FOREST AND STREAM 
347 
Finally, when the whole project has taken shape with 
the audience, produce a subscription list and ask for 
charter members who will buy one or more of the 
bonds to finance the club. If enough money can not 
be secured then and there, let the audience as a whole 
pledge itself to find enough members. Make it very 
plain that the sooner this is accomplished the sooner 
the club can start its active career. It is not a bad 
plan to have some friend in the crowd who can rise 
if necessary and put the thing in the form of a resolu¬ 
tion. Coach him ahead, and if the need appears just 
tip him the wink and let him rise and say: 
“Mr. Chairman, I move that each bond-holder pledge 
himself to secure at least one other bond-holder, and 
that we all work to promote this club, and that one 
week from to-night we hold another meeting to or¬ 
ganize the club, elect officers and settle upon a place 
for our ran S e THIS IS xMPORTANT. 
Another useful person to have at the meeting is some¬ 
body who can write an account of what was done 
while it is going on and take copies to each newspaper. 
For next day that notice in the newspapers will re¬ 
assure many who attended it—it is human nature to 
cool off a little when one gets by one’s self again. 
But there is danger that the club will center too 
much on these crack shooters. In arranging events 
you are apt to make the error of pitching the stand¬ 
ards too high for the average fellows and the novices, 
so that the latter are mere spectators. By a little un¬ 
wise management along this line a very promising 
club can be reduced to a group of fancy shots without 
an audience. If money and valuable prizes are shot for, 
your crack marksmen are apt to degenerate into what 
they call “pot-hunters” in England—that is, experts 
who seldom shoot unless there is a rich stake to be won. 
In chapter eight you will find suggestions for hand¬ 
ling your crack shots by dividing your members into 
teams, placing your crack shots in prominent positions 
on the different teams. 
AN INTERESTING SPORT FOR EVERYONE. 
Your club should be conducted for all classes, and 
give everybody ample scope according to his skill. 
Get in the boys as well as the men. 
Get the women and girls too. 
Women, girls and boys are desirable for several rea¬ 
sons. As a matter of cold club revenue, for instance, 
they will keep the targets busy afternoons while men 
members are at work. 
But it is well to draw no lines between members 
when it comes to skill. The different sexes and the 
different ages may shoot separately while they are 
novices, but as soon as they acquire skill, and can show 
actual records, they should take the places on the teams 
and in matches that their skill demands, and these 
events will gain interest through them, not lose it. 
The women and girls can give tone to the club by 
their presence, even though they are on the range but 
one night a week. 
They are splendid organizers, too, and the club that 
has their co-operation and interest is striking root into 
the family life of its community that will give it great 
strength and stability. 
Sometime women assume that rifle shooting is a 
rough or dangerous sport when they first hear about it, 
so a little painstaking work will be necessary to show 
them its true nature and merits. 
Assure them that it is not greatly different from bowl¬ 
ing in a general way; that women and girls now partici¬ 
pate in bowling everywhere; that rifle shooting calls 
for far less physical exertion and undoubtedly gives 
greater scope for skill based on good nerves and good 
thinking. Explain the safety of rifle shooting, its econ- 
y, and the good habits it demands. Show them that 
Start of 
There will also be people who have been interested in 
tne advance notices, but did not attend the meeting, 
and this notice will convince them that the rifle club is 
a live issue. 
In fact, from this time forward the club should 
always have newspaper publicity. Nothing goes so far 
to keep it solidly together as an organization and gen¬ 
erate enthusiasm for its events. The newspapers will 
be glad to publish scores and items about all matches 
from night to night if they are written out clearly and 
sent in. So somebody should be delegated to do this 
work regularly and well—let it be regarded as seriously 
and performed as faithfully as score-keeping. 
GOOD FOUNDATION ASSURES SUCCESS. 
Finance, organization and management of the club 
are simple enough if one keeps in mind certain prin¬ 
ciples that bring success. 
To provide money for ranges, rent and equipment the 
club issues bonds in small denominations and should 
have little difficulty in selling them to members. These 
bonds carry interest at five or six per cent, and are to 
be bought back by the club as funds accumulate. With 
good management, providing constant interest for mem¬ 
bers by matches and other events, it is no trick at all 
to have a club out of debt in a year and in fine shape 
in the matters of quarters and equipment. 
