Range Dues

[Kraschenbirn]

$100 a year dues and we've got 25 and 50-yard pistol (and pistol-caliber rifles) with covered firing line; 100, 200, and-300 yard high-power rifle (also covered firing line); and no shotgun (other than 'tactical'). Club owns the land outright and is far enough out in the sticks that there's no plausible threat of any urban encroachment.' There is an initiation fee but having been a member for over 30 years, I haven't a clue what the current amount might be.

Our club's internal 'politics' are about the same as everyone else's. When I first joined, metallic silhouette was the hot ticket and the IHMSA shooters ran the show. As that died down, it became PPC, steel plate, and bowling pins with the 'speed' guys ruling the roost. Now, it's all 'tactical', like 'steel challenge' and three-gun matches. Over the last year and a half, the steel-clangers have packed the Executive Board, spending most of the club's liquid assets (over $50K) rearranging the range layout so that they can run multiple courses of fire at the same time...but they've never had more than 20 shooters show up for a scheduled match (last week-end's 3-gun drew 16 shooters...and 5 of those weren't club members).

Bill

[sundog]

Any time money is exchange for goods and services there must be an accounting system. It matters not whether it be stubby pencil or computerized, but it must be accurate.

A member owned rod and gun club is a BUSINESS, like it or not.

Venues must support themselves. For example (I'll use this because I have personal knowledge), if shotgun targets (just the cost of the target, item cost, tax, and delivery) cost ten cents apiece and the shooter is only paying five cents, that is a problem. A BIG problem.

In addition, like has been mentioned before, there is also machine cost and maintenance, utilities, grounds and buildings (club house and target storage), and other miscellaneous costs.

I can tell you right now that at a 'normal' trap and/or skeet range, two dollars ain't even close to the right price. If those who insist this is 'right', they are basically STEALING goods and services from the rest of the membership.

An open an honest set of books is tantamount to the operation of a good club. Honest operation also keeps members from developing hard feelings for one another (sometimes).

Bylaws, standing operating procedures, and range rules must be well documented and understood by the membership.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of having a treasurer and budget and audit committees who understand generally accepted accounting principles.

Go have your fun, socialize, and be safe. Don't forget that your club is a business and has to be operated as such to be successful.

[jcwit]

I belong to 3 clubs, 2 are outdoor ranges and 1 is an indoor range.

One of the outdoor and the indoor range I am grandfathered into, no dues.

The other outdoor range I am an Honorary member, no dues.

The indoor range has only a 50 foot range, dues for members is $125 per year and it is available to members 24/7 unless the is a schduled match of some kind.

The outdoor range I am grandfathered into has a shotgun area, 150 yd high power range, covered with a "shooters shack", and a 70 yd. covered pistol range. IIRC dues are $75 a year, might be wrong.

The range I am an Honorary member of has a covered range for 100 shooters out to 100 yds. Cowboy matches are held there also. It also is the range that the NRA holds their National Small Bore Matches at. Membership is $75. a year for general membership with a small amout for an electronic key to get in whenever one wishes to.

[LakeviewBulldog]

Fees where I live are ridiculous for shooting club memberships. Most run in the $500 a year range with one of the elite clubs in the area at $1000 a year. I'm lucky that I have a public range within an hours drive of me, although you have to watch your back at the public range because there is no safety officer and people do some really dumb and dangerous stuff there. I just try to get there early and leave before the yahoos get there.

[PerpetualStudent]

*whistle*

If my dues were as high as most in this thread about the only range time I'd get would be with an airgun.

We have Trap, Skeet, and 5 stand clays as well as events with true sporting clays. Archery stands, indoor archery, and 2 outdoor rifle,pistol ranges. One 50yds one 100 yds.

Dues are 30 bucks a year plus a 3 Dollar range fee per day you use it. Trap is 3 or 4 bucks a round.

