How much would you Pay !

les45

OK guys , we have all thrown in our two pence worth about the lack of a "proper" indoor range in or near Dublin. If such a facility were available what in your humble estimation would be a fair and equitable membership fee and possible range fee. for the sake of argument two 25 mt full pistol ranges and a 100 mt .22 range. Of a comparable nature to current best practice.

Sparks

That's not really a well-phrased question Les, though I know what you mean by it. Thing is, what you want to ask is "what would you pay and what would you expect for it?".

And no offence meant to yourself, but the fact is that one of the biggest problems in the way the sport and the clubs are run in this country today is that those in charge are so busy asking the first part of that question that they don't ask the second part at all. For example, the NTSA is putting up its dues this year and despite months of asking, I still haven't been told what specifically the extra money is needed for beyond "inflation" (and that's a load of tosh, since their grant went up by 23% or so this year).

To answer as best I can, I can give an example. In WTSC I pay around €120 or so per year. That includes CAI insurance and €50 range fees for the year and the remainder goes to club coffers (a tiny amount, something like ten or fifteen euro). But then we then go out as a club (members and those who run it alike) and raise a lot more money than membership dues raise in order to fund club activities. So trips to international matches will be subsidised by the club (though you still have to kick in some money) but you'll wind up valeting cars or packing shopping bags or cooking at a BBQ or doing something similiar to raise funds for the club during the year. So the actual membership fee for the year isn't a simple euro amount.

In return for our investment, we have ISSF-qualified coaches and an ISSF-qualified judge and we'll get more people qualified as time goes on; we have a small stock of club rifles and pistols and the equipment to maintain them and to do equipment control so we know we can use them in international competition; our range equipment is excellent and well cared for and maintained and up-to-date; we have a neat range facility that's up to ISSF standards and comfortable to train in and we're building a second range facility for intensive training with fully-kitted out RIKA trainers and video taping and so on; and we train for and enter international competitions during the year. The club is small but very active at a very high level of competition (for example, this year we basicly won every national championships going except the 50m Prone and we did quite well there, and in the airgun disciplines, we're basicly what keeps the sport going in the Republic either through our members or through the members of other clubs whom we train and equip).

So from my point of view, if you were just offering a range facility, you're not offering much. The facility is important, but it's only one part of the package as far as I'm concerned, and not even the most important one at that. But then, I'm not doing this as a casual pastime, I'm interested by the highly competitive side of the sport. Someone who was just looking for something to do on a sunny sunday afternoon, however, might not want something that required so much input, and so our club setup isn't suited to them.

Sparks - a range does not have to be a club per se..

Denwood in Aberdeen is a great range that had three clubs operating out of it...

The things which you refer to (rifles, RIKA, etc) fall under the auspices of the club, but each member of each club pays a portion of their fee to 'range rental'; and they have a fantastic 10m, 25m and two 50/100m ranges.

If there was a kick ass shooting centre set up in the morning with int. standard facilities, I would push for DURC to affiliate with that, and work out a cost structure based on usage, similar to AURC who use Denwood.

As to the question of the fee, that would depend on the amount of range time that we would be given, the facilities, its location etc.

Simply put; Yes, I would pay, and a fair bit, for access to a top of the line range

les45

For me I would happily pay € 750.00 a year for the use of indoor facility. I dont think we have the necessary pool of target shooters to sustain such a venture.

Clare gunner

Agree with you Les on the price of 600/700 PA.
BUT I would expect alot for that in a firing range/club.IE proper facilities and club insurance ,and secure storage.
It is a catch 22 situation here at the moment,you wont get the members unless you have the facilities ,and you wont have the facilities until you have the members.

les45

Or you sell/lease range time during the week to the Gardai,again I doubt if even such a deal would cover the overheads. I would be anxious to get some feedaback from the forum members as to the demand for such a facility.

les45

les45 wrote:

Or you sell/lease range time during the week to the Gardai,again I doubt if even such a deal would cover the overheads. I would be anxious to get some feedaback from the forum members as to the demand for such a facility.

