Ranges that allow instruction

[adweisbe]

Apparently when they say

While coaching of new shooters is encouraged, no member or guest may conduct any formal training for compensation without the express permission of the Safety and Education (SEP) Chief Instructors, the club's Executive Officer, or the Board of Directors.

They don't really mean

formal training for compensation

They mean

formal training

Why they do not say what they mean is beyond me. Hassling me after the fact ticks me off. Any thought I ever had of contributing to that club has been vaporized, next year my membership will lapse. They had to pick the night before I present to a group of 6 or so @ GOAL to fry my nerves like this.

 

[Len-2A Training]

A number of clubs regrettably are paranoid.

Some require that you provide the club with a huge insurance policy coverage which can make training not financially feasible even for those trying to make money at it.

Others will only allow some of their hand-picked buddies to use the facilities to do training.

Luckily there are a few clubs that allow members to train guests.

Very few will allow outside group use or formal training classes like NEShooters.com runs.

 

[EddieCoyle]

A number of clubs regrettably are paranoid.

Some require that you provide the club with a huge insurance policy coverage which can make training not financially feasible even for those trying to make money at it.

Others will only allow some of their hand-picked buddies to use the facilities to do training.

Luckily there are a few clubs that allow members to train guests.

Very few will allow outside group use or formal training classes like NEShooters.com runs.

I'm the range chairman at my club. Our pistol range isn't much (yet), but it's normally a safe place to shoot. We have no full or even part-time range officers.

As far as requiring an instructor to ask permission, I don't see the problem. Think about it; and put yourself in the Club's place. When you think of an instructor and his/her students, instead of picturing Jim Conway with a small group of responsible adults (which would be a situation acceptable to any reasonable club); think of this:

A blow-hard, opinionated, "just-got-my-instructor-certification", tactical leg holster wearing, I-know-everything "instructor" shows up with 40 or so baggy pants-wearing gangbanger wannabe "students". On the way to the range, they speed down the access road in their fart can mufflered powered subwoofers, pissing off all of the Club's neighbors (and putting these neighbors on alert). The safety violations start as soon as the guns are out of the cases. When they're done, the range is left looking like a tornado hit it, with broken target stands, and piles of trash and brass all over the place. The neighbors will place enough noise complaint calls to the local police to cause the chief to show up at our next club meeting.

How do you prevent this from happening? Easy. Require a vetting process that we'll call "asking permission". All we're trying to do is to prevent the above scenario from happening if we can.

Sure, we'll let our "hand picked buddies" do it. By "hand picked" I mean responsible instructors that ask permission. If an instructor wanted to do it, all he or she would have to do is to show up at one of our meetings with a course outline, describe what they were going to do, and ask permission. It would also help if the instructor had a member or two vouch for them. This would have to happen only the first time. If the class goes well, permission would be "rubber-stamped" unless/until there was a problem.

Any member can bring a couple of people to the range for instruction. I do it all the time, and most of the other members do it too. But if a member plans on taking, say, 12 people to the range and conducting a "class", the right thing to do would be to ask permission - especially if they were getting paid for it.

 

[adweisbe]

The problem is that the rules specifically do not require asking permission if the training is not done for compensation, it is only required "for compensation." If they wanted to disallow formal training they should have said "no formal training", the addition of "for compensation" instead of "formal training, including training for compensation,", or "formal training and training for compensation" reveals an intent to allow formal training that is not done for compensation. If that was not their intent they should be a mature about it and change the rules and let me know they have changed.

To humiliate and threaten me after the fact for breaking a rule that does NOT exist is immature and cowardly and typical of the MA mindset. I was not bringing in groups of 12 to instruct for a nice cash bonus. I brought in my father in law and former roommate from college to get practice, zero cash or goods were given to me.

 

[EddieCoyle]

To humiliate and threaten me after the fact for breaking a rule that does NOT exist is immature and cowardly and typical of the MA mindset. I was not bringing in groups of 12 to instruct for a nice cash bonus. I brought in my father in law and former roommate from college to get practice, zero cash or goods were given to me.

OK. That's just wrong. If you don't mind shooting outside, or driving to where I'm at, PM me and you guys can come to my club as my guests.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

As with just about everything, this is at least in part a money issue.

