The planned May open day has vanished?

[paulbradley]

Well this year we have the sum total of ZERO open days for the public. The open days still charge for range use. I believe it is about £20-25 a person. If you then actively convert those people to sign up as NRA members you have additional income and increase political power. I attended the last open day. The NRA said it was fully subscribed. It was actually very quiet and some ranges had nothing happening at all most of the day. The guys that were there helping werefantastic and were doing so for free. However if that was a desicive factor then the NRA would only need ask and I'm sure many would step forward to help if required. These days are being sold out for short term financial gains. In my mind that can only be a bad thing for the growth of this sport.

[dromia]

Bisley isn't the only place that open days can be held.

I took some non shooting friends to an excellent open day at Altcar a few years ago.

The only problem with that is that the NRA membership isn't worth it unless you can or intend to shoot at Bisley, so whilst promoting shooting and increasing understanding of the activity, both totally worthwhile things in themselves, they are unlikely to get many more lasting members.

So with the NRA being even more Bisley centric nowadays the other venue option doesn't seem to be important to them.

[TJC]

It is on May 3rd. An NRA rep posted about this open day in another forum 2 wks ago.

[paulbradley]

No one has tried being pro active in terms of selling memberships though Dromia. Any other company would actively market the membership to the clients just after they finished shooting. They will be on a natural high, full of enthusiasm. Make use of that and sell them a membership. Have people there to close the deal. I realise its a bit crass but the fact is it works. That's why all the big corps do it. We have all signed up for things we don't use much... Sky subscriptions, billions of unused phone texts and minutes. The NRA needs to compete with these corps. Give people a taster and have them signed up before the day is done. Will it matter that they shoot regularly or even at all afterwards? Not really. The marketing could be handled by volunteers who own small businesses in the shooting vein. If they agreed to volunteer and sign people up it would give them a free marketing platform to target prospective new shooters with gun/accessory sales. It could be a financial and political winner for all involved...

[paulbradley]

TJC.. It was on that day. Nows its been removed from the NRA site.

[dromia]

I certainly wouldn't try and sell the NRA membership to anyone who doesn't get to Bisley to shoot, when they get into it and see what poor value it is for non Bisley shooters it will turn them off. Better surely to live in the hope that one day the NRA will become a national organisation and have relevance to non Bisley shooters so that people will join and not feel ripped off.

[karen]

Bisley isn't the only place that open days can be held.

I took some non shooting friends to an excellent open day at Altcar a few years ago.

So with the NRA being even more Bisley centric nowadays the other venue option doesn't seem to be important to them.

The NRA organised the Altcar Open Day because other venues are important to them. It always lost a bit of money but it was part of the charitable objective so was subsidised by the Bisley ones. I think we did about 5 of them and I went to at least 3.

Then we got "new management" who decided that as it lost money it should be cancelled - a WRONG decision.

Should be reinstated but it does need more people in the area to help out to make it work!

Love

karen

[karen]

My understanding is that the NRA are only allowed a handful of open days a year. They use the majority of these for corporate days. That is short term thinking.

The NRA are allowed two or three OPEN Days where any member of the public can just turn up. Home Office permission is needed.

The NRA are allowed 40 GUEST days which they use for corporate days. Clubs are allowed 12. Police permission is needed and NRA/clubs can apply for more if they need them

Open days and guest days are two entirely different things.

Love

Karen

[paulbradley]

Sorry Karen my mistake! Dromia I totally agree the NRA membership needs to be more relevant to non bisley shooters.

[karen]

Not a mistake - its just complicated

The point of the Open Days was to get new members and to promote shooting - nothing else. All the money initially was ploughed back into the Open Days and equipment.

However the NRA has made a big mistake here in cancelling one day, trying to change the format of the other then cancelling that one too. We worked very hard with getting it to a stage where as Rox said we didn't need publicity to fill it (in the early days we went out in the car at night to fly post the locals), getting willing and hardworking volunteers who were prepared to come every time and getting people coming back 3 or 4 times until they joined.

We have now lost all of that

Love

karen