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4 minutes ago, The Original Lumpy Gritz said:

 

There's more SASS members and clubs in CA. ;)

Than any where else in the country.

OLG

That may not be the case anymore. 

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27 minutes ago, Ninety Caliber Al, 50218 said:

Seriously?  I can not even imagine. I attended 2013-2018 . Had a great time every year. I’d hate to think it’s gonna take CA. To get us back on the map.........

 

Where would they hold it in California? I’m pretty sure that EOT would lose a tremendous number of attendees if it were moved back here. The golden state ain’t so golden anymore.

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Maybe they should have moved EOT to Phoenix during the cooler months, when they moved to Edgewood. March and November are really nice down in the Valley, I know, I lived in Phoenix for 12 years before I retired up here in the high desert. Arizona is a gun friendly state, that is one of the main reasons I moved here from Illinois. Of course now they have Winter Range here at the Ben Avery shooting range, and it is a very nice facility to shoot at. From what I've heard, Winter Range is much nicer and very well attended than EOT, like Shifty Jack says, it comes down to location, location, location. I don't know much about Texas, maybe EOT should be moved down there, what say all you Texas cowboys, I've heard that everything is bigger and better in Texas. (Of course that's just what I've heard.) ^_^

 

Just so everyone knows, Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the United Sates now, so we do have the population needed to support large events,

 

AG   SASS# 108735

 

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21 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

That may not be the case anymore. 

 

Pretty sure SASS HQ could answer for sure.

Are the clubs in each state, still listed on the back pages of the Chronicle?

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If they wanted to-Chorro Vly would be a great place to have EOT. ;)

Would be far more weather friendly near that part of the coast, than where it's held now in NM.

Also-wouldn't have the higher altitude health/heat issues that folks have at it's current location.

OLG

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Just now, The Original Lumpy Gritz said:

 

Pretty sure SASS HQ could answer for sure.

Are the clubs in each state, still listed on the back pages of the Chronicle?

---------------------------------

If they wanted to-Chorro Vly would be a great place to have EOT. ;)

Would be far more weather friendly near that part of the coast, than where it's held now in NM.

Also-wouldn't have the higher altitude health/heat issues that folks have at it's current location.

OLG

Good points but how many non Californians will show up? I have my doubts about Chorro Valley being large enough to handle it.

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9 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

Good points but how many non Californians will show up? I have my doubts about Chorro Valley being large enough to handle it.

 

Be'n a SA now--Bet more Cally folks would attend, than what is seen now in NM. ^_^

I do wonder if CV would have the camping space etc.

OLG

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I figured Vegas would be the best option. Cowboy Action Shooting World Championship and Cowboy Con.

 

 


Did y'all know the speed record for a unicycle was 33 mph?

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It wouldn't be a bad program to have EOT travel to a few different locations. It would get more exposure and they could target areas with large populations of potential spectators. Southern California, Dallas/Houston, Atlanta, Indianapolis would all be good locations if there are ranges that could handle it near by.

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1 hour ago, Yul Lose said:

That may not be the case anymore. 

33 in Cally....25 in Texas, those are the two with the most! I just checked!

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24 minutes ago, The Original Lumpy Gritz said:

 

Be'n a SA now--Bet more Cally folks would attend, than what is seen now in NM. ^_^

I do wonder if CV would have the camping space etc.

OLG

Whatever an SA is. Camping would be problematic space wise. I’m thinking all of the Founders members might have a huge issue with it not being at Founders Ranch.

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1 minute ago, Rye Miles #13621 said:

33 in Cally....25 in Texas, those are the two with the most! I just checked!

Just because they have that many clubs doesn’t mean they have more CAS shooters. A very large number of them have done the Cal exit. I’d bet Texas has more CAS participation than California based on the number that travel to EOT.

 

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3 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

Whatever an SA is. Camping would be problematic space wise. I’m thinking all of the Founders members might have a huge issue with it not being at Founders Ranch.

Wondering about SA myself. If something isn't done soon, FR will be a ghost town. 

The WB can still host Wild Bunch matches there.

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1 minute ago, Yul Lose said:

Just because they have that many clubs doesn’t mean they have more CAS shooters. A very large number of them have done the Cal exit. I’d bet Texas has more CAS participation than California based on the number that travel to EOT.

 

You could be right! It's hard to tell how many are in each club. It would be an interesting study to make.;)

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2 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

Whatever an SA is. Camping would be problematic space wise. I’m thinking all of the Founders members might have a huge issue with it not being at Founders Ranch.

