodramatic tirades about their family ties over the generations with the club and how it was being wrenched away. It's the old story about the Little Red Hen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen

[10x]

the Elks Club runs the local Gunshow in my area (not my sportsman club).
they hire the local Boy scouts for setup and cleanup, and tear down.

IF you change your mind about not running the gunshow, and chose to run it again,
a healthy donation to the Boy scouts (like $1000) for their help wouldn't be out of order.
the money goes to an excellent cause...and it may be a burr in some of your club's members
that $1000 is funnelled off from the take for something they could easily do.
Jon

Would that we had a Boy Scouts Troop in town. That being said we have Air Cadets but they are mostly under 15. Every volunteer group in the region faces the same problem of getting help that I do.
I offered the show to another club 50 miles away. The president told me he can't get 5 people (out of 200 members) together in a room a meeting - they have 6 executive....

I could get a crew of inmates from the jail to do setup and take down but the optics on that have some weird shades.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I used to be the Prez. of a sportsmans club that had a nice 100 yd. range. There was a lot of talk about making it a 200 yd. range. We asked the National Guard post if they would do the earth moving as a training exercise. There were about 6 - 8 volunteers from the club that said they would be there to help on the chosen day. The day came as did the Guard with several dozers and 10 trainees. I showed up and nobody else bothered. I had a recovering knee surgery and have a heart problem and ailing back. The work of clearing the range of benches and all other items fell to me, the Guard didn`t offer any help for moving this stuff. The next week I caught Holy H**L from the "Helpers" about how the range was made! I would reply simply "Yes, I did it my way since you and the others didn`t show"! I left the club the following year because of this type of "help" and other happenings ranging from theft of property to loss of donated items at a game dinner as prizes that nobody would own up to.Robert

[km101]

I seems to be the same everyhwere. Our club is the same way, and our Western Week activities are coordinated and put on by the same 20-25 people each year. I dont have the answer for how to improve it, but if I were in your place I would let everyone know that if help were not forthcoming, this would be my last show! You obviously dont want to continue as it is and you should not have to.

Draw the line!