2016 – FCS Meetings Reports

12/5/16 FCS Meeting

Ten participants had a good time at the 12/5/16 FCS Meeting at Wayne Weilnau’s house.  We enjoyed homemade wild hog stew (by far the best we’ve had), cornbread, brownies, and chips and salsa .  We watched the Spiritual Outdoors Adventures The Complete Season 10 Disk 2 DVD, episode The Great Texas Road Trip Part 1.

President’s Report

Membership – since our last meeting on 10/4/16, we had four men join the Club, four members renew their memberships, and three first time guests.

Events – since our last meeting on 10/4/16, we had nine events with an attendance of 68 people, which is an average of 7.56 people per event.  We have 15 events planned from 12/6/16 until our next meeting on 2/5/17.  See our Calendar and Upcoming Events web page for details.

10/4/16 FCS Meeting

Eight participants had a good time at the 10/4/16 FCS Meeting at Bruce Crockett’s house.  We enjoyed pizza .  We watched the Spiritual Outdoors Adventures The Complete Season 10 Disk 2 DVD, episodes Pass It On and Tomberlin Times.

President’s Report

Membership – since our last meeting on 8/2/16, we had one man join the Club, nine members renew their memberships, and nine first time guests.

Events – since our last meeting on 8/2/16, we had ten events with an attendance of 95 people, which is an average of 9.50 people per event. We have 16 events planned from 10/5/16 until our next meeting on 12/5/16.  See our Calendar and Upcoming Events web page for details.

8/2/16 FCS Meeting

Seven participants had a good time at the 8/2/16 FCS Meeting at Randy Rowley’s house.  We enjoyed pizza, queso with deer sausage and chips, homemade deer summer sausage (thanks to Wayne Weil nau), and two kinds of pie.  We watched the Spiritual Outdoors Adventures DVDs A Duck Hunt Down Memory Lane and A Bear Hunt in Saskatchewan.

President’s Report

Membership – since our last meeting on 6/6/16, we had one man join the club, five men renewed their memberships, and four first time guests.

Events – since our last meeting on 6/6/16, we had eight events with an attendance of 63 people, which is an average of 7.88 people per event.  We have 14 events planned from 8/3/16 until our next meeting on 10/4/16.  See our Calendar and Upcoming Events web page for details.

7/14/16 FCS Officers Meeting

Five officers attended the 7/14/16 Officers Meeting at Dos Salsas in Cedar Park. Bruce Crockett led us in prayer. The following items were discussed:

1.  Events, Membership, and Financial Report (most include a comparison with the previous three reports):

All categories are generally at our 2013 – 2015 levels.  There are no concerns.  All in all things are going great!

2.  2016 Banquet planning.

The officers discussed what certificates to pass out at the 8/11/16 FCS Banquet.  The officers agreed on the following:

• Sportsman of the Year
• Most events attended
• Largest fish
• Largest pig
• Most guests invited
• Longest active member
• Highest average score at monthly clay shoots
• Most improved sporting clays average over previous year
• Furthest traveled
• Most shotshells shot during the 24-hour shoot
• Most lures lost
• Most backlashes

3.  Bruce Crockett discussed our plans to add a PayPal button to the FCS website for people to pay for memberships and renewals and make donations.  We hope to have this feature added soon.

6/6/16 FCS Meeting

Eleven participants had a good time at the 6/6/16 FCS Meeting at Larry Dowden’s house.  We enjoyed pizza, queso and chips, and cookies and brownies.  We watched the Spiritual Outdoors Adventures DVD Scouting for Success.

President’s Report

Membership – since our last meeting on 4/7/16, we had two first time guests.

Events – since our last meeting on 4/7/16, we had nine events with an attendance of 64 people, which is an average of 7.11 people per event.  We have nine events planned from 6/7/16 until our next meeting on 8/1/16.  See our Calendar and Upcoming Events web page for details.  We also discussed having a meeting and/or shoot at Safe Range in Round Rock.

4/7/16 FCS Meeting

Four participants had a good time at the 4/7/16 FCS Meeting at Mr. Charles Batts’ home.  The meeting featured Joan Batts’ Killer Kholate Kake, IBC Rootbeer, and pizza from Pizza Hut.  The DVD Spiritual Outdoors adventures: The Bear Essentials was shown.

President’s Report

Membership – since our last meeting on 2/8/16, we had one man join the Club, five men renew their memberships, and eight first time guests.

Events – since our last meeting on 2/8/16, we had nine events with an attendance of 62 people, which is an average of 6.89 people per event.  We have 12 events planned from 4/8/16 until our next meeting on 6/9/16.  See our Calendar and Upcoming Events web page for details.  We are also exploring the possibility of hosting a Great Hills Baptist Church sporting clays tournament.  I hope to post more details later.

2/8/16 FCS Meeting

12 participants had a good time at the 2/8/16 FCS Meeting at Ron Denison’s home.  The meeting featured Randy Rowley’s Radioactive Road Kill Chili, Jeff Cates’ Killer Queso, Sue Denison’s yummy Chocolate Éclair Cake, sodas, lemonade, and tea.  The DVD Close Encounters Episode 6 was shown.

President’s Report

Membership – since our last meeting on 12/7/15 we had two people join the Club, four men renew their memberships, and two first time guests.

Events – since our last meeting on 12/7/15 we had 14 events with an attendance of 84 people, which is an average of 6.00 people per event.  We have 12 events planned from 2/8/16 until our next meeting on 4/7/16.  See our Calendar and Upcoming Events web page for details.

