Airsoft club in future :)

[CJ]

Heya doods and doodettes

When Airsoft gets legalised in Australia we will be looking at starting our own club dedicated to it.

My question to you, as the people using it in the future is:

What would you like to see at said club?

How would the optimal lay-out look?

What would catch your eye the most when you walk through the club doors?

What would you like to have as benefits for veteran members?

Would you enjoy having special days at the club such as celebrations of events, multicultural food days where lunch is provided to all by all?


Any suggestions you can offer us will help greatly in planning for the future

Keen to hear all of your ideas

CJ

[Nick]

I would defiantly join but you might have to organise something with some other members as starting clubs in more then one area. I personally cannot travel 2 hours up and back to goto the club once a fortnight and many others may also agree with me but if we had clubs close to the majority places maybe 30 minutes away would be reasonable.

[CJ]

G'day Nick

The thing is though, when we start out on organising a club it will most likely just be one which is close to a major city somewhere... As at first we will have limited funding to get everything sorted out

But as you said, to make it easier for most people to get to, we would endeavour to organise a few clubs rather than just one

Cheers for the reply

CJ

[Crazy-Peanut]

What you will probably find is that those who are very good at organising will get something sorted around their area and the others will have to travel.  Nick, I travel an hour and a half by train and half hour by car to game with my club in New Zealand.  If I were to go any further, I would have to be driving about 4 hours to the Hawkes Bay (almost halfway up the North Island).

CJ, you should check out http://www.armory.co.nz/?p=2285, and check out all the drop downs under "Gaming" on the menu bar.

[CJ]

Cheers for the link Peanut

I've read through just about the entire site and I was impressed at the professionalism.

The rules are just what I would like to see in an AA Airsoft club should there be one in future.

The layout of the arena looks pretty awesome I must say, if Milsim type Airsoft was legalised in Australia I think that is how we would want to set it up.

The arena is indoors, so no chance of the public getting involved and/or getting weary of seeing men in camouflage running around with very realistic guns.

Well setup urban-style environment, lots of cover.

Cheers for the link again Peanut

Going to forward that to my team mates with credit going to you.

On a side note, I visited the website of an Airsoft club in Wellington recently, and man does it look fun, a great bunch of guys getting out there and having a good time, the comradery definitely shows in the group photos

When I save up enough money, I am definitely going to visit Wellington and the club, and see up close and personal what it is really like

And if it's the same club that you play at, I would definitely like to meet you in person

Cheers again (Y)

CJ

 

[Crazy-Peanut]

If you were browsing through the ASNZ forum and came across Capital Team Airsoft, that's us, you will find me in there under the same forum name.  I would definitely like to see some Aussies come over to be able to have a game and try out the sport, as we welcome newbies and we can give you ideas.

And you would be able to try out different rifles and pistols.  It is always a good idea to try a as many as possible before buying, as some will suit you and others won't.  Arvardos is coming over next month and we have organised a game for him, nearly 30 players attending so a pretty good turnout, I'm sure we could do the same for anyone else coming over.

[shelldrake]

Hey Cj,

I think the "club" should be basically internet based with a small committee to put forward changes, ideas, events, etc. There's a bit of work involved in setting up clubs. You need president, secretary, treasurer, etc - These people need to be passionate, reliable and responsible - Always trying to cater for the members changing needs.

The clubs role could be to help facilate the purchase of the airsoft equipment and setting up the fields/event days. (Perhaps in association with paintball fields(?).

The problem with physical clubs is that it can become expensive for members if there is rent being paid for a location to hold meetings. I'm a member of a few car clubs and typically we find very few members actually show up to meetings. People just want to do the social events and fun things.

One other point that I haven't really seen mentioned much, is the potential to stimulate our economy a bit too - more employment opportunities for field operators, retailers, techs, etc.

Has anyone contacted paintball associations? These guys would be all over airsoft!

[PortuguesePlaymaker]

Hey Cj,

I think the "club" should be basically internet based with a small committee to put forward changes, ideas, events, etc. There's a bit of work involved in setting up clubs. You need president, secretary, treasurer, etc - These people need to be passionate, reliable and responsible - Always trying to cater for the members changing needs.

The clubs role could be to help facilate the purchase of the airsoft equipment and setting up the fields/event days. (Perhaps in association with paintball fields(?).

The problem with physical clubs is that it can become expensive for members if there is rent being paid for a location to hold meetings. I'm a member of a few car clubs and typically we find very few members actually show up to meetings. People just want to do the social events and fun things.

One other point that I haven't really seen mentioned much, is the potential to stimulate our economy a bit too - more employment opportunities for field operators, retailers, techs, etc.

Has anyone contacted paintball associations? These guys would be all over airsoft!

Ive had chats with a couple mates that work on a field (pretty high up in the ranks, not punter refs), and the issue isnt renting the field, its the additional costs that one would have to pay for a different category firearms license (field operator licenses) IF NEEDED (most likely yes) so until we have further notice of the category of airsoft, prices & licenses needed, we wont know the outcome of paintball fields as paintball has is own license.

Also if you do some investigation, there is not much money in airsoft for punters compared to paintball. Paintball make there money on paint, charging +-500% for a box of 2000 paintballs which means a $50 box would cost punters around +-$250, and these paintballs are solid, hard to break on impact and shoots all over the spot so punters shoot more, while airsoft you can buy bb's like 2000 for $10 or even cheaper by the kilo, so you would have to sell them for $210 to make the same sort of gain economically for fields to even consider purchasing there own license, and also you would have to somehow encourage punters shoot more bbs in the standard 2-4h windows of gameplay.

[Amfamora]

Couldnt you just charger players entry to a field, bring your own BB's or buy them at a slight mark up not 500%.....

Say $50 - $100 pp for an half day or day of wars? 50 - 100 players on site would make it cost effective?

[shelldrake]

I haven't thought too much about the licensing part for field operators yet, but perhaps one way of getting them on board would be to implement within the proposals to government, if they already have the paintball operator type license - It could be extended to airsoft sports too. (An ammendment to an existing class) After all, paintball markers are still operated by compressed air and there are direct parallels between the two sports.

Regarding pricing - There are always ways to make money. As Amfamora said - Maybe it won't be as profitable as paintball initially - But it will still be profitable. If there is room on their playing fields and they are playing paintball anyway, they just need to pay for extra