State Shoot Help

[Brad Patterson]

First let me say that for the last 5 years the shoot was at the WGC, I served as the Tournament Director. One of my duties was to hire the help that worked the state shoot, then to train them and then along with my line supervisors, to manage and supervise their efforts for the week. I also hired the rest of the labor, (cashiers, morning crew, evening crew, squadders, etc) Suffice to say, that the largest expense for the shoot was the labor. Here is how we did it. It worked for us, maybe it will help you in your endeavors.

We hired 5 ladies to work the cashiering and squadding. They were overseen by our WTA secretary who also acted as our head cashier for the shoot. 3 of the girls generally worked the cashiering and the other two worked the squadding table. In addition we hired a lady who assisted our computer guru for the week.

Each day we had a morning crew who worked not only under my direction but also that of the Recobs as they loaded all the targets and did final prep for each trap pad. All the kids got paid for this in addition to working during the day as trap line help.

Every day of the shoot we had a evening crew. They came in about 3:00, did all the cleanup of the grounds and then also scored if needed for shootoffs.

Last was the trapline help itself. By far the largest expense but also your most important hire. They to a great degree control the integrity of the competition. As we had the hand sets we put three kids on every trap so in all we had about 90 kids and parents working (including practice traps and couple extra in case of accident, no show etc. Parents and kids each got $475 for the week the last year the shoot was at Waukesha. By having three kids they rotated throughout the day and then by end of the week they were fresh and sharp when you needed them to be for the most important events, the championship events. Every worker worked every day, no exceptions. We had bonuses tied within that $475 that could deduct their pay if they did things they weren’t suppose to(ex. punch center out of target) Plus if they did something that caused them to lose part of their pay it affected the whole group so in sense it was self policing.

Now the first year was a challenge but we set a foundation, by the end of year 5 we had many workers who had worked all 4 years they could so we had really solid good help. I still get compliments today about the kids and were 4 to 5 years removed.

This structure was in effect for just the state shoot as we didn’t have additional shoots at the time, but if we did I would expect to pay them additionally for each event.

The trap line help is the most critical piece of the labor puzzle and yet they are paid the lowest. We paid more to a lady sitting in the pods cashiering than we did the trap line workers who are not in a air conditioned setting but outside in sometimes very trying elements. Does that make sense ?

You also have to get some of the money into the kids pockets. For instance, the football player got paid $475 for the week. $200 covered his sports fee, work out clothes and team minicamp. The other $275 went in kids pocket. The parents liked it cause the kids worked towards something and contributed to the costs to play and kid got some spending money. A win-win for all. Kids need a reward too , it cant all go to the school where they see nothing.

Hope that gives a few thoughts.

 

 

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