What is to follow will not be new to many who are active in their shooting clubs. To others hopefully it may be a wake up call.

My club has just over 70 members. For the last decade the committee has been "static" with one person in particular holding five different club positions. The club ones it's ranges, buildings and other assets outright, which has only been possible by the efforts of the club committee in the 20 years since we bought the land from the local council (previously we paid an annual "peppercorn" rental). The only way the club has achieved this is through holding competitions.

We regularly hold two - three IPSC competitions a year, including the Nationals every two years, while the CAS sections also hold two open competitions annually.

Of our members less than 25 are affiliated to IPSC. less than half of these shoot anything above our club Level I matches, (which for reasons which will soon become clear are usually held as higher level competition warmups). Of those that do shoot Level II and above matches only 3 or 4 are involved in match preparation/running and set up.

There are approximately 30 CAS members in our club and they too have the same issues. Too much to do, too few members to help.

In the last five years I have stepped up to run monthly matches in Service (a 90 round 1500/PPC type course) and Classic Pistol (48 rounds using pre-1946 pistols at 10 and 25 yards). There is no-one else in the club outside the committee doing anything similar.

Since 2016 I have also become one of the regular set up assistants for IPSC matches and this year, I am proud to say, I have become a member of the club committee (Club Vice Captain. No actual responsibility but....) and have volunteered to be Match Director for a one day Level II match in March next year (Single Stack Classic).

To be blunt the mainstays of the club, some 3 or 4 members, are all getting to the point where they have had enough. One of the consequences of this is a slow, but steady, move away from IPSC towards Steel Challenge shooting.

We are currently developing what was a 100 meter rifle range and big sand hill inot 9 seperate ranges for shooting Steel Challenge, plus a 200 meter rifle range. Once set up (in the next few years) each Steel Challenge stage will have its own range and be permanently set up. The club mainstays leading this move intend to shoot steel only and start updating competitions to accommodate this discipline as there is much less work involved.

I can't blame those involved. For some time I was just one of he "regular Sunday shooters avoiding anything more" and when I did get involved further I was very surprised at the situation.

Hopefully there will still be enough support to hold IPSC competitions once the change is fully implemented (we are one of only a few ranges in the country able to hold a Nationals and one of only two clubs willing to do so). From my perspective I enjoy the challenge of shooting differently set up stages each competition. And for our recent North Island IPSC Championships we sought a club an hour and a half away without anything other than a .22 range to run the match, leasing our range to them for the weekend along with all our props. It was a very well run event, even though a learning curve for some in that club.

So to those of you who sit back on the club sidelines thinking these things simply "happen" how about giving some thought to what actually does take place to run a successful club and stepping forward to help out.

Even running one match a month for a club championship is a big help to those doing all the work.

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View from down under