1/21/16 FCS Officers Meeting

Six officers attended the 1/21/16 Officers Meeting at Dos Salsas in Cedar Park. Daryl Shipper led us in prayer. The following items were discussed:

1.  Events, Membership, Financial and Webmaster’s Report (includes a comparison with the previous three reports.)

All categories are generally at our 2012 – 2014 levels.  There are no concerns.  All in all things are going great!

2.  Follow-up.  Randy Rowley reminded the vice presidents and event coordinators that one of their responsibilities is to notify the president after updating the website within one week of the update.  Randy asked the officers to please answer his questions promptly and to let him know about things that they have implemented promptly.  This will ensure that he doesn’t send them unnecessary emails.

3.  2016 Banquet planning.

We will probably host the event in August.  Michael Armstrong has secured a guest speaker – Christian sportsman Doug DeBois.  Michael is working on a venue.

4.  How to attract more young adults (18 – 35-year-olds) to the Club.  Randy Rowley shared that he is concerned that the Club’s membership largely consists of men 40 and older.  When we started the Club back in 1988 most of us were in our late 20’s or early 30’s.  Now, 27 years later, most of us are in our mid 50’s.  The few members that we have who are in their 20’s and 30’s are largely the sons of members in their 50’s.  Randy stated that he is concerned that if this trend continues that us older guys will have no one to hand the reins of the club over to in the future.  Randy shared the following suppositions regarding your adults and obstacles to attracting more of them:

• Many younger adults have less time, as they have started to raise their families, and less disposable income as they have just started their careers, usually at lower-paying positions.  Or to put it another way, they don’t have the time or money to participate in very many hunting, fishing, or shooting activities.
• Many younger adults, due to the urbanization of America and the break-up of the nuclear family, have never been exposed to the outdoors.  They do not have the equipment and do not know where to start.  They also think that if they go do something new they will embarrass themselves.
• Many younger adults do not have the patience that hunting and fishing require.  They are used to instant information, instant communication, instant food, and instant entertainment.  They can kill thirty 10-point bucks in an hour playing X-box.  They don’t see the attraction of sitting out in the mud waiting for ducks to show up or sitting in a box blind waiting for Bambi.
• Many younger adults are intimidated in going to events where most of the participants are old enough to be their parents and where they do not know anyone.
• I suspect that for every hunter/shooter in a church congregation there is probably an anti-hunter/anti-gun person.  These anti’s often complain loudly to their pastors if they get wind that a pro-hunting/pro-gun organization wants to do a promotion or co-sponsor an event with their church.  This happened in a church that I belonged to (Great Hills Baptist Church).  About five years ago we partnered with the church’s Men’s Ministry to host a Youth 5-stand and Skeet Shoot.  I created a flyer and the pastor agreed to publish it on the church website and highlight it during the announcement section of the worship service.  His secretary, who by her statements to me was anti-gun, did her best to drag her feet in putting the announcement together (even though I supplied her with a flyer weeks earlier).  The result was a one-week announcement instead of the planned three to four weeks.  Therefore, we must expect at least minor opposition when we seek to announce events that cater to young adults in churches.

Randy noted the following history and facts:

• FCS has a promotional display.  I frequently have manned a table with the display and brochures on it before and after the worship service at my church.  I also keep a sign-up sheet for our email distribution list.  By and large, the people who visit the table and sign up to be on the d-list are middle-aged people.
• I maintain FCS brochures at McBride’s Guns, Archery Country, Capitol City Trap & Skeet Club, etc.  A lot of times when I’ve put brochures at other places I suspect they just get thrown away, as they don’t stay there for long.
• We’ve done promotions at Cabelas, Sportsmen’s Warehouse, the TPWD EXPO (twice), a Fellowship Church (in Liberty Hill) EXPO (twice), and an Outdoor EXPO at the Painted horse Pavilion in Buda.  With the exception of when we have given away free hunts, a box of fishing flies, etc. we did not attract very many prospects at these promotions.  We attracted far more prospects at the promotions that we’ve done at churches (we’ve done them at four churches – Great Hills Baptist, Hyde Park Baptist, First Baptist Pflugerville, and Fellowship Church).  But, again, the prospects that we have attracted were largely middle-aged people.

The officers discussed:

• The officers discussed whether this is a significant problem.  2015 was our third best year for attendance and 2014 was our second.  We have more money than ever before and our supporting membership remains consistent.  We are not hurting for members.  We cannot change any of the above facts – young adults’ lack of time and money, their lack of exposure to the outdoors, their lack of equipment, their lack of patience, and being intimidated in being with people that they do not know and doing new things.  However, we offer free events and low cost events to address their lack of money.  Many of us offer to share our equipment and expertise with them (for example, we are happy to teach all first-time shooters how to shoot clay targets).
• The officers also discussed whether we wanted to continue to grow in a significant way.  To grow means that we need to offer more events to accommodate needs.  For many events, such as our monthly clay target shoots and the San Saba dove hunts we are at the capacity of the landowners.
• The officers also revisited the possibility of getting a Club deer lease or buying land.  Randy noted that to the best of his knowledge only 23% of our present 56 supporting members are more than occasional deer hunters.  If we bought a 200K property our monthly payments would be 2K a month (about what we presently have in the bank).  We would have to increase our membership dues by a factor of 12 (around $240/year) – something that the 77% of the members who are not regular deer hunter would not appreciate.  Plus there are obstacles with how to manage the land/lease.  A large lease would also require a very dedicated lease manager to enforce the rules.  The officers agreed that the obstacles to buying land or creating a Club lease are insurmountable at this time.
• The officers concluded that this is not a significant problem at this time.

The following ways to increase participation were shared:

1. Give more attention to our Facebook page.
2. Create a YouTube channel.
3. Participate in the Georgetown parade.
4. Institute a mentor program.
5. Revisit whether we should get a 501(c)(3).

Randy will follow up on the above.