Even with those reasonable prices I don't get there as often as I'd like, hazards of being a young father. But high prices like that...it's golf like prices and that'd be too rich for this young father.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I think some of you are missing the point rtracy was making and it wasn't about range dues, it was about what shot gunners do with the money. At the range I wrote about earlier the president / pellet person would come over to the rifle & pistol range and simply raise the shooting fees. It wasn't put up to a vote. What really irritated the people on our side was the fact that we brought in the money but we didn't get the bennys. On the weekend the rifle pistol side was filled with casual shooters. Nobody just decided for the first time they are going down to the range and shoot a few rounds of trap. One range I belonged to for over thirty years was closed by shot gunners. It was located on a Union Oil lease and it was there since 1949. We had card keys and if we wanted to go shooting at midnight, we could. The range had powerful lights and protected lights at every hundred yard target. You just had to screw in a bulb. The shot gunners took over that range as well. The range had 400 members and it was not easy to join. Each year they would allow a limited number of new members in each shooting group. I joined with the muzzle loaders. At some point a new property manager was brought in by Union Oil. He had no idea there was a range on the property. Shortly after he was given the job the range board of directors decided to raise the membership to 500 members. The pellet people wanted more of their kind. Well the range president goes into the property managers office, introduced himself and said the club would like another 100 key cars. The man came unglued. He asked, are you telling me we have 400 people coming on the property who are not employees? Well the place went on lockdown until members of Union's board of directors who happened to be members of the club got the shooting range opened under much more stringent rules of access and no 100 new members. It remained open for about a year and then closed for good. The oil had been pumped out and Union wanted to develop the land. At least that was the story we got. I don't know if any development took place. I didn't as long as I live in the area.

[shooterg]

Time to quit being irritated,study the by-laws, organize and take over the Board. Lotsa good folks shoot pellets, but most of their loyalty is to the shotgun shooting fraternity - they'd much rather roll out a red carpet for out of town shotgun guys than work to better your whole Range facility. Vote 'em out, and your by-laws really should demand at minimum a financial review by an outside entity every couple years. Get a Treasurer who will at least use Quikbook !
Start collecting emails from everybody you see on the R&P Ranges/twist some arms to run for Board/call 'em before elections.
Been there done that. Same problem everywhere.

[Tackleberry41]

Pellet people, thats funny. Shotgunners are a bit different crowd. Guess they really dont mix with the other shooters, you spend money shooting skeet or you spend money shooting rifles, not both. And many 'pellet people' dont think of dropping serious money on a shotgun. Guy I worked with paid something stupid like $20grand on a double barrel. I think $500 for a shotgun is outrageous. And they shoot alot, the only way to get good at it. So yea pellet people tend to look down on other gun people.

Guy I knew worked at a range, mixed shotgun and rifle pistol. But was not one with membership where members decided. His boss owned the place. I remember hanging out a bit waiting for him to get off work or use the range. The shotgun stuff was constant maintenance and problems. The controller for the throwers was always having problems, and the stupid thing was nearly $1000. The throwers were always having problems, so a constant drain on money. The rifle pistol ranges, didnt take a whole lot, replace the target boards here or there.

Those shotgun people would show up, and pretty much expected everything else to stop for them. They would shoot way past closing time, sometimes till it simply got to dark to shoot. They did not care if it was Friday and the guy I knew couldn't leave until they got done. The rifle/pistol people cleared out on their own, and would shoot the breeze. Shotgun people didnt seem to want anything to do with you if you were not a fellow shotgunner. I didnt even see the shotgun people buying ammo, guess people like that have a specific load they use. Rifle/pistol people bought ammo and targets, so could see where a place would make more off them than shot gunners.

[ghh3rd]

My friend and I are going to crash the board meeting in a couple of weeks. We will show up early with a load of firewood and get a nice fire going in the wood stove.

Isn't it sort of hot to make a fire? Oh, wait, you're in ID and I'm in FL ... sorry

Your post has made me feel glad that we have a nice outdoor range 30 mi. from South of me ... $70 to join, $130 per year. And a lot of indoor ranges spread about.

Good luck with your meeting, and stay warm.

Randy

[MaryB]

Guess I am lucky, while the trap shooters are the majority of our range they do know the pistol and rifle lanes draw members. Plus half the board is into cowboy pistol shooting so the pistol range has been upgraded recently. The rifle lanes don't take much of the land we have so there is no issue keeping them. Plus local schools are starting rifle teams to go with the trap teams! So the 50 and 100 yard lanes are getting pretty heavy use from the kids 3 days a week after school. If memory serves me we have around 400 acres of land for pheasant and deer hunting too!

