How to get more participation. That is a very good question.

One thing that I want to point out is that you give away C-notes to all shooters and it wouldn't change some things. For instance, my work schedule has me travelling alot at the moment. In fact I just got back from a 3 week trip with 2 of those weeks being in Europe. Basically, if I am travelling for work, I can't attend no matter how good things are.

To take that a step further, if I know I will be away from the family for a period of time, the weekend before and after are also normally tied up with family stuff.

So, I point this out because some things people will choose over a hobby.

Drawing more people is hard. You have to do it by word of mouth. Getting rid of the polical strife will help a lot.

What I think would be good (although not really liked) is more classifier matches. Why? They are a standard to judge yourself against. Am I improving?

Another thing that I personally think would be good (although who/what/when/where/why/how are the problems) would be "workshops". It is one thing to participate, but to get good typically coaching helps. It kind of like the "tacitcal" schools but modified to be 1) in the area 2) catered twoards IPDA 3) reasonable priced.

Kind of a knock-off of this is to do a "buddy-system" where less experienced shooters team up with more experienced shooters to get pointers/advice from the more experienced guys.

As far as the matches go, I think breaking up into smaller groups so there is more trigger time and less waiting time helps. The blind stages are fun, but limit them. They take a long time.

I like BUG gun matches too. Maybe let people run the complete match with a BUG instead of a regular pistol? I know it would have to be broken up separating pistols from revolvers but maybe it would work. The nice thing with a complete BUG match is it encourages people use CCW weapons that they may actually carry. And let them use them as they carry them! I dont carry 5 rounds in the mag and then a pocket-full of loose bullets. I carry a loaded full mag with a loaded full mag backup! I would be easy just to have "BUG" along with SSP, etc.

I guess what I like is to 1) get better 2) get input on how to get better 3) have some measure to show I am getting better 4) to use real world equipment and 5) to have fun.

Maybe I have given some ideas...

-Dana