Classification Update

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OldRanger
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Re: Classification Update

Post by OldRanger »

Tlee wrote:ICYMI... From page 1 of the Silhouette National Match Program:

Dr. David E.Bennett III - Chairman
Bill Miller - Vice Chairman
Gregory Connor - Secretary
Aubrey Adcock
Kirk Bryan
Rob Drummond
Laura Goetsch
Wayne Harlow
Lee 0'Neil
Joe Scott
Hal Simpkins
Hugh Wilson
Odd, looking up the smallbore match, only Laura Goetsch competed.
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Re: Classification Update

Post by Tlee »

OldRanger wrote:
Tlee wrote:ICYMI... From page 1 of the Silhouette National Match Program:

Dr. David E.Bennett III - Chairman
Bill Miller - Vice Chairman
Gregory Connor - Secretary
Aubrey Adcock
Kirk Bryan
Rob Drummond
Laura Goetsch
Wayne Harlow
Lee 0'Neil
Joe Scott
Hal Simpkins
Hugh Wilson
Odd, looking up the smallbore match, only Laura Goetsch competed.
My reference to the "all but one were in attendance" was to the national level silhouette committee meeting where they proposed the subject changes. Your reference apparently was to national matches.

Laura was at the Smallbore national match, along with High Power, iirc.... However Smallbore isn't the only national match and other committee members competed in other silhouette events.

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OldRanger
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Re: Classification Update

Post by OldRanger »

Yeah I was referring to the national smallbore match. One reason I wish more of them would show up is so they could attend the competitors meeting and hear what people are concerned about. I understand there are a lot of events, but I would think the nationals for smallbore and HP would merit their attention. It would have been interesting if they had discussed this change there just to hear 100 peoples opinions on it all at once. Of course it would have been mayhem, but it would have been fun mayhem!
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Re: Classification Update

Post by BrentD »

I think it is a bit much to imagine that all or even most of the committee members would show up for small bore or high power any other specific event. What I would rather see is that each discipline gets to nominate and vote for a couple of members to the board. Instead, they are chosen without shooter input. That creates a big gulf between the shooters and committee simply because most folks don't know who they are or how to reach them, not to mention, people that are appointed really cannot be said to represent anyone. That's what voting is all about.

Is that list current? I'm surprised that one of them is still on there. I thought he dropped off long ago.
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Re: Classification Update

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OldRanger wrote:Yeah I was referring to the national smallbore match. One reason I wish more of them would show up is so they could attend the competitors meeting and hear what people are concerned about. I understand there are a lot of events, but I would think the nationals for smallbore and HP would merit their attention. It would have been interesting if they had discussed this change there just to hear 100 peoples opinions on it all at once. Of course it would have been mayhem, but it would have been fun mayhem!
Even as popular as smallbore and high power is/was, most of the committee members aren't paid staff and I wouldn't expect them to attend an event they're not participating in. I wouldn't expect Laura to attend the Cowboy, Hunters Pistol, or BPCR matches.... I believe they attend the matches they've an interest and communicate the consensus at the national committee meeting. Since it IS a volunteer group, this is totally reasonable, to me anyway.

We should also remember that every national committee member receives a package of EVERY letter sent to the NRA regarding Silhouette rules and/or match protocol to review.... Personally, if I was on the committee, I'd give a LOT more credence to a well crafted letter (not a cut-n-paste of someone else's comments), than to the mayhem and pack mentality diatribe that some competitors meetings seem to turn into.... But I'm sure that's just me :roll:

BTW, there were actually TWO members of the committee in attendance at the smallbore/high power nationals (I'll let you guess who the 2nd one was... hint: it wasn't a competitor).

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Re: Classification Update

Post by Tlee »

BrentD wrote:I think it is a bit much to imagine that all or even most of the committee members would show up for small bore or high power any other specific event. What I would rather see is that each discipline gets to nominate and vote for a couple of members to the board. Instead, they are chosen without shooter input. That creates a big gulf between the shooters and committee simply because most folks don't know who they are or how to reach them, not to mention, people that are appointed really cannot be said to represent anyone. That's what voting is all about.