If it's a for-profit club, a paid instructor is using their infrastructure to make money - sort of like setting up a lemonade stand in the parking lot of a McDonalds.

More common is the not for profit, member owned and operated club. When a club lets you use their facilities for a nominal fee (rather than a traditional profit oriented rental), it's only reasonable for the club to be involved in the financial arrangements. Saying "no paid instruction" is not really any different than not permitting the hi power, IPSC or skeet people from running their own paid events without making a revenue sharing agreement with the club.

Also, some clubs run their own basic training program and certain classes (I'm not talking about the Jim Crews or Clint Smith style courses, but the basic "local NRA instructor offering MA certification" type of course), and allowing members to run their own classes, and collect the entire fee, would siphon customers from the club.

How would you feel if your club could hardly afford the basic repairs to the facilities, had to raise it's dues another $25, and you saw someone running their business from the club for the same fee you pay for your personal use?

 

[Adam_MA]

OK. So what the hell club was it so I can be sure to not give my money to them in the future!

 

[Len-2A Training]

Any single instructor who brings a dozen students is just looking for trouble and the club is right to NOT allow it. You need multiple range safety officers/instructors to manage a "group" of newbies to avoid safety violations/problems.

I was referring to clubs that will only allow 1 or 2 hand-picked members (who are instructors) to use the facilities to instruct new students, period. No other members will be given the same privilege, regardless of rules/negotiated arrangements.

Some clubs will only allow you to bring the same guest once or twice in a lifetime (or within a single year). Again making training impossible. What if the guest is an out-of-stater who only visits you 2-3 times/year?

I can tell you that Jim Conway has had problems getting clubs to accept his training program with the big instructors, even though money was given to the clubs for each student attending. BTW, numerous clubs in NH turned him down flat.

 

[JimConway]

I can tell you that Jim Conway has had problems getting clubs to accept his training program with the big instructors, even though money was given to the clubs for each student attending. BTW, numerous clubs in NH turned him down flat.

Lens's statement is not quite right. We were only turned down by one club in NH and by one club in MA. In the NH case, one of the members went on a tirade shouting that we "were teaching people to kill people" and then the ranges got shut down by the courts. In the MA case, after 2 successful years, the club decided that the trainers earned too much money and that they wanted a bigger piece of the pie in terms of increased range fees and free seats. In our eyes, this was not financially possible.

FYI, the intsructor gets all of the course fee and we get 1 or more free seats. We try to set the range fee so that the club gets whatever fee per student that they want and we get $5.00/student to cover our costs. Since we are not trying to show a profit for running the courses, there is very little money to play with. If we were to bow to a clubs demand for too high a range fee, you, the student, would have to bear the cost and the course would be too expansive for anyone to attend.

I think that the tide is turning. Just yesterday, I was approached by a large club want wants us to hold some of our courses at their facility. I guess that the word is getting arround that we run good programs safety, promptly put money in the clubs's hands, and always leave any range that we use cleaner than when we got there

In my eyes this is a very strange situation. Most clubs brag about how they promote the shooting sports but also want to get paid for doing it.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

Having served on the board of a club and dealing with trying to make ends meet, I have some sympathy for the club's position. Consider you are on a club's board and someone proposes to run a class of a dozen or so students, at a fee of $200-300 per student/day. Even at a 10% cut, the club will make an OK amount of $$". Where things can easily break down is if the course wishes to charge a token fee, or have the free slot in the course valued as if it were a cash payment to the club.

As to "promoting the shooting sports" - Many of these same clubs probably will react very favorably if you propose a seminar or shooting event that is not a venue for paid professionals to get the club to underwrite the infrastructure costs under the guise of "promoting the shooting sports." It's when you say "Our instructors collect top dollar; we would like to give you a token amount of that plus a free class you can't pay bills with as your club's renumeration" that things get a bit difficult.

Question for Jim - what percentage of the student's fee do you think it is reasonable of a club to charge as a range and clubhouse usage facility? My guess, and it's strictly my personal opinion, is about 10%.

 

[matt]

To humiliate and threaten me after the fact for breaking a rule that does NOT exist is immature and cowardly and typical of the MA mindset. I was not bringing in groups of 12 to instruct for a nice cash bonus. I brought in my father in law and former roommate from college to get practice, zero cash or goods were given to me.

