Pelham & Chester NH no longer doing USPSA?

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I didn't have much time to shoot this spring so I didn't really look around at the schedules, but it seems like both Chester and Pelham have nothing on Practiscore or their club website schedules for USPSA matches. Anyone have any additional info on that, such as why they stopped?
 
Can't remember which club it was, but i know one program was shut down because nobody would show up to help the match director with setup/etc... Eventually go burned out.

At Hopkinton, we try to spread the match director duties around month to month & the team contributes to stage design, setup & RO duties.

Some of us are cross trained on dealing with scoring devices as well so we have some backup on the technical parts.
 
My understanding about Chester is that there was an issue of tying up all of the outdoor ranges for more than a single weekend per month, so they're only doing Steel Challenge at the moment. At this month's SC match the match director talked about trying to get USPSA restarted soon.

Perhaps someone from Chester could fill in more details...
 
My understanding about Chester is that there was an issue of tying up all of the outdoor ranges for more than a single weekend per month, so they're only doing Steel Challenge at the moment. At this month's SC match the match director talked about trying to get USPSA restarted soon.

Perhaps someone from Chester could fill in more details...
We are re-starting USPSA in September. We can only do 4 pits total. 3 will be regular stages and we will put 2 classifiers in the other pit. We will have a match in October with the same format. In November we will have 6 to 8 classifiers. We just finished a Site Plan and should have new pits for next years USPSA Program. Just an fyi, I'm the Match Director for the USPSA Matches.
 
We are re-starting USPSA in September. We can only do 4 pits total. 3 will be regular stages and we will put 2 classifiers in the other pit. We will have a match in October with the same format. In November we will have 6 to 8 classifiers. We just finished a Site Plan and should have new pits for next years USPSA Program. Just an fyi, I'm the Match Director for the USPSA Matches.

Really looking forward to this. It'll be nice to have another reasonably close place to shoot USPSA.
 
Good to hear about Chester!




Bummer. Any idea why?
I know at least part of it was because the match director got burned out. By the time I started doing USPSA, I volunteered to help setup and whatnot, and it turned out to be the final Pelham match. I heard a suggestion on a podcast that rotating match directors each match is ideal to prevent burnout; maybe that would have been a good idea. I think it's kind of a unenviable task, most people just want to show up, shoot, and take off. I've seen plenty of people take off before stages are broken down, despite entreaties from others to help break down stages.

I've done both USPSA and Steel Challenge at Chester with no complaints.
 
I got the impression that the club leadership at Pelham was not very supportive of action shooting. That info was third hand, so might not be accurate.

I was there one time when a USPSA competitor was at his vehicle loading a magazine (not his gun, just a magazine) and got yelled at by someone in the club leadership for loading his magazine. It was definitely a WTF moment. Note that this club leadership person was not part of the USPSA group.
 
I got the impression that the club leadership at Pelham was not very supportive of action shooting. That info was third hand, so might not be accurate.

I was there one time when a USPSA competitor was at his vehicle loading a magazine (not his gun, just a magazine) and got yelled at by someone in the club leadership for loading his magazine. It was definitely a WTF moment. Note that this club leadership person was not part of the USPSA group.
 
It is mostly a thankless job. Most people just want to shoot and go home. To be honest I really don't blame people that perform the same as I at their own club, but the competitors that don't and just shoot and leave I do find fault with them. I get the fact that they pay their money and want to shoot but I don't think that they care how much work it is to put on a match. At practice Tues night I arrived at 4 o'clock to set up a USPSA Stage for a 6 o'clock shoot. I did it alone and did have the help of one person at teardown who was a member of the club. Everyone went home other than members of the AS committee. Can see how burnout can happen. I do get tired of asking people to paint, at Steel Matches, and get tired of asking people to tape at USPSA Matches. Some people do neither.
 
At Pelham, I was part of the core group of RO's when Craig ran it, and then Rob. We got burned out from sparse help- not enough people helping set up/tear down, plus other challenges.
 
At Pelham, I was part of the core group of RO's when Craig ran it, and then Rob. We got burned out from sparse help- not enough people helping set up/tear down, plus other challenges.

This is why it's so important for everyone at matches to contribute, even if only a little bit. Taping and setting steel is the bare minimum, and helping tear down and put away stuff at the end is practically a requirement.

What's tough is getting enough folks to do things like set up stages. If it's always the same handful of people doing everything they will get burned out eventually.
 
This is why it's so important for everyone at matches to contribute, even if only a little bit. Taping and setting steel is the bare minimum, and helping tear down and put away stuff at the end is practically a requirement.

What's tough is getting enough folks to do things like set up stages. If it's always the same handful of people doing everything they will get burned out eventually.

As in most things, it usually falls to a small handful of people to make sure everything gets done. I try to be one of those people at my club and I've seen the usual suspects who swoop in just before the safety briefing and disappear the minute they're done shooting.

What if the entrance fee was double/triple for those folks who prefer to not get their hands dirty, support the club, support the sport. Do you think it would change behaviors ?
 
As in most things, it usually falls to a small handful of people to make sure everything gets done. I try to be one of those people at my club and I've seen the usual suspects who swoop in just before the safety briefing and disappear the minute they're done shooting.

What if the entrance fee was double/triple for those folks who prefer to not get their hands dirty, support the club, support the sport. Do you think it would change behaviors ?
They'd probably stop taping and resetting altogether since they paid so much.
 
We are re-starting USPSA in September. We can only do 4 pits total. 3 will be regular stages and we will put 2 classifiers in the other pit. We will have a match in October with the same format. In November we will have 6 to 8 classifiers. We just finished a Site Plan and should have new pits for next years USPSA Program. Just an fyi, I'm the Match Director for the USPSA Matches.
A couple of us are coming from VT. Looking forward to it!
 
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