Now that everything is set for the 2008 State Shoot, I would like to give everyone some ideas to consider for 2009 as we go through the 2008 event. Please pass your comments on to the executive committee well before the December meeting as you know all decisions are pretty much final by the time we have our meeting.
The two largest programs (archery and air rifle and air pistol) are once again scheduled on the same day which will mean that we will need a lot of cooperation to survive this day. I realize my proposals will be a drastic change but please consider them before you entirely reject them.
Other states with large programs have multiple day shoots. We have had three weekends in the past. Gas is now EXPENSIVE!
1. My first proposal is that we change our state shoot to a five consecutive day shoot.
There are two possibilities:
Labor Day Weekend - Add Friday and Tuesday.
Problems - All Schools and Colleges are in full swing
Football games are being played
Archery Hunting Season has started. Maybe Black Powder also.
Five Week Days - Monday through Friday, Wednesday through Sunday.
Possible date ranges from August 10-20.
Problems - Some people would miss work (I can't even count the number of days
I have missed in the past due to State Leadership Committments
and know many of you are the same including judging county fairs)
Some might miss football practices but at least not games
Positive Points - One trip to
Prior to all hunting seasons
Hopefully all county fairs would be over
Completed before 99% of schools starting dates
Plenty of time for all events
I personally feel a schedule should be set up so that each event has the same
days year after year; but I would not oppose a rotating schedule if everyone
thought that would be more fair.
2. My second proposal would be to bring our program more in line with the national program.
Having just returned from another national invitational and listening to many parents say
that they felt the state programs should mirror the national program, I feel it would be a
very positive step. I can not speak for any discipline except archery but I know that Terri
Brown and I offered many centrally located opportunities for the archery teams to
experience the events that would be held at nationals which provided the youth with the
opportunity to get to know each other and to experience 3D and Field archery. In the past
when I have given instructor training workshops, the most often asked question is "Why
don't we shoot 3D?"
3. My third proposal involves the archery program.
First of all, I would like to see 3D added and with a five day shoot that would be possible.
Secondly, I would like to see Seniors shoot farther (say 30, 40, 50, and 60 yards or
meters) and leave the Juniors at (say 10, 20, 30, and 40 yards or meters).
I KNOW our budget would not allow us to purchase foam animals; however, there is an
abundance of various paper targets that could be used for a 3D range. They could be
glued on cardboard and put on backers or just put on backers. The idea of shooting 3D at
unknown distances over a course would still be there. The youth could shoot with youth
from other counties and do their own scoring. An independent range officer could resolve
any issues and parents and coaches should be kept out of the course so that the youth
are entirely on their own. (I was extremely skeptical at the first national invitational in
2000 when scoring of all events was explained. However, I have come to appreciate it as
it gives more developmental opportunities to youth as they resolve the scoring issues.
I would be happy to discuss my ideas with any of you who are interested.
So there you go.
11 comments:
Having been to the past three National invitational shoots i can say that the youth shoot a much more diverse, challenging and FUN event than just punching holes in paper.
I also would like to see our program mirror the events at the national shoot. I do think that we would need some other/ additional events targeted to the younger shooters.
I would also like to see jr./ int/ Sr. shooting events.
Nation wide there are a several choices for Youth to participate in Shooting Sports. I beleve that 4-H provides the best opportunity for learning and FUN with shooting sports. One great challenge is that everyone, 4-H (state by state), BSA (Scouts), JOAD, USA shooting, Jaycees, Yhec, American Legion, Colo bowhunters.....The list goes on, all do something a little different, they all hold thier own shoots, use different rules, different venues. What if all of these youth groups could all work together with common rules and events? We could more that double the opportunities to participate in shooting events and we could even have a real "State" event and championship!!
Just think of all of the things we as leaders and state team menbers could do with all of the time we would free up if we did not need to argue about rewriting the rules every year. Use the rules that are out there for the events we shoot!!