That is terrible! I'd be hacked too. Was it just an over zealous RO, or was the clubs BoD involved? If it is just the RO, I'd report him to the BoD and get him kicked out! If it's the BoD, the pack your bags and find a new place to call home...

Sorry you had this experience, especially with your friend and father in law....

 

[adweisbe]

It's amazing how half the people here are still missing the point. The problem is not that they don't allow formal training, it's private property, they can do whatever they want. The problem is that they wrote the rules to allow formal training when not done for compensation and then hassled me for doing just that.

Whatever, things went well today, I am moving on. Now to find a training team I like...

 

[KMaurer]

Of course there are good reasons that a club might not want to have Clint Smith and a few assistants drop in unanounced with a hundred or so students and take over all their ranges for a couple of weeks. But let's get back to the real world here. A member brings two (count them people, 1, 2) guests, people he knows well, and gives them a little coaching at the range. Unless theve got a "absolutely no guests on the ranges", or "no shooting except under the direct supervision of a range officer" policy, then whoever got ticked about this "training" are nothing more than a bunch of complete asshats. They may be the officers of the club; they may own the club outright, but they're still asshats. Please don't try to justify their actions or pretend that they make sense to you. Doing so only makes you look bad.

Ken

 

[JGreen]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I want to share my pleasure of co-instructing an NRA Basic Pistol course today with adweisbe. He is going to be one of the great ones. Adweisbe utilizes TPI and realizes the importance of following the lesson plan. Chief Trainers, get this guy on your training team. Your future students will appreciate it!

Sincerely,

Jon Green
Director of Education
Gun Owners' Action League

 

[Jose]

Of course there are good reasons that a club might not want to have Clint Smith and a few assistants drop in unanounced with a hundred or so students and take over all their ranges for a couple of weeks. But let's get back to the real world here. A member brings two (count them people, 1, 2) guests, people he knows well, and gives them a little coaching at the range. Unless theve got a "absolutely no guests on the ranges", or "no shooting except under the direct supervision of a range officer" policy, then whoever got ticked about this "training" are nothing more than a bunch of complete asshats. They may be the officers of the club; they may own the club outright, but they're still asshats. Please don't try to justify their actions or pretend that they make sense to you. Doing so only makes you look bad.

Ken

+1

I was wondering why this conversation veered off into the topic of paid training.

 

[JimConway]

Club charges for the use of outside instructors

Rob
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. In response, I would like to establish some parameters for my reply. Most top instructors charge about $400.00 to $500.00 for a 3 day course. The average number of students is 10 to 12.

I would be very happy to charge a range fee of 10% or $50.00 for the 3 days and I would add $5.00 per day for our expenses. Actually I think that the $50.00 number is too low. Last year our average range fee was $20.00 per day or $60.00 for the 3 day course. On the basis the club would get $600.00 (10 students) to $720.00 (12 students)

Now I am hearing about clubs that want a fees in the range of $750.00 to over $1,000.00 no matter how many student attends the course. If the club also wants a free seat (usually there is only one free seat included by the instructor), I have to ask myself if it is worth it to run the course. Please understand the the free seat is the main reason why we are willing to spend the time, to take the risks and run the course.

 

[M1911]

TPI

TPI? What is TPI?

 

[adweisbe]

TPI? What is TPI?

Total Participant Involvement. Asking questions, giving them examples to manipulate or exercises to try, generating discussion. Most anything other then getting up and talking nonstop.

KMaurer in this case "training" or "formal training" is intended to mean training for certification, the two people I trained (the whole course beginning to end with nothing missing) received the basic pistol certificate and state police certificate. I believe certification in this instance is what separates coaching from formal training. Again, no compensation, and they did not seek me out (I don't advertise). I sought them out and asked them to let me teach them the course so I could practice the material. I don't think this is significant, but I did not train them at the same time, I did the course twice (twice the practice!).

 

[Jose]

TPI? What is TPI?

 

[M1911]

"So, are you gonna have those TPS reports ready this afternoon?"

Gawd that movie was funny.

 

[Jay G]

Tuned port injection.

Oh, sorry. {/motorhead}

TPI? What is TPI?