Is that list current? I'm surprised that one of them is still on there. I thought he dropped off long ago.
If each committee member only shot one event then I've faith that there would be an effort to ensure each discipline had representation. However most of the committee members that I know participate in multiple disciplines, so I think the committee is fairly well representative of the shooters.

That is the current list BTW.... Again, I'm not sure where the confusion lies regarding who's on the list... it's been in the National match announcement for as long as I've been shooting silhouette.

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Re: Classification Update

Post by BrentD »

Tlee wrote: BTW, there were actually TWO members of the committee in attendance at the smallbore/high power nationals (I'll let you guess who the 2nd one was... hint: it wasn't a competitor).-Tim
I bet he is a nice guy and a local too - ;)
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Re: Classification Update

Post by Jim Beckley »

Would have been Laura and Greg.

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Re: Classification Update

Post by cedestech »

6 months till the "new" classification system.... anyone have a clue how it's going to work yet and the fees?
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Re: Classification Update

Post by Jerry G »

Laura and Lee are the only 2 on the list that currently shoot SB or HP silhouette that I know of.

I an still concerned with the "new deal" that is coming down the pike. The old system isn't broke. It may need a small tweak but that's all.
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Re: Classification Update

Post by K Danz »

I've been a match director for Silhouette off and on for about 32 years. I've shot just about all the different disciplines at one time or another. And one of the things I have found about the NRA, is that they are not much for taking something that already exists and making it work. It always has to be an "internal idea". As an example, not only do i shoot Silhouette, but I also shoot USPSA, Steel Challenge and a little bit of 3 Gun.
I've also been match director of a USPSA club for 14 years.
Take a look at how USPSA keeps track of classifications/participation.
USPSA has a program called "EZWINSCORE". When a shooter arrives at the match, they give you their USPSA membership #. if they've shot at my club before, they pop right up on the screen. they tell me which division they are shooting, I click a few boxes and they are signed up ready to go. After everyone is signed up, we import all the shooters to NOOK Simple Touch Readers. As each shooter shoots, the scores are entered in the NOOK. (you would setup a nook for each division ie: Standard Rifle and Hunter Rifle) Once all the scores are entered, you import all that info back to EZWINSCORE. EZWINSCORE calculates all the results which can be saved and uploaded to USPSA where everyone sees the results. It's for local matches as well as championships.
After posting scores, USPSA requires a fee for each shooter called an "activity fee". There is also another fee for the official "classifier" (I won't get in to what that is here, but it's how you get classified ie: D, C, B, A, Master, Grand Master)
The total of the 2 fees is $4.50 per shooter per match. EZWINSCORE has a report that can be generated that calculates all the fees, is then uploaded to USPSA. Then you are prompted to pay the fees either by check, or credit card.
All done online.
Now you can get really fancy.
Another bunch of geeks (no offense to you computer gurus out there) created another program called "Practiscore".
Practiscore is an online match signup service. You get it setup for your club, you send a link to your shooters where they signup for the match. It then allows them to squad themselves with people they want to shoot with. For silhouette you can even add relay, starting animal and which bank you want to shoot.
The really cool part is that once everyone is signed up, you can print out the sheets that you would normally write up by hand. Now for the USPSA matches you then import all the info from Practiscore to the NOOKS. Everyone is squadded and is ready to be scored (for silhouette it doesn't need to be that fancy)
After the match is complete and all scores entered, the scores are all imported back to Practiscore, where the results get posted on the Practiscore website. And that part is literally done with a smart phone right from the range.
We have match results posted for 75 shooters in less than 30 minutes after the last shot is fired. we then generate the reports to pay the fees, pay the fees (requires filling out an online form with credit card info, just like buying bullets online), attach the report with all the shooters who participated, and you are done.

Why can't the NRA do the same thing?