SA=smart arse........;)

Have no doubt they would have a fit.

OLG

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1 minute ago, Assassin said:

Wondering about SA myself. If something isn't done soon, FR will be a ghost town. 

The WB can still host Wild Bunch matches there.

Had a pretty good turnout this year.

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Before EOT moved to Founder's Ranch, we could never attend because I was a school teacher.  Shot Founder's Ranch Invitational the first year and EOT several times after that because of the timing and the fact it was in New Mexico which is so much closer than California.  I know for a fact that there are several clubs in Texas that are no longer SASS affiliated, but still shoot monthly and have a fair turnout (at least 2 or 3 posses) each month.

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40 minutes ago, Phantom, SASS #54973 said:

Shooter attendance is essentially meaningless to the growth of the game.

 

25000 non-shooters in 2004... Last year in Norco.

No, I agree with what you’re saying especially about location not being around places that dress cowboy on a daily basis. In 2007 at EOT Founders Ranch we were stacking cars up three rows deep clear out to the road for public parking on Saturday morning of the main match. For the last few years they don’t even charge for public parking. I’m not down below to see it but I would guess that the public parking areas are not that busy. At Norco the draw was Cowboy that ain’t the way it is at Founders Ranch. What few visitors there are now days want to see the vendors, ride the stagecoach, watch the longhorns being ridden and very few ask about the shooting competition. Moving it back to California, in my opinion would turn it into a California world championship.

 

 

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Founder's Range is leased to SASS.  Having EOT at different locations would save SASS the lease money.  But since Founder's Ranch is owned by a Wild Bunch member....

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1 minute ago, Matthew Duncan said:

Founder's Range is leased to SASS.  Having EOT at different locations would save SASS the lease money.  But since Founder's Ranch is owned by a Wild Bunch member....

So you don’t think they’d have to lease a venue somewhere else to hold EOT?

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Some may disagree, but the boomer generation born in the 40's and 50's were the backbone of the growth in SASS. Raised on cowboy shows everyday on their new fangled TV's, and seeing movies with not just the Duke and later Clint - but tons of big mainstream Hollywood stars. They were literally innundated with Cowboys and Westerns. Back then virtually every kid wanted at one time or another to be a cowboy and toy cowboy guns and lever action BB guns were everywhere. 

 

But the culture changed. Fewer and fewer TV shows, fewer movies, fewer cowboy stars, toy cowboy guns rarer and rarer - when was the last time you saw a toy commercial touting a semi-realistic cowboy gun? 

 

So as the boomers age out there isn't another generation to take their place in such large numbers. Also over the years the history of the old west has been revised, in the movies, on tv, in the history books, in schools. In movies we went from the cowboy hero to the cowboy anti-hero to the morally questionable central character. 

 

More and more people moved to cities and rural life and small towns became fly over country. Jobs moved and people moved with them. Once families had roots and neighbors were life long.  Now people often don't know their neighbors let alone do things with them or have their kids out playing together in the neighborhood. When I was young it wasn't unusual for a group of neighborhood kids to be out playing cowboy and indians. Anyone seen that in the last 40 years?

 

Today with the computer, hey that's what we are all doing right now, kids are into video games, and CGI in movies makes those old comic books we liked become almost life like superheroes. 

 

I'm not saying the western or cowboys are gone and past from our culture - but they are very diminsihed. Combine that with all the competition for entertainment, the change from rural to urban, and the PC culture that openly and in many many more subtle ways comdemns firearms of all kinds including toys; and you have the world we have today. 

 

I do think that video games like Red Dead Redemption have brought some new shooters into the sport. But that won't go on and on for a generation and most players won't go from the video game to actual shooting cowboy guns or CAS. 

 

The first growth of CAS there was a built in market and hunger for it - and evidently a lot of great and dedicated and smart motivated people to get it going. 

Now sustaining it will be hard work. And part of it will be determined by the culture as a whole. If the Second Amendment falls to mean nothing and the gun culture and the RKBA are destroyed, well that's the ball game. It's all tied up in the culture war between identity politics and PC culture as championed and taught by the schools, academia, big business, government bureaucrats, and the elites - vs. individual inalienable rights and responsiblities - or more simply - freedom vs slavery. 

 

So marketing is good, accessibilty is good, mentoring new shooters is good (in fact taking someone new to a match and taking them shooting is the single best), and keeping it fun and friendly is good. But the end game is the culture war. 

 

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4 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

So you don’t think they’d have to lease a venue somewhere else to hold EOT?

Wouldn't leasing for a two week event be cheaper then paying for an annual (52 week) lease?

