Decision Thinking

Our Club is totally volunteer run, and has ego issues as all clubs. It is considering becoming connected to another club...

So what is my position on this?

R...........: (club president)

First, let me thank you for being president and bring some order to this group. It is a tough job, and I would support you staying on for a second term, should you wish to. Volunteer groups are much more difficult than any business to run well. We are all committed to our individual needs, not necessarily to the groups needs. If these are concurrent, well success is possible. If not, all we can do is wish you luck. It is worse than herding cats.

In this inter club discussion, I have been struggling in deciding what my position actually is.

A bit of history about this concept of a archery in Sherwood Park might be in order. I do not know all the history; however for more than forty years I have been bumping into this concept, all the while being outside of the archery world. The first time was a fun shoot/turkey shoot/ membership drive/ thing about 1974 where the aim was to raise money for a property down payment, where the Sherwood Range is currently at. That split the club, with the dissenters leaving.

In the late In 78 or 79, the plan was still alive, and there was much dissent. Some of the names are still the same, only one generation later.

In 83 or 84 Fish and wildlife tried the same thing in Leduc and got as far as building a combined gun/archery range on the Lede property, but once again succumbed to internal club issues. It is still an unsafe outdoor gun range today.

The building west of the Leduc airport by a different group has too many issues to be considered, and was promoted as a combined range, however, I never heard of any archers using it. The original construction was bad, and required considerable repairs soon after construction. The original group disintegrated, and left a financial mess, and unpaid bills from construction. 

We have seen private ranges come and go since I have been here, most of fifty years. I doubt if there is enough concentration of desire for this grand "archery center for excellence" to work without substantial long term support of at least one level of government or other source of funds or economic space. 

It is much more important to me that I try to meet my current needs; and, where practical, a few of our club needs, rather than some dreamy future iffy ideal, of other someones vision of what they would like for the future.

If you want to test the support, simply ask for a donation of say fifty dollars toward the project, and see how far that goes. That will separate the verbal support from the real support. I wish you all good luck.