Starting a University Airsoft Club

[validtumoralarm]

So I'm a full time university student here in Nashville and a buddy and I are thinking of starting an official airsoft club through the school. We're looking to register as a sports club with student recreation so that we can use the university's name for credibility and be provided a budget by the activities council. I'm looking for advice and answers to a few questions from those of you who have done something like this before.

 

-Standardized uniforms, yes or no?

-What are the best ways to establish our credibility as an honorable group of players and represent our school well?

-How should we attract the kind of player that will positively represent our organization, school, and sport?

-What would be the best use of our budget money?

-What are some tips to help alleviate some of the university's (valid) concerns about this kind of thing?

-Would biweekly practices be a good idea? Or is that taking it a little too seriously?

-How do we get players interested in joining who may be self conscious about "playing soldier" in college?

-I was planning on having the club rent a storage unit for our guns, but does anyone have any better ideas?

-Transportation to and from events?

-If I'm allowed to, would opening the organization to players from other colleges in the area be a good idea?

 

I'm looking mostly for opinions from folks who have done this before, but if you think you have some valuable input go ahead and speak out. If you don't have anything constructive to say, please keep it to yourself. Thanks!

[Bachelarius]

Hey there,

 

Like with any soc, it is really all about admin. Communication with members, damage limitation from the *rickrolls* in the society (more so with airsoft, as the uni will most likely be against you existing) and sorting perks and/or services for your members.

 

I am a member of our UK based Uni's airsoft society. I've been there since the start 4 years ago and now that I've left uni, I act as their mechanic and general advice monkey.

 

First thing to realise is that although you may build up a core of dedicated members, many people will either be into it very casually or even just join and never come to a single skirmish. So keep it open to the casuals as well. Stuff like uniforms and such... I'd say it's not necessary yet. Get it going and then in your 2nd year, see what happens to your crowd then after fresher's fayer or whatever your Week-1 recruitment process is called.

 

Decide what the goal of your society will be as well and have that as a clear target at the center of all of your decisions.

 

For us it is to make airsoft more accessible for our members. We enable people to try it out, give them advice and pleasant atmosphere to play in. We visit as many different sites as we can and arrange transport for our members. We've even gone so far as to buy a small set of our own rifles and rent them out to people who need them at far below what an on-site rental would cost. PS avoid sportlines, for some reason the club decided to buy a set of them and most now have broken stocks or have had broken somethings... Rentals tend to not be too fussy with the kit, throwing it about left right and center.

 

With keeping your university happy about what you do, you need to talk to other local-ish uni's clubs and see what they did. We just had to point out the positives and show how we would limit the negatives. E.g. we are not allowed any airsoft replicas on campus or in halls, so we offer to store our members' rifles at one of our non-halls based comity's members' houses who is also in charge of charging the batteries and that sort of thing. We strongly enforce the university's rules and help people do what they love doing within the uni's jurisdiction.

 

So I would recommend spending the budget mostly on transport and ways to make airsoft cheaper for your members. See if you can get a retailer or site to offer you discounts on anything and pass that to your members.

 

Also, for external members, with us we offer our services to them as well on an invite only basis, but we have a small charge for them as well, so £5 for transport for instance. It helps bulk out numbers and can inject some variety

 

- As soon as you get started, sort out some regular skirms almost straight away and space them out accordingly to attendance.

- Make sure you have a reliable method of communication with everyone.

- Keep the skirmishes varied. The same old site can get very old very fast.

- Keep in mind the social side of things as well. Once you know everyone reasonably well, sort out stuff like barbecues and pub outings to get everyone tighter together.

- Deal with problem people accordingly. there is always one but stay firm to your ground-rules.

- Keep it fun and friendly until you can gauge your members. If many are up for a hardcore milsim, see if you can arrange

- That first day of recruiting members is everything. See if you can gear up and show off the prettiest rifles you own. Guns are the main thing that attract people to airsoft, so if you can, use them to attract the crowds, then talk to them about what you do and how it's better than paintball

- Have a solid and dependable comity helping you all the way. You cannot do everything yourself and these guys are your rock.