[Reverend Al]

I belong to 3 local clubs and have for many years. One is $160 for our family membership (no initiation fee) and is a full service club with Trap, Skeet, Sporting Clays, Archery, rimfire and centrefire rifle out to 250 yards, plus a separate Multi Purpose handgun range (handgun, shotgun and light calibre rifles with 3 gun matches in mind). We also have a very nice camping area which is free to the members and stocked trout pond mainly for the kids to enjoy. My 2nd club is $125 per year ($100 initiation fee for first year) and has Trap, Skeet, 100 yard rifle range and a 25 yard pistol range. My 3rd club is $65 for our family membership (no initiation fees) and is a bit rural with a 200 yard rifle range and a 25 yard pistol range. There are no shotgun facilities at all. All have their merits and they give me 3 different shooting options in case one or two of the ranges are tied up due to competitive events. I used to also belong to a 4th local club which had a $150 first year initiation fee and $175 per year in dues, but since I hadn't fired a round there in about 5 years my wife talked me into dropping that membership. (Having been a 30 year + member of that club I was basically just continuing to support that club with my dues, but shooting at my other closer clubs.)

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Once again, the Pellet People are never voted out because they shoot two are three time a week while the good people who shoot rifles and pistols may only shoot once or twice a month or even a year. These shooters probably don't even know there is a board of directors or even care. In this part of the country they may not even speak English so forget about organizing the rifle & pistol.

[Storydude]

My range dues cost me about 34 cents for gas in my ATV.

sorry I cannot help, but your rates quoted seem inexpensive compared to my time back East. There 200 bucks a year got you a falling down 100yd range and 2 pistol lanes.

[kmw1954]

My biggest disappointment is that in my area the number of clubs/ranges is very limited. Fees/dues range from $30.00 a year to $150.00 a year. So there is a cheap viable choice but again they are limited and none offer rifle or pistol lanes with anything other than stationary paper targets. Doesn't take long for that to get boring! Then it's repeatedly shooting in one position to the same distance.

[quilbilly]

My club charges $85 for the first year and $50 thereafter or $75 for the family. It has an excellent shotgun range but the most intensive work the last couple years has been a covered three bay pistol competition range that is in use almost every weekend. I approve even if I don't use it (I have two pistol ranges on my property for me and my great neighbors). The rifle range is 100 yards plus an additional 50 yard range but sadly there is not much room for a longer rifle range. After flooding last winter, dirt was brought this summer in to make an elevated walk to the 100 yard targets and an elevated area around the targets (I needed waders most of last winter to post targets). All smiles about that.

[rtracy2001]

Talked to a few folks this morning who are sighting in. They had no idea what was going on, but got hot at the mention of the dues doubling. We should have a few more rifle shooters at the next meeting.

[DCM]

$60 at one club with 500 & 600yd rifle range, 100 & 25yd pistol, 40yd archery, trap and skeet ranges. USG owned land.
$150 at another much closer to home with 100yd rifle, Multiple multiple pistol ranges, 3 trap houses, multi station archery. The pistol shooters are in control and looking to get rid of the rifle folks even though another local range was shut down by a guy launching a 45 out of the range in to a local restaurant patron that was pregnant none the less. Rules for rifles are very strict but pistols are not and things keep going that way. Why can't people get along? We are all in the same boat! PS I shoot all of the disciplines and hunt with them too.

[imashooter2]

Gotta tell you, I would not be comfortable at all with my club on public land in the current political climate.

[gidgaf]

It's .. all the above. I shoot rifle and pistol- maybe six to ten times a year at the range, maybe the same hunting. Shotgunners go once or twice a week, plus a couple Saturdays- and never hunt. "Our" organized activities are a bunch of doofus dudes trying to reasonably compete as individuals. "They" have company subsidized Rod-N-Gun clubs competing against each other. "We" may (or may not) have similar guns (a mauser day, wheelgun weekends, etc); "they" have team jackets, hats and t-shirts. Oh, and don't bring a shotgun on a Saturday- you are probably interfering with an "event". It's kinda like a game venue- see all those empty company paid boxes and seats? All that money bought a little influence. And like that guy willing to pay $1000 to $1500 a year to keep his place in and the riff raff (us) out. Get a half dozen other management guys together and get it company sponsored- or it's a business expense. Yeah, I work IT, and you'd be amazed.

[Fishman]

I'll echo the refrain that $2 rounds of trap or skeet is stupid cheap. That is NOT self supporting. Doubling that charge probably makes it about right for a non-profit.