I think that shotgun perty much has it down they shoot the events that the rest of the world shoots!! well done!!
I sounds like our National 4-H shooting sports leadership team is going through some sweeping changes. This might just be the catalyst to ask us to look at what we do and make some changes to model our program after some type of standard that fits with 4-H Nation wide as well as with other youth organizations.
How about scheduling some meetings in Sept. /Oct. to talk about what that might look like?
How about asking ALL of our leaders and menbers what they would like to see?
How about asking our National 4-H leadership what they see as a vision for the program both Nationally and at the State level?
As always i will help be a part of the process if needed and wanted.
Tell me what you think? use the Blog or E-mail me mmmkcook@msn.com
(970) 310-9332
Michael Cook
Boulder County 4-H Shooting Sports Leader
How about asking the youth what they would like to see as part of the program? It won't do much good to have a program if they don't want to do it.
How about asking the rest of the world (other states) what they do. We might be able to use some of the ideas they have to help us find different ways to handle the number of youth involved and the geographical distances we travel.
How about getting a small bore pistol program started? The training is the same program as the air pistol class? I am sure we have leaders ready to begin if it would be allowed and we adopted some rules.
How about using semi-auto rifles in air rifle and .22? We should be providing the skill for the youth to be able to use them safely. It it the most likely .22 they would carry in the field for hunting or plinking. More skills learned.
Input from a mom of a football player AND a 4H-er: by having the state shoot over two weekends, with one being the long Labor Day weekend, it enables us to attend the Sunday events and generally, we don't have a game on the Saturday of Labor Day. That leaves one Saturday we must choose which event takes priority. This year, it was football. Our son has to skip the .22 events because he has a scrimmage he does not want to miss. Happily, we get to go the other 4 days for shooting! If the State shoot was held during the week, it would make it difficult - if not impossible - to get to school, football (or other fall sport) practice, and the shoot.
Additionally, I'm afraid if we move the state shoot to 5 days during the work/school week, we will lose MANY of our parent volunteers, and many of our kids will be forced to miss school (our district, unfortunately, is one which starts August 11 - and they've tried to start one week earlier for the past two years). By keeping it on the weekends, we are not forced to cause our kids to miss any school. Even the 4H-ers who have started college by that time can usually make the weekend events.
As to trying to bring our program more into alignment with the National shoot, I think that is a very good idea. Our older son attended his first National Shoot (with Linda, in archery!) this year, and loved the 3-D, FITA, and Field events. We would love to see small-bore pistol added, as well as the other events for which we did not field a team.
Sounds like there are some interesting changes brewing in the future. Thanks for asking for our input!
I think all this sounds great. But lets try to figure out how to run the state contest with the venues that we have now, before we add more. Let's not loose site of the big picture, The shooting sports in 4H is just the hook to get the youth interested in 4H. Our mission is to help develop the youth in to good, solid, productive citizens and future leaders of our country.
This might be the toughest part of the process:....we need to have a solid understanding of just what the 4-H shooting sports program is intended to be!!
Is it just shoot 5 rounds at a target,take a test and get your badge?
Is 4-H going to be the biggest broadest most competitive shooting sports program that ever lived?
It might be somewhere in the middle.
It looks like we have a mix of views of what the program is and /or should be.
We might need direction from the State (extension) not the team, or even National 4-H about just what program do we want ( and are we allowed) to offer.
no name
I agree on expanding the archery program to be similar to the National Shoot. I think our kids are at a disadvantage when they get to that venue. If they don't take it on them selves to shoot some of the local tournaments put on by various organizations(mainly the Colo. State Archery Association)they will not know the ins ands outs of the three different types of events held at Nationals. 3d and Field is much different then shooting at the targets that the kids do now. I think there is local ranges that would rent their facility's for a weekend so the 4-H doesn't have to buy 3-d targets and the same for Field shoots.
