Young ladies in shooting

T

the_doctor

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I am just wondering if anyone has young ladies at their club? I am referring to women in their 20's to 30's. I have been noticing the conspicious absence of such women at new member initiations. We are getting men in their twenties. Is anyone trying to spread the word and encourage younger women to join?

Perhaps there is an oppoturnity. My club is having a Ladies' Night in two saturdays on the South Shore. My club's treasurer and a couple of the officers(female, too) are going to be running the introductory clinic.

PM for details.

bill
 
Trying like hell to get my 20 year old GF to go shooting. The biggest advance was I finally got her to hold my M4gery, to give her an idea of what I carry at work. But to no avail she still wont go, she keeps using the the excuse that she is "afraid" she will "like it".

-DM-
 
Active in the club? Not currently.

Participate in classes? A few. Most attend with a male companion, but a few come of their own actions.

Surely not as many as I would like to see. HOWEVER... The GOAL FSED and Women-On-Target events do get significant female representation.

Thus, your best bet would be to get either a Women-On-Target event or a Second Amendment Sisters chapter at the club to help women who might have an interest the forum/situation to attend an event and not have to be surrounded by the 'boys'.

Probably the most fun I've ever had in a defense class was one I scheduled with AWARE for my wife's friends. Whole bunch of women who mostly worked at Crate and Barrel with my wife all in sweats beating the hell out of "Tactical Ted". Beautiful. (word to the wise, don't attack any women who work at the Natick Crate and Barrel, some of them really know how to handle themselves)

But this is the key. To attract them, you need to create a comfort level. As an instructor, a class of women is always the easiest to instruct as they are willing to listen, will ask good questions, and usually hit the paper more consistently.

At the very leas
 
the_doctor said:
I am just wondering if anyone has young ladies at their club? I am referring to women in their 20's to 30's.
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Yes, but never alone. Wait, one time. She left me a hundred or so rounds of 38 special in one of the buckets too. Guess the ladies aren't into reloading.
 
the_doctor said:
I am just wondering if anyone has young ladies at their club? I am referring to women in their 20's to 30's. I have been noticing the conspicious absence of such women at new member initiations. We are getting men in their twenties. Is anyone trying to spread the word and encourage younger women to join?

My daughter shoots rifle for our team and reloads .223.
My next door neighbor, her sister and niece are all in the process of getting thier LTCs and plan on joining my club soon.
We have younger girls around Old Colony on regular basis, doing everything from pistol to Skeet or Trap.
When we have our Open House every September, we always have a slew of kids; boys and girls show an interest in our Junior program.
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the_doctor said:
I am just wondering if anyone has young ladies at their club? I am referring to women in their 20's to 30's. I have been noticing the conspicious absence of such women at new member initiations. We are getting men in their twenties. Is anyone trying to spread the word and encourage younger women to join?

Perhaps there is an oppoturnity. My club is having a Ladies' Night in two saturdays on the South Shore. My club's treasurer and a couple of the officers(female, too) are going to be running the introductory clinic.

PM for details.

bill
Click to expand...


I am hosting a Women on Target with the help of Jon Green from GOAL. Not only should it help boost the number of women who want to shoot but it should also help increase the number of ladies who belong to my club. If the 1st Women on Target goes well I will try to host at least one a year.

Honestly I think that I may be the youngest woman at my club. We have a few junior programs however those are children and the cater mostly to bow and arrow events.

At the last club meeting that I went to, the pistol team was relentlessly trying to get me to join. I dont have time now but maybe once I am done with school.
 
Maybe there needs to be an "outreach" program. I do see women down at the gun shops - they are usually vastl outnumbered though by the men - like 15 to 1. And I always seem to be buying pistols - so they are concentrating on self defense.

I have never seen a woman standing at the black rifle counter handling an AR.

There were women at the Applesee shoot I went to in the spring. Again - they were vastly outnumbered by the men.

I have noticed that among the women I know (admittedly not a huge cross sample) - there is definite concern about the turn this country has taken recently. My stepmother wants to get her LTC - and my GF is seriously worried about the possibility of Obama's "civilian police corp" . I have to believe that where there is smoke - there is fire. So - it sounds like what is needed is some sort of outreach (advertising, informational sessions, etc.) - to try and reach women who feel like they have to defend themselves. An internet campaign on "chick sites" maybe? Self defense is a gateway drug - don't scare them away with thoughts of fighting the revolution with AR's and such - just get them used to the idea of self defense first.

We are fighting a battle here - more people on our side always helps.
 
Hi [wave] I AM a 20-something female pursuing the shooting sports on my own.

My club has a slew of female juniors and the Second Amendment Sisters chapter attracts a good crowd every month, but outside of those events the ladies are definitely in the minority. And most of the ladies that do shoot are not in the age bracket you mentioned.

That said, I've been involved in a number of women's events in the last few years and never had a problem filling them up. There's always a waiting list.

There are tons of ladies out there who want to TRY shooting. Getting them licensed, with their own guns, and shooting on a regular basis is where the breakdown is from my perspective.