 

Give me a shout if you have any more specific questions, I know I've missed a load of points, but I'll track this topic to see how you get on and add more stuff as I remember it

 

Cheers, Nikolay.

[Forti]

I wouldn't bother with uniforms, people are happiest wearing what they want and our uni club is a hodgepodge of different eras and styles of kit. Keeps it interesting.

 

I helped set up and run Teesside Uni club for a couple of years, and now we're either the biggest or second biggest uni club in the country (curse you Warwick!) and the second biggest sport club at the uni, so I can lay down a couple of pointers.

 

The guy above has raised several pretty good points though, practically nowhere will let you keep your guns in halls, so either have a trustworthy member keep them all or, well, trust that no one will come round looking and hide them under your bed. Not the best plan though. Our union did suggest getting some kind of gun box put in with the other sports equipment in storage but not only would it have been expensive and annoying, it kind of sucks to have your replica held in another building in a locked cupboard where you can never access it. Buying replicas kind of sucks for first years to be honest.

 

Do be aware that you will get a lot of people who join and don't even show up, don't feel bad about those guys. The way we run the start of the year is to have a stall up with the rest of the societies during freshers week. Since we are very friendly with our union staff they do let us have guns on the stall as long as batteries and gas etc are kept at home, but you may need to build up to this level of trust over a while. In first year we only had scopes and mags on the stall and it wasn't ideal. If you do get up to this, put the big, impressive guns and the recognisable favourites such as m4s and AKs on there, and be prepared for an awful lot of 'Oh I've used real guns me' from random people.

 

We run social meetings at the pub across the road from the union every week, where people can come chat about guns, tell war stories, etc, and where the committee can announce trip dates, take feedback on stuff, and take names and money for hiring buses to go on trips. Generally trips are announced two weeks before the date and we take money off people the social before that weekend. Get yourself a forum too, it encourages discussion every day of the week.

 

I'll add some blurb about the first few skirmishes and then shut up. Basically, run your first few skirmishes of the year, which should hopefully be bulging with people coming to try it out, somewhere big, somewhere close, somewhere with lots of hires, and somewhere you can hire out for a day and bring just your club members. There is nothing more miserable than a give it a go day when the other team is a bunch of fat men with SAWs trying to show those filthy students how real men play. We tend to have two of these give it a go days at the start of each year, and sometimes at the start of the summer term, as we often have so many people it's difficult to fit them all into one day. Go somewhere close, get people jumbled up into random teams, mix up the gametypes and play short, intense matches to get people used to getting out there and getting shot. A give it a go day can make or break your club for the year, so be prepared to put some effort and cash into organising them. Get team bandanas, work out gametypes in advance, be prepared to sit out of the games yourself and wander around encouraging people and dealing with problems and dishing out advice as you go. Make your team open, friendly and competent, and people will come along just to hang out with you. If your committee is a bunch of nerds who never show up at the socials, treat the new guys like idiots, and only organise one trip a month if you're lucky, the club will fail. Trust me on this.

 

Oh, and one last point. Your uni will probably not let you spend your club's money allocation on guns or explosives or other things of that nature, so simply place your budget into cheaper transport for trips. The cheaper you can make each outing the happier your people will be. Occasionally we get a VAT-free order of bbs and sell them to club members for half the price of online shops, that always goes down well.

 

Oh yeah, and find a member who can drive a minibus, and handcuff them to your wrist. You want as many of these people as possible, as without them, you can't go anywhere full stop. Keep them happy.

 

 

Any more questions, just post. I've encountered quite a lot in my stint here, and will more than likely be able to answer.

[validtumoralarm]

Thanks for the help, guys. I'm currently working with some clubs at schools that are more or less near me to try and get ours up and running and maybe competing with other schools.

 

Keep the input coming!