To return to the Denwood example; they lease the range to clubs, not to indivduals.. the more a club pays, the more competition and range time they get..

For example, the aberdeen uni rifle club don't pay as much as the others, but they only hold a couple of competitions... they also only get the range on the weekends...

This kind of set up would prob work better then making a new 'club' which as Les45 says, would only attract a limited number of shooters. This way the cost of the facilities are spread over all of the members of all the clubs

Sparks

Les, for that amount of money, what are you expecting to get (specifically) in terms of facilities?

les45

Mark.

One 10 Bay 25 mt full bore pistol, one 10 bay 50 mt , pistol and .22 rifle. Built to current ISSF standards.

Sparks

Two seperate 10-bay firing lines I'm assuming Les.
Paper targets or electronic? If paper, hand-crank changers or electric? Scoring machine?
What about availability? Would you want an RO there when you shoot or would you want a key to the range?
What about non-shooting facilities like toilets, showers, changing rooms, prep areas, storage areas for gear or for firearms, coffee/tea facilities, a reading library, that sort of thing?
Would you expect there to be a club as well as a range, or would you take care of entering competitions and arranging teams on your own?

les45

I doubt if there is any club on the Island that has the funds to develop such a facility, to be useful it needs to be located close to our main centre of population , ie within a 60 km radius of Dublin on or near a motorway , budget costs are as follows.
Site cost , One acre serviced site €350000.00 , Professional fees, Planning €37000.00
Building Fabric excluding range equipment( Building 10000 Sq feet with the 50 mt range in the basement) Cost €1123000.00, this includes all site works car parking etc.
For all range equipment to include water snail traps, air extraction and target changers( Paper) PC Sum €130000.00
Annual running cost including Range manager, and 3 no staff, ligh, heat, insurance, depreciation.€125000.00.

Budget Costs € 1.7 M.!

Sparks

€1.7 Million isn't that much les. It just sounds impressive to us working stiffs.
I personally know of several people (and personally know one or two) who would have the funds to pay for that in one lump sum, if they chose to. They wouldn't, though - they'd be more into golf. Mainly because golf clubs are so much more developed, ironically enough.

Look at it this way. How many grants could you apply for? Capital grant schemes would cover 50% or so of the non-land costs, which comes to about €0.7 million, if you can raise the €1 million. How many companies in Ireland would you have to go to for sponsorship? How many philantrophes could you attract with the Olympic logo? How much could you get from the OCI?

If money is the only obstacle, and you truly are committed to the task, then there is no real obstacle. Which sounds trite, but which turns out to be rather true.

les45

I dont see money as the problem, again OCI may not grant aid a facility that is to be shared by PP1500 ,IPSC etc, certainly with London 2012 coming up there was never a better opportunity to put such a project together.

Sparks

The London 2012 angle is definitely one to pursue les.

The *real* problem here is that there's noone doing this from the olympic end and frankly that's the sharp end when it comes to getting corporate funding and sponsorship because you have so much PR associated with the olympic name. The amount of good that does you is huge. But there seems to be no interest in such a facility from the NTSA. Certainly it's not received much more than lip service over the years (in which time several new ranges have been constructed in a climate where it was "obvious" than nothing could be done).

Rolling PP1500 and IPSC into the same facility might well be difficult, but commercial realities would intrude at this point. ISSF disciplines make it easier to set up and to get going; the larger numbers from fullbore disciplines would be needed to keep it rolling (though frankly I think our biggest contributing body would be air pistol, as they have the largest userbase in the country).

les45

The sharing of the facility possibly is the biggest problem, although the IPSC boys and girls would share, I am not sure if ISSF internationaly would see this as a ideal situation. Thfore any grant funding would need to be exaimned very carefully.

Sparks

I am not sure if ISSF internationaly would see this as a ideal situation.

I'm pretty sure that they'd see it as being somewhat horrific. So long as the two organisations were kept seperate however (and this would be easyish to do, if a bit heavy on paperwork) they ought not to go nonlinear about it. What *would* make them pop their cork and institute sanctions would be the two disciplines being mixed at an organisational level.