Or maybe they're all out there with their LTC's, paying GOAL dues, writing their Reps, and just are flying under my radar. I do chalk a lot of it up to the age demographic rather than the gender issue. 20&30-somethings of either gender aren't the backbone of any of my teams, the club, or other gun organizations & activities.
 
Based on past knowledge, there are a fair number of women in the 20s & 30s who join Braintree R&P each month (probably 3-5 out of 30-40 as a guess). Most join with an SO and there are many non-member females who come to the range with their SOs (member).

Nicole is the only young lady that I see at BR&P who regularly goes there on her own. She's obviously very comfortable being around all us older folks. [wink]
 
My Wife is in her 20s and shoots with me on occasion in Marshfield. But, it's pretty rare that I see women in their 20s-30s at the range. I'm sure it is more common in other parts of the countries, but if I hit the range tomorrow and spot a 25year old woman shooting an M1A - I'd be pretty surprised (although I would think that it was very cool).
 
Well, an outreach program will have to start pretty young. I had my daugter shooting when she was 5. Gave her a .22 rifle on her 10th birthday. She was pretty good at it, and really enjoyed going to the range. Then around 13, one day when I was going out hunting, she said something like "your not going to KILL anything, are you dad?". So somewhere in the 12 to 13 year old range, her classmates, media, or quite possibly teachers, had gotten to her and switched her mind completely around about guns and hunting. The peer pressure made her embarassed to be shooting anymore.

Now that she is 23, her attitude has changed softened a little on the issue, but still no real interest to meet me at the range. So I THOUGHT I had her on the path of true rectitude, but the environment conspired against me.

So my recommendation, start some sort of outreach program for girls that are 12 years old or so. That is when they are being swayed against the cause. And it needs to be more than just one girl at a time! You need to get your daughter to the range with some of her friends. Maybe the gun clubs can set up some saturday afternoon shoots with some extra range safety officers, so two or three of the girls can shoot at the same time. If a small group of girls can get involved and excited about shooting, it can become a "cool thing", and you might get an entire junior high's worth of kids interested in the sport.

Oh, another thing: a lot of gun clubs are pretty "anit-kid". Is your club one of them? Things like old geezers hanging around telling you to "sweep up your brass", "where is your badge", "did you sign those kids in", etc etc. These guys seem po'd that there are young kids around screwing up "their" club, and want to make sure they feel unwelcome. Is this YOUR club? These clueless geeks don't realize that if we don't get new young members, it won't be ANYONE'S club anymore, as they all go bankrupt one after another! Or worse yet, Pols like Obama take your gun rights away and there is NO ONE left to fight him in the electorate.

Get a few teen girls interested and good at shooting, get them their own club memberships when they are 20, and you know what, they will be bringing their adult friends from work to the club to introduce them to the sport.
 
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biff44 said:
Oh, another thing: a lot of gun clubs are pretty "anit-kid". Is your club one of them? Things like old geezers hanging around telling you to "sweep up your brass", "where is your badge", "did you sign those kids in", etc etc.
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Thanks Biff44,
Reading your post made me think, and we do have a bit of that going on at our club. I'm going to take it upon myself to make sure that while the rules are followed and enforced, we do it in a more positive friendly manner. I'm going to have a talk with the "old geezers" and make sure they are more polite in their dealings with new members and guests.
-Cuz.
 
matt said:
I was really excited to see at the recent Appleseed shoot in Winchendon there were a bunch of women, maybe 25% of attendees.

Welcome to NES Nicole! Glad to have you around.
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+1 to that. Hope to see you on the match circuit in the near future.

-Cuz.
 
biff44 said:
So my recommendation, start some sort of outreach program for girls that are 12 years old or so. That is when they are being swayed against the cause. And it needs to be more than just one girl at a time! You need to get your daughter to the range with some of her friends. Maybe the gun clubs can set up some saturday afternoon shoots with some extra range safety officers, so two or three of the girls can shoot at the same time. If a small group of girls can get involved and excited about shooting, it can become a "cool thing", and you might get an entire junior high's worth of kids interested in the sport.


Get a few teen girls interested and good at shooting, get them their own club memberships when they are 20, and you know what, they will be bringing their adult friends from work to the club to introduce them to the sport.
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Agreed, if you want to see more women out there, you need to be proactive and make it happen.

I know there are women here on NES, but out side of here I dont know to many women who are active shooters. Many of my girl friends dont shoot mostly because they have simply never been introduced to the sport, and its not something you just stumble upon really. That is why I have made it my priority to get them involved.

Getting you club to host women events can help the cause but then have to advertise and get the word out there otherwise it could end up being unsuccessful and a lost cause, but dont give up. Its an up hill battle, but its one Im willing fight. Its worth it!
 
My (soon to be) 19 y/o daughter's coming to the pumpkin shoot. She'll be shooting my EBR for the first time. When I got it, she didn't have a whole lot of interest but she's made friends with a lot of Vermonters up at school who hunt and are gun people so she's a lot more interested now.

I hope she gets into it but I'm letting her set the pace.
 