You will find in other sections of this book all de¬ 
tails for financing a club, also rules of rifle shooting 
as a sport and good methods for organizing and con¬ 
ducting matches. It is well to say here something 
about the human nature of management. 
There are your crack shots to begin with. You will 
get them at the start, or develop them as you go along, 
and they are at once the corner-stone upon which you 
can build a _ strong organization, if wisely managed, 
and a potential force for wrecking organization if un¬ 
wisely managed. 
ENCOURAGE THE NOVICE. 
You will readily understand how the novice, after 
a few lessons in shooting, gains sufficient insight into 
the difficulties. involved and the practice needed to be 
very appreciative of the skill of the crack shots. He 
will enjoy seeing them work, and talk with them about 
their methods, and they will keep him interested and 
give his instruction. 
a New Club. 
women often possess better qualifications for this sport 
than men, by reason of their finer perceptions. Make 
your appeal to them as women. For women are like a 
party in matters of this sort, and are proud of their 
achievements as women. Man is individualistic. What 
men as a sex are doing in the world doesn’t interest 
him very keenly because he has pride chiefly in what 
one man is doing, and that is himself, or what a group 
of fellows do who make up his crowd. But women will 
join the organization as women, and work for it on that 
basis. 
Finally, a good rifle club should be something more 
than an organization for the benefit of its members 
alone. It can be made a very fine influence in its 
community, a center for men and women, boys and 
girls, an outlet for energies that might not be expended 
so healthily if it were not in existence, and something 
upon which the community can often be united on a 
basis of community spirit. 
FINANCE. 
It is above all things necessary that a rifle club 
should be self-supporting and financially sound from the 
outset, hence the provision of the capital outlay for 
construction of range and its equipment and the means 
by which income is raised and maintained are of the 
first importance. 
If the club rules provide for a membership at a low 
cost, and cheap shooting, a larger membership than 
would be possible under other circumstances may be 
expected. With a larger membership the difficulties 
of raising capital and maintaining an income are rela¬ 
tively small. 
Let us suppose that you have secured fifty members 
at the start (not a large number to get together in a 
small town or city neighborhood). 
REDEEMABLE BONDS RATHER THAN INITIA¬ 
TION FEE. 
To provide money for ranges, rent and equipment the 
club issues bonds in small denominations. Fifty, 
five dollar bonds will provide a working capital of $250 
and there should be little difficulty in selling them to 
members. These bonds can carry interest at 5 per cent, 
or 6 per cent, and are repayable out of the income 
of the club by quarterly drawings. 
Here is a simple form for the bond. 
Five Dollars Number. 
SHOOT 
THE WINNERS’ 
LOAD 
DU PONT 
BALLISTITE 
SCHULTZE 
Eighty per cent, of this year’s 
Interstate Championships 
were won with these powders. 
Why experiment? 
What is good for champions 
is good for you. 
Du Pont, Ballistite or Schultze 
for trap and field shooting meet 
every demand of the most ex¬ 
acting shooters. 
(mm) 
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT 
TRAPSHOOTING OR ANY OF 
OUR SPORTING POWDERS, 
WRITE TO SPORTING POWDER 
DIVISION. 
Du Pont Powder Co. 
Established 1802 
WILMINGTON 
DEL. 
BOND OF THE BLANKSBURG RIFLE CLUB 
For value received the Blanksburg Rifle Club prom¬ 
ises to pay, five years from date, or earlier at its own 
option. Five Dollars to the holder of this bond, and to 
pay interest thereon at the rate of six per cent, an¬ 
nually on January 1st of each year until redeemed. 
Signed 
President 
Date. 
Secretary. 
CONTINUOUS INCOME TO CLUB FROM SALE 
OF AMMUNITION. 
In addition to capital a club must have income to 
meet its current working expenses. Heretofore un¬ 
der the system on which clubs have been managed 
practically the only source of income has been the 
members subscriptions. The effect of this system is to 
impose an equal expense on all members alike irre¬ 
spective of the amount of shooting they do, and this 
expense has been such as to deter the less well to do 
members of the community from joining the club. A 
far more preferable system is to impose a light an¬ 
nual subscription and to derive the greatest source 
of income from the sale of ammunition, used in the 