I'm not sure the IPSC would have a very different viewpoint, by the way.

macnas

Just build it lads, you can have my €750 now.:)

Sparks

I don't think €750 would cut it to be honest macnas. Average size of a club is between 20 and 40 people at most. In fact I don't know of too many with 40. Comber or EARC maybe, and most of those wouldn't be shooting members. But let's say you get 40 people at 750 a head, that's €30,000. Les' estimate of annual costs:

Annual running cost including Range manager, and 3 no staff, ligh, heat, insurance, depreciation.€125000

So we'd be €95,000 shy just on annual running costs.

BTW, what would people feel acceptable as capitation fees for such a range?

les45

Even with a ongoing commerical contract , ie range hire of 90 days per year ,the facility needs a further injection of € 1230.00per week just to break even. In relation to club support NITSA have a total paid up membership this year of 234 with a further 446 affailated members ,best turnout this year 48 signed in members, most Saturdays we have 30 plus. I have looked at this every which way and even if you got the the thing built it is an expensive animal to keep.

Sparks

Yup. It's a bootstrapping problem really, in that you need enough interest to keep it alive, but you need it alive to get the interest. And it's not just numbers, it's smarts - I mean, look at Bisley. Huge numbers of shooters in the country, a fantastic facility in the LRC, but they still need to bring in hockey on part of the range and electric car racing and dance classes and so on, all to try to break even. And they're not really managing to do that, and they're nearly a million sterling in debt. And the recent Hoare debacle didn't help matters any, I'll wager.

Chipboard

I would have thought that it would be possible to get alot more than 40 members if other disciplines were included in the club. Surely if clay pidgeon shooting and a rifle range were included and the range was in a good accessible location (somewhere along the N4 within 50 or 60 miles of Dublin) a figure nearer to 400 would be achievable.

I know the set up costs would be higher than the figure you mentioned John but there would be economies in having the 3 disciplines on the one site, maybe EUR2m would cover it. If the facilities were owned by the club members (like a golf club) it might be possible to get everyone to pay an initial levy of say EUR1,000 in addition to their membership. In return for paying the levy they would have a share of 1/400th of the facility. If they wanted to cash in, they could sell that share on (subject to committee approval). This would mean that the levy was more an investment than a cost. The levy would raise EUR400k to purchase the land and pay planning fees. The club would then need to borrow EUR1.6m to fund the remainder of the start-up costs. Loan repayments on this amount over 25 years would be cEUR112k p.a. Someone mentioned staffing costs of EUR125k p.a. Thats a total of EUR237k which divided by 400 is EUR600 annual subscription. Full members wouldn't have to pay to shoot (being essentially the owners of the facility). Associate members could pay less say EUR250 but would have to pay a nominal amount to shoot say EUR10 a day. This would suit people who are casual shooters and would raise funds to pay the bills. You could also raise revenue through competitions, gear and ammo sales, food, drink possibly have a pub (licence cost EUR180k).

Golf clubs borrow sums like I've suggested above on a regular basis. You would have to appoint a board of trustees and in some cases all club members sign guarantees for a portion of the debt. In the above case you might be able to put say EUR400k of the expenditure through leasing and would need EUR1.2m term debt. The land would secure EUR350k of the term debt and the Bank would require written guarantees from the members for EUR2,125 each.

This might sound ambitious but its exactly the way golf clubs do it. If people who play golf are committed enough to sign a guarantee for EUR2,125 in favour of the club why wouldn't shooters.

You also have to consider that there would be a lot of skill available within the club. I'm sure within a club of 400 there would be several engineers, accountants, business owners, architects, carpenters, roofers, builders etc. This really should be very achievable.

Any thoughts??

les45

Eoghan, the project is not dead in the water , and if it does come to pass it looks likely that it will be located in Northern Ireland. Less problems with planning etc, and a much bigger pool of shooters. Watch this space