Hi - I'm a member of Boston Gun and Rifle and we have quite a few women that shoot there on a regular basis. Also, quite a few who shoot the Sunday BGRA match's (PPC and USPSA style). Myself (Donna) and Jackie and Evelyn have been nicknamed the 3 Amigas and we shoot the USPSA circuit on a regular basis in the summer, along with travelling to other states to shoot match's.(We've shot in VT,ME,NH,NY,CT,RI,AZ and LA) We've also gotten 2 other ladies interested and they've joined us several times at Harvard and Bass River.(I guess we're the 5 Amigas now[rolleyes])

Quite a few of the members bring their kids(girls included) to shoot at BGRA. The atmosphere is incredibly supportive and welcoming to newcomers (especially women!) at BGRA and you definately won't find the 'old geezer' mentality there! My grandaughter, who is 10 shot rifle last year and I let her shoot my P22 on a regular basis also.

I am also the Boston Area Coordinator for the Second Amendement Sisters. A national ladies group devoted to protecting our rights to self defense per the second amendment. We hold monthly shooting practices out at Braintree on the 3rd Saturday of the month. I'm very lucky that Boston is very supportive of me and they allow me to hold various events at the club. For several years I held a 4th Friday ladies nite. No license, no personal equipment necessary. Lots of instructors and lots of guns available. I'd get about 15 ladies on a regular basis. Last year I decided to try to push the ladies out of their comfort zone (shooting at paper) and I've started having a 4th Saturday ladies match with 3 or 4 stages set up USPSA style. It's been a little slow to get off the ground but I'm not going to give up. It's very beginner friendly. Please come and check it out - 4th Saturday of the month from 6pm to 9:30pm at Boston Gun and Rifle in Dorchester. www.bostongunclub.net.

My goal is to bring as many inner-city women into the shooting sports, as I can. I am also an instructor at BGRA and teach the Basic Firearm safety class there every other Saturday and am very open to helping out any women interested in starting out. I'd be happy to organize something at BGRA if anyone is interested.

So, you may not always see us but were out there!!!!!! Here's a link to a few photos from a previous ladies match. We had a ball. http://picasaweb.google.com/deehmah/LadiesMatchNiteBGRA1262008?authkey=yNJhAX8k5k8#

Guys - if you're willing to wear a skirt and heels - we'll let you shoot[rofl])

Donna

this is my granddaughter - age 10. First time shooting a 9mm. Check out that grip!!!!! [laugh2]
IMG_4070.jpg
 
I made it to the SAS shoot at Braintree this past weekend for the first time in months and was quite surprised at the number of attendees. Several of them were younger than I, if I had to guess. It was a nice surprise.

In speaking with a few of them they are residents of Boston and having difficulty (no surprise there) with the avalanche of paperwork necessary to apply for their permits. At least 2 of them will be joining BR&P as soon as they can attend the next new member orientation to get the proof of club membership they are being asked to provide.
 
Viking Kitten said:
I made it to the SAS shoot at Braintree this past weekend for the first time in months and was quite surprised at the number of attendees. Several of them were younger than I, if I had to guess. It was a nice surprise.

In speaking with a few of them they are residents of Boston and having difficulty (no surprise there) with the avalanche of paperwork necessary to apply for their permits. At least 2 of them will be joining BR&P as soon as they can attend the next new member orientation to get the proof of club membership they are being asked to provide.
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VK, good to hear (except the Boston part [thinking] ). Nicole and I were briefly commenting on the much younger than normal SAS group on Saturday.

Regrettably these young ladies will have to wait until January to join BR&P as there is no new members class in December (would have been the same day as the club's annual meeting). BTDT, as I had to wait until Jan. 1999 to join the club myself.

Sorry that I missed saying "hi", but I left at just about 2PM on Saturday.
 
These three young women were at the 4th Shoot. They're not members here; they're family and/or friends of Club members.

After the shoot, two of them took my Basic Pistol class and applied for their LTCs.

74.jpg
 
LenS said:
Regrettably these young ladies will have to wait until January to join BR&P as there is no new members class in December (would have been the same day as the club's annual meeting). BTDT, as I had to wait until Jan. 1999 to join the club myself.

Sorry that I missed saying "hi", but I left at just about 2PM on Saturday.
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Yeah, we figured that out for them. One of them mentioned that she's sent in her BR&P application but hadn't heard anything - it was a good chance to clarify. I'm probably going to invite them to shoot w/me in December some time. They each tried my .22 and my .40 (watching the reactions was funny).

Sorry I missed you - next time! I'll probably be there Thanksgiving Eve with some friends shooting.
 
I am a 28 year old woman who is just getting into this. Actually, already hooked, just still waiting on this bloody nannystate to give me my permission slip (today is day 40, according to PD it's being printed up *now*).

I'm not entirely sure how to get other young women into shooting, though I'd wager word of mouth and bringing them out to try is probably the best way. It's not something most women will wake up one day and say 'Hey, I want to go try shooting'. And even if they do want to try, inviting, open to the public opportunities to try aren't readily visible.
 
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The Woman on Target that has been hosted at my club seems to be a great success. I don't know what the conversion ratio to new club members is but I know we have had atleast a few younger woman get a membership.
 

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