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Match Director's Role


Captain Bill Burt

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Over the last 4+ years of involvement with SASS I've noticed some distinct patterns in monthly matches among MDs, at least in the metro Atlanta area.

 

Some MDs see themselves as primarily in the entertainment business. They see their primary function as providing safe matches that are fun to shoot. They define fun as what the majority of the shooters prefer to shoot.

 

Some MDs see themselves in addition to entertainers as trainer/coaches, and include stages that some shooters may not like as much, but are intended to develop their skills, or perhaps prepare them for an upcoming major match.

 

Finally some MDs see themselves almost exclusively as trainer/coaches and the majority of their stages are very challenging and intended to help develop skills, or as one told me 'may save your life one day.

 

I'm not posting this to criticize any particular viewpoint on MDs, but to solicit opinions on what you as a MD see your role as, or what you as a shooter prefer in your MDs.

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Be Safe - make sure the match runs safely, folks observe the rules and posse marshals know how to enforce them

Have Fun - entertain your shooters. Mix up some new and some routine. Make a few new props from time to time. Renovate and repaint. "Rotate the stock"

Be Safe - make sure your have a first aid kit accessible easily, an emergency plan that folks know about, a way to get emergency help out quickly, folks trained on first-responder first aid.

 

Teaching? How many folks came to the match for 3 hours of lessons? Although I might toss in a challenge stage, I don't do more than one.

 

Each crowd is a little different, but most of 'em are "buying entertainment and friendly atmosphere."

 

Good luck, GJ

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My goal is first to make sure that we SAFELY HAVE FUN. I have seen many match directors try to "educate" the shooters and "improve" their skills. Usually that is driven by a MD that has improved his/her own game and the subtle challenges are not much of a challenge as they once were. The shooters create the challenge among themselves through competition, and I have seen that play out time and time again. I try to keep everyones skill level in mind, I don't believe it's my job to dictate whether or not they improve as shooters. Call it dumbing down etc. etc. whatever. Entertainment is key to success and repeat customers in this game. I have never heard anyone say "Gosh that match really helped me become a better shooter". Everyones mileage will vary on this subject, I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, just the view from my saddle after shooting a whole bunch of matches all over the country.

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Over the last 4+ years of involvement with SASS I've noticed some distinct patterns in monthly matches among MDs, at least in the metro Atlanta area.

 

Some MDs see themselves as primarily in the entertainment business. They see their primary function as providing safe matches that are fun to shoot. They define fun as what the majority of the shooters prefer to shoot.

 

Some MDs see themselves in addition to entertainers as trainer/coaches, and include stages that some shooters may not like as much, but are intended to develop their skills, or perhaps prepare them for an upcoming major match.

 

Finally some MDs see themselves almost exclusively as trainer/coaches and the majority of their stages are very challenging and intended to help develop skills, or as one told me 'may save your life one day.

 

I'm not posting this to criticize any particular viewpoint on MDs, but to solicit opinions on what you as a MD see your role as, or what you as a shooter prefer in your MDs.

A lot of match directors do not write stages. Many clubs have someone else do it every match, some hand the job around, etc. Some clubs even give the stage writer a name like range master. In those cases the match director handles administration duties, safety, keep things running smoothly, etc.

 

Some match directors see themselves as dictator in charge and write stages they like not necessarily what their customers would prefer. Lots of reasons this happens.

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I don't write the stages for my club, but I do proof read them and make changes when I feel they're needed. I also communicate clearly to our stage writer and set up crew what my expectations are with respect to targets, distances, and difficulty of stages. So, even though I am handling administrative duties, the stages still reflect my 'vision' of what a Doc Holliday's match should look like. (Safe + Fun).

 

One pet peeve I have as an MD are Ps for non-shooting activities, like place a glass on the bar, if it falls off that's a P. I don't include stage writing like that.

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In answer to your question, I would say 90% entertainment and 10% coach.

 

The main reason for the coach, is to add variety to the entertainment.

 

Or just read Deuce's comments. :D

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I would like the MD to occasionally poll the shooters and try to please most. No match has to be all of any one thing. If 70% of your shooters want bigger and closer then write 70% or more of the stages that way. Then throw in a few smaller father. I'd much rather shoot a match that has a mix of easy and harder. Just so long as the harder don't run off shooters.

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Plan the match for the expected attendees. Monthy match I shot yesterday was like many others, over 60% of the shooters were over 65. Yesterday's match had no track meet stages in recognization of this fact for example.

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From the shooters viewpoint which is not what you asked bill but I would like to add. First the md job is to provide an entertaining match. After that he needs to delegate duties to the range master which sets up the stages the the posse marshals which ensure the match is shot as designed. They do this by walking thru with the other pm an rm and me so that all are on the same plane as to how the stage is to be shot. Then the pm tell their posses respectively how the stage is to be shot wheat her it is written and give out or just on a sheet at the stage. During the stage the pm ensures his posse is following the rules and d sign of the stage. If a question on how to shoot the stage comes up he helps the shooter to de side if his way is legal or not and if so is the one that shutsdown the spotters or to when it is shot different but within the intent and rules. They're there also to make sure the posse is on time entering and exiting a stage and that all members assist with posse duties to their abilities. The last and must difficult duty is awarding penaltys when they are earned but not accepted from the to. If they can't handle it they take it to the next level for review.

 

Being a pm is not a power position but it is a position of power. What I mean by that the best pm never let you know the power is being used but the power is used the worst are the ones that flaunt the power and order the posse around and usually make up rules for the posse like shooting in order and you will work here for X shooter then swap out shoot then work there until the stage is over. But that not the worst pm the worst is the one that allows unfair things to occur light a reshoot for a bad reason that is really legal or overrides a spotter or to call. Seen it all in ten years.

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Be safe & have fun. I really like it when they tell me they had a good time. I prefer to have someone else draft the stages and I'll tweak them as necessary. I want a lot of variety, try not to repeat the same sweep more than twice. Match pistol & rifle sweeps on some stages but not all. The "glossary of sweeps" put out on the wire a while ago is a great reference.

Teaching & coaching is either through the RO instruction or person-person. I've never considered it as a stage writing tool.

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Safe - Fun - Variety

We usually try to avoid brain teasers. Many times the pistol order is the same instructions as the rifle order.

We try to have a variety of things to occupy the shooter's hands at the beep - holding an object in both hands, hands on pistols, hands on door frame, rifle or shotgun in hand, etc. We try to have no two stages the same.

The October 3 match, however, may be more of a challenge - the First ever Wicked Wabash shootout. Stages are here: http://vvc.lrsa.info/scenarios/October2015.pdf

 

But this is designed to be an exception to our usual monthly matches.

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Challenging does not mean not fun. Variety and balance is what I like.

 

If every stage every month was geared towards stretching the abilities of most folks, that would be too much.

 

But a stage now and then, with others that have various target sets, heights, distances, spreads, starting positions, direction of movement, etc is fun, and will help shooters who go to matches elsewhere in the future.

 

When I write stages, I try to keep the 'par time' of each stage about the same by using target sequences or dumps, movement, and number of shotgun targets to make each stage approximately take a shooter the same time to complete as all the rest. For example a stage with not much movement and fairly simple rifle and pistol sequences might have 6 shotgun targets, where a stage with more movement and more time consuming pistol and rifle strings might have only 2 shotgun targets.

 

In the end it's what your shooters want and expect. If your local group only shoots locally and never travels, they might not care about shooting stages outside their comfort zone because those stages might better equip them for WR EOT or whatever. Or your group might be on the other end of the spectrum.

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