There was some interest under the GENERAL DISCUSSION category about putting on a practical shooting match to honor John Kelly similar to a 2008 match put on by Dave Bold and the crew at The Rod & Gun Club of New Bedford.
I am pleased to announce that the Metro West Tactical IDPA Group at the Harvard Sportsmens Club has agreed to organize this match, and, Harvard club president Dan Hurley has reserved Saturday, July 31, 2010 as the date to put this match on. This date was selected in an attempt to avoid conflicts with other matches in the practical shooting sports disciplines in our area.
In Mr. Kelly's spirit, we would like people from the various practical shooting sports to volunteer to run a stage in their discipline and mentor new shooters trying out your sport. John liked to shoot many disciplines, and, I never heard him say a bad word about another sport. He was always there to lend a helping hand being a RO/SO and he was friendly to everyone, especially those new to the sport. You could always count on John to be an ethical sportsman/official, and to help out in any way possible.
The preliminary match format proposed is as listed below:
1) Indoor IDPA stage, Limited Vickers (Virginia Count), with no reloading or movement in the dark. Shooters will be provided a flashlight that they will hold in their hand at the start with their firearm loaded and holstered, all strings shot in the dark. Reloading between strings will be done off the clock with the lights on for safety reasons for those shooters who have never shot in the dark with a flashlight.
2) Outdoor IDPA stage
3) Outdoor USPSA stage
4) Outdoor Steel Challenge stage
5) Outdoor Walls of Steel-like stage (Dan Hurley says we should have enough steel between the IDPA & USPSA at Harvard to make a Walls of Steel-like stage with our large poppers. If the folks from Wallum Lake could bring some of their small steel targets and run this stage that would be terrific!)
6) Outdoor PPC stage
We would use open squadding to help avoid bottlenecks. Equipment rules would be relaxed to permit cross-over between the disciplines without having to swap out gear. We will have to figure out a system for scoring to permit the tallying of all 6 stages to determine Division winners. We don't have to re-invent the wheel here, Dave Bold has already volunteered to try and scrape up the score sheet from his match and he can let us know how the 2008 match was scored. Divisions can be relatively simple: Pistol, Revolver & Open, this will keep the number of trophies low so that as much money as possible can be donated to charity on John's behalf.
There has been proposals to donate the match proceeds to GOAL to promote new shooter training or to the American Heart Association, I don't see why we can't donate to both. I already have a graphic designer who has volunteered to design a T-shirt for this match. As an initial proposition, I suggest the match fee be the $40 (typical $20 USPSA or IDPA match fee at Harvard plus $20 to go towards the T-shirt, if the shirt costs less any leftover will go toward charity). We can have pre-registration by mail with a cutoff date so that we know how many T-shirts to buy, what sizes, etc. Any registrations after that, or any walk-ins, won't get a T-shift.
On the earlier threads I had quite a few volunteers indicate they would be interested in helping out. If you would like to help out at this match by staffing a pit, helping with stage design, setup/breakdown, etc. please send me an email at [email protected] and include your first and last name. I can setup a mass email list in my Yahoo account that can be used to keep everyone updated.
What I would like you all to do with this thread is post your ideas about how this match should be run. Everything you see above is just a preliminary starting point and is subject to change. One proposal was to have the low-light stage be a "bonus" stage and not be counted toward the overall match. Do you want the low-light stage to count toward the match - could be a difference maker for those who have never done it before, or have limited experience with a light. Is 6 stages too much? Do you want to throw out one of the disciplines and substitute another? Open squadding will be useful to avoid bottlenecks, and, if you don't want to compete for the bragging rights of winning your division you can shoot only the stages you are interested in and leave whenever you want. Do you want to have a trophy for division winners, or, will you settle for bragging rights only and put the cost of the trophy towards the charitable donation? Do you want to have more divisions that the three listed above? Do we want to limit the number of registrations to keep the time duration of the match down, or do we want to accept all that are interested to raise as much as possible for charity and be prepared for a full-day?