No more $13 books, no jury cards, no forms to be filled out by hand to send in book stubs, no writing checks etc....

Sorry for the long post. Just my .12 cents worth........
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Re: Classification Update

Post by Jason »

That sounds like where the NRA is headed, although it may take a couple steps. The first step is to get things standardized so the application workflows can be the same for the disciplines. Just as you say, I see a lot of feedback here from a lot of people but not a lot of them are match directors who have to deal with the antiquated way that the NRA runs matches. I'll be running NRA smallbore silhouette matches in less than two weeks and it sure would be nice to be able to just type in the shooters' NRA numbers and scores into the NRA website to report the match instead of the dreaded match results cards that will result in a few round trips of Mrs. Chin telling me that my match report results have been received yet. I too shoot other matches, including Steel Challenge, and know how it can work. If this is a step for the NRA getting us there, I'm all for it. We had online signup for nationals this year, so I do think it's coming. :)

By the way, after I took over running the smallbore matches, I built my own system of spreadsheets that effectively does what you mention on a smaller scale. I have one that has all shooter data so when a shooter shows up for a match, I just choose the name from a pull-down menu and arrange the squadding so I can print it out. I'm hoping to get to the point over the next few months that I can just print out the scorecards with names and shooter classifications for every monthly match so shooters don't have to do anything other than write down hits. If the NRA gets this whole classification system online so I can use the NRA member/competitor ID to pull current classifications, it would make my system even easier to run. It seems like it would be a pretty easy project to create an application that could pull from an NRA API before a match to get current shooter data and then upload match results with a push of a "Publish Match Results" button after the match is over.
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Re: Classification Update

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K Danz wrote:............................
The total of the 2 fees is $4.50 per shooter per match. EZWINSCORE has a report that can be generated that calculates all the fees, is then uploaded to USPSA. Then you are prompted to pay the fees either by check, or credit card....................

Why can't the NRA do the same thing?

No more $13 books, no jury cards, no forms to be filled out by hand to send in book stubs, no writing checks etc....

Sorry for the long post. Just my .12 cents worth........
This is where the discussion (heated at times) comes in... today, for the $13, you shoot as many matches as you want, now with the 'proposed' fee system that $13 book could end up well over $1,000 a year in new 'additional fees' if you shoot a lot of matches. Not sure that will help our attendance and from the folks I talk to they are just not going to sanction their monthly matches with the NRA which means any 10 in a row's will not count unless it's a sanctioned match. One possible way is to have the monthly match and two tier pricing one no additional NRA fees and one with the additional fee if you want it recorded and an opportunity to capture any 10 in a rows you may get and only report the shooters that pay the additional fee. So much for the NRA 'getting the real number of Silhouette Shooters out there' as you could have 35 people and only report 1 or 2.

This seems to be more of a money grab than anything else and I hope in the long run it doesn't ruin our sport. I guess we'll only know when the NRA finally gives everyone the details on their 'new plan', but from what I see this is no more than what we see in the corporate world today, if it's new and improved it only means you better grab your ankles as your getting it rammed to you.
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Jason
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Re: Classification Update

Post by Jason »

Does anyone have any actual data on a "proposed" fee from the NRA for this? If you are basing it off the $4.50 fee and ending up with over $1000 per year, that's over 220 matches per year. Is there anyone who actually shoots that many silhouette matches per year? I think the point is valid and might be better made if you use realistic numbers.
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Re: Classification Update

Post by K Danz »

I wasn't proposing $4.50 per shooter. I was just using this an example. Removing the books, removes a hurdle that I hear from the casual shooter who might only shoot 1 or 2 matches a year. If you have a fee of say $1 or even .50 cents for the maintenance of the database at NRA, for the "average shooter" shooter that I get at my club, we're talking 5 to 10 bucks out of his pocket without having to worry about bringing his book to the match each month, or even paying $13 for a bunch of pages he will never use. This way you get more sanctioned shooters into the mix and hopefully more involved shooters.
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