By adding the 3-d and Field would add two more days to the State shoot. That is a problem for both parents, kids and volenteers. I don't know how to solve that problem. Sooner or later it will probably boil down to the kids having to decide what shooting sport they want to shoot instead of trying to do all of them. Maybe the state will have to limit the number of disiplines the kids can shoot to two or three.
I do wonder if Colorado has contacted other states to see how they run their programs, and see if there is any programs that would work for us.
I too would like to see some longer yardages shot for the seniors, but that would have to be set according to the different divisions in archery. Both the NAA and NFAA have limits set for ages and the respective classes as to what yardage they can shoot.
I think this is a good forum to thoughts on upgrading the program.
I am the mother of two 4-H'ers in Fremont and attended the State Archery shoot this past weekend and was very upset when my daughter and a couple of our other team members were shooting and some idiot decided in the middle of their shooting decided to move the bow rest out form under the canonpy they had it under and right behind my daughter and another of our team members thus distracting them, would it not have been better to wait until everyone was done shooting to move such a large clamorous object, I mentioned it to my husband who happens to be one of our coaches, but he didn't feel that it would do any good to say anything right then, I feel that they should have some respect for the shooters, even if they are just kids, my daughter was doing really good until this untimely distraction, please be a little more considerate of the kids shooting next year.
Having the seniors shoot the same competition as the Nationals is a great idea.
Switching the State shoot to a five day event is a good idea but not very feasible especially for the parents. Some parents either will not be able to get the time off do to short notice (aka the parents will not know until their respected county shoots have taken place) or scheduling that far in advance may not be a option.
The other concern would be that there really is only 1 week in August that does not conflict with most other activities. (football, county fairs, state fair and school)
All in all I think that thing at teh 2008 state shotgun contest went very well andi thank all that made it happen.just a few thoughts.
i think that the seniors and junior should shoot the same day just different games. if you shoot senior skeet and junior 5 stand on saturday and senior 5 stand and junior skeet on sunday things could go smoother , you would only have to set 2 skeet and 2 5 stand courses and would need fewer machine and be able to set more machines on ea 5 stand course maybee 6-9 total making it more challanging. i thank the different counties thank bring there machines and set them up , i know there were problems with some of the machines but that is to be expected. a nother option that may help is to hire a company to provide the machines and set the course and service them this would allow the range officers to do the things that they need to doo with the kids insteed of fixing machine in the middle of compitition.
I am sure that there is some company that would drovide this service at a reduced cost to 4-H.
Again thank you to all that offer there time and equipment to make the whole thin happen, great job. Jerry Van Riper Weld County 4-H Shooting Sports Council, Vice President- Trap Key Leader
Lets all remember that the National Invitational Contest only allow a shooter to shoot their event 1 time in their career and only seniors may participate. This Event ONLY effects 4 shooters per discipline That is a total of 28 kids out of 3400.
I am not saying it is not a good contest, but why should we copy it.
We have 800 kids participating at Our State Shoot. We cannot get enough VOLUNTEERS to help make the Shoot run smoothly, and you want to add more classes and days. I am sorry but it just dosen't make since at this time.
I have a difficult time seeing any difference in the Shotgun Program expanding from Trap to include Skeet and Sporting Clays and Archery expanding from Target shooting to 3D and Field Archery.
When I did my national training, Ron Howard had two points to his philosophy: 1) Shooting Sports was designed to retain older 4-Her's in the program and 2) The program should serve all levels of ability from the raw beginner with no skill to the elite shooter. I have used that philosophy in the manner in which I run my program. I do have elite shooters who work extremely hard at developing their skills while I, most probably, have the largest program in the state serving special needs youth. My proposal to expand the archery program was not specifically designed to benefit the eight youth who make the national team each year. Most of the older youth would love to shoot 3D within the 4-H program especially since it is used in the national competition. Field Archery is an excellent intermediate step for younger youth because it combines both target archery in that the distances are known but it is shot on a 3D type course.
I would be happy to discuss my draft for scheduling this expansion at the state shoot - regardless of what dates are decided to hold the program.
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