Let's have fun with this and honor Mr. Kelly at the same time!
Regards,
John Catterall
I am pleased to announce that the Metro West Tactical IDPA Group at the Harvard Sportsmens Club has agreed to organize this match, and, Harvard club president Dan Hurley has reserved Saturday, July 31, 2010 as the date to put this match on. This date was selected in an attempt to avoid conflicts with other matches in the practical shooting sports disciplines in our area.
In Mr. Kelly's spirit, we would like people from the various practical shooting sports to volunteer to run a stage in their discipline and mentor new shooters trying out your sport. John liked to shoot many disciplines, and, I never heard him say a bad word about another sport. He was always there to lend a helping hand being a RO/SO and he was friendly to everyone, especially those new to the sport. You could always count on John to be an ethical sportsman/official, and to help out in any way possible.
The preliminary match format proposed is as listed below:
1) Indoor IDPA stage, Limited Vickers (Virginia Count), with no reloading or movement in the dark. Shooters will be provided a flashlight that they will hold in their hand at the start with their firearm loaded and holstered, all strings shot in the dark. Reloading between strings will be done off the clock with the lights on for safety reasons for those shooters who have never shot in the dark with a flashlight.
2) Outdoor IDPA stage
3) Outdoor USPSA stage
4) Outdoor Steel Challenge stage
5) Outdoor Walls of Steel-like stage (Dan Hurley says we should have enough steel between the IDPA & USPSA at Harvard to make a Walls of Steel-like stage with our large poppers. If the folks from Wallum Lake could bring some of their small steel targets and run this stage that would be terrific!)
6) Outdoor PPC stage
We would use open squadding to help avoid bottlenecks. Equipment rules would be relaxed to permit cross-over between the disciplines without having to swap out gear. We will have to figure out a system for scoring to permit the tallying of all 6 stages to determine Division winners. We don't have to re-invent the wheel here, Dave Bold has already volunteered to try and scrape up the score sheet from his match and he can let us know how the 2008 match was scored. Divisions can be relatively simple: Pistol, Revolver & Open, this will keep the number of trophies low so that as much money as possible can be donated to charity on John's behalf.
There has been proposals to donate the match proceeds to GOAL to promote new shooter training or to the American Heart Association, I don't see why we can't donate to both. I already have a graphic designer who has volunteered to design a T-shirt for this match. As an initial proposition, I suggest the match fee be the $40 (typical $20 USPSA or IDPA match fee at Harvard plus $20 to go towards the T-shirt, if the shirt costs less any leftover will go toward charity). We can have pre-registration by mail with a cutoff date so that we know how many T-shirts to buy, what sizes, etc. Any registrations after that, or any walk-ins, won't get a T-shift.
On the earlier threads I had quite a few volunteers indicate they would be interested in helping out. If you would like to help out at this match by staffing a pit, helping with stage design, setup/breakdown, etc. please send me an email at [email protected] and include your first and last name. I can setup a mass email list in my Yahoo account that can be used to keep everyone updated.
What I would like you all to do with this thread is post your ideas about how this match should be run. Everything you see above is just a preliminary starting point and is subject to change. One proposal was to have the low-light stage be a "bonus" stage and not be counted toward the overall match. Do you want the low-light stage to count toward the match - could be a difference maker for those who have never done it before, or have limited experience with a light. Is 6 stages too much? Do you want to throw out one of the disciplines and substitute another? Open squadding will be useful to avoid bottlenecks, and, if you don't want to compete for the bragging rights of winning your division you can shoot only the stages you are interested in and leave whenever you want. Do you want to have a trophy for division winners, or, will you settle for bragging rights only and put the cost of the trophy towards the charitable donation? Do you want to have more divisions that the three listed above? Do we want to limit the number of registrations to keep the time duration of the match down, or do we want to accept all that are interested to raise as much as possible for charity and be prepared for a full-day?
Let's have fun with this and honor Mr. Kelly at the same time!
Regards,
John Catterall
I will have my lunch, timer, and a whip
