1/1/26 State of the Club Report

Fellow and future FCS members,

2025 was a very good year for FCS, eclipsing 2024 in many ways.

Attendance Highlights:

• Our attendance was 487 people, 87 more people than in 2024, and our fifth best.
• We had 85 events, 17 more than 2024, and our best by far!
• We averaged 5.73 participants/event, .15 participants/event worse than 2024, and our thirty fifth best. This is not a significant concern, as we can only have limited numbers of participants on our self-guided duck hunts, blasts and cast, self-chartered bay fishing trips, and self-chartered freshwater fishing trips due to the number of people that we can safely fit in our boats and kayaks.  Such events account for more than 1/3 of our events.
• The 5/26/25 Self-chartered Freshwater Fishing Trip (boat) tied for the most participants (four).
• Our 4/26/25 – 4/27/25 Student Sporting Clays Shoot had the second best number of participants (12).
• Our 2/25/25 Officers Meeting tied for the third best number of participants (seven).
• Our Chartered Freshwater Fishing Trips had the most participants to date with 26.
• Our Self-guided Teal Hunts had the most participants to date with six.
• Our Banquets had the second best average number of participants per event (28.0).
• Our NSCA Sporting Clays Tournaments had our third best number of participants with 53.
• Our Self-chartered Freshwater Fishing Trips had our third best number of participants with 48.
• Our NSCA Sporting Clays Tournaments had our second best average number of participants per event (3.79).
• Our Student Sporting Clays Shoots tied for the second best average number of participants per event (12.0).
• Our Self-guided Teal Hunts tied for the second best average number of participants per hunt (3.00).
• Our Officers Meeting tied for the third best average number of participants (7.0).
• We surpassed 1,600 events with 1,605.

(For a year-by-year comparison, see our Events Statistics page.)

Membership Highlights:

• We had seven people join the club (tying our thirteenth best; the record is 32). For a year-by-year comparison, see our New Members page.
• We had 35 members renew their memberships (our fifth best; the record is 52 since we have been keeping records in this category). For a year-by-year comparison (since 2006), see our Membership Renewals page.
• We ended the year with 74 supporting members (our sixth best; the record is 105 since we have been keeping records in this category). For a year-by-year comparison (since 2002), see our Supporting Members Summary page.
• We had 25 first-time guests/members (our eleventh best; the record is 50 since we have been keeping records in this category). For a year-by-year comparison (since 2002), see our First-Time Guests/Members page.

Finances Highlights:

To be posted later.

Website Highlights:

The website is stable and there are no issues.

Facebook Page Highlights:

We now have 542 members of our FCS Facebook group.  There are no issues.

Officers:

I’d be happy for someone to take over as the Chartered Freshwater Fishing Trip Czar, Semi-guided Hog Hunt Czar, Guided Upland Bird Hunt Czar, and Secretary from me.  For general officer expectations and the Event Coordinators’ and Secretary’s job descriptions, see Section IV. Officers in the Bylaws.  Many hands make light work.

2026:

We have 79 events planned this year.  See our Calendar for details, including the list of officers overseeing events.

The 2026 Calendar is more ambitious than the 2025 Calendar (where we had 73 events planned initially).

Now that Bruce Crockett, former Clay Target Czar, is taking a break from service, I will implement changes going forward, including:

1. We will no longer list individuals’ results for the various sporting clays tournaments.  Instead I’ll supply the scorechaser link for the tournament and folks can look up our shooters scores themselves, if they so desire.
2. I will no longer update the Shoots Scorecard.  Bruce did this as a service – it wasn’t an expectation of his job as Clay Target Czar.  With 29 events that I’m directly responsible for and 50 events that I’m indirectly responsible for, I simply don’t have the time to update the Scorecard.  Folks can keep track of their own scores from now on, if they so desire.

I hope to see you at an FCS event in 2026.

Pursuing God’s way,

Randy Rowley

President

The Fellowship of Christian Sportsmen