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Just now, Matthew Duncan said:

Wouldn't leasing for a two week event be cheaper then paying for an annual lease?

They don’t lease Founders Ranch on an annual basis, or so I’m told. The local clubs that shoot there have their own arrangements as does the shotgun sports.

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1 minute ago, Yul Lose said:

They don’t lease Founders Ranch on an annual basis, or so I’m told. The local clubs that shoot there have their own arrangements as does the shotgun sports.

Thank you for clearing that up.

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1 hour ago, Yul Lose said:

Had a pretty good turnout this year.

Yes, there was a good turnout. However, the shooters are being beat up for cash. One cannot continue to beat up the membership, one example was charging spouses to watch the match. I'm sure there were other examples. Even without SASS there will be some form of Cowboy Shooting. None of us wants SASS to fail, we just want it fixed and to be prosperous. 

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The number of shooters and clubs in a region is meaningless. Look at the turnout of the NE Regional, that's one of the regions with the most shooters and they failed to draw large numbers. The whole system needs to be revamped and somehow shooters need to become excited about shooting again.

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7 minutes ago, Assassin said:

Yes, there was a good turnout. However, the shooters are being beat up for cash. One cannot continue to beat up the membership, one example was charging spouses to watch the match. I'm sure there were other examples. Even without SASS there will be some form of Cowboy Shooting. None of us wants SASS to fail, we just want it fixed and to be prosperous. 

That probably won’t change wherever it is. It takes a lot of money to put on an EOT wherever it is. Thinking it will ever move from Founders Ranch is unrealistic in my opinion.

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21 minutes ago, Assassin said:

Yes, there was a good turnout. However, the shooters are being beat up for cash. One cannot continue to beat up the membership,... 

 

Yep.  I can pay $125 for a state match or $50 for a two day, 10 stage local club match.

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10 hours ago, Matthew Duncan said:

 

Yep.  I can pay $125 for a state match or $50 for a two day, 10 stage local club match.

That's what I've done starting this year. I've gone to one local two day and I've got two more to go. One in Sept and one in Oct. The one in October, Tusco, gets around 100 shooters every year! One is $60.00 and the other two are $55.00 so that's $170.00 for 3 local two day shoots and I have just as much fun as any state or regional that I've attended. As a matter of fact some state and regionals I've attended have been downright pathetic! 

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14 hours ago, Tyrel Cody said:

 

 

Current place I work ...... 1500+ employees and I'm only there once a week. 

Tyrel,

if it "high paying" and you are only these once a week.......are they hiring? I could pretend to be liberal !? LOL

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1 hour ago, T-Square said:

Tyrel,

if it "high paying" and you are only these once a week.......are they hiring? I could pretend to be liberal !? LOL

 

If it didn't pay VERY well I wouldn't put up with it. My group(computer programmer) isn't hiring right now.

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On ‎8‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 11:01 PM, Assassin said:

I'm just taking a guess, our numbers are up about 22-23k in the past ten years. A couple years were very slim, I do believe we are moving in the right direction.

Attrition is taking it's toll. I have friends and family (wife) who refuse to pay the additional $20. People are dying, getting old, or found other hobbies.

 

Assassin, you said that you are "taking a guess, our numbers are up about 22-23k in the past ten years." While I'd like to see that, I'm not sure that is the case. When the annual dues were raised to $65, (I think it was between 3-5 years ago) it was reported that there were about 27,000 annual memberships. I sent a PM to Misty several months ago asking what the number was now, but never heard back.

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4 minutes ago, Marshal Chance Morgun said:

 

Assassin, you said that you are "taking a guess, our numbers are up about 22-23k in the past ten years." While I'd like to see that, I'm not sure that is the case. When the annual dues were raised to $65, (I think it was between 3-5 years ago) it was reported that there were about 27,000 annual memberships. I sent a PM to Misty several months ago asking what the number was now, but never heard back.

I looked back at some of the shooters I know that have been shooting for 10 years and they were 87000-88000. Today the number is 109***. Yeah, I know many only signed up for one year, some didn't want to pay the additional $20. There does appear to be a little uptick, probably not enough to cover the attrition rate. My guess would be 15k annual members, 10k lifers. Just speculation. It's hard to believe that many people have dropped out of the ranks, between economic downturn for 10 years, fuel prices, the demise of the monthly CC and glossy paper, increased annual dues, lack of correspondence from SASS, too many categories, participation awards, club politics, etc. I can't really pinpoint any one thing that has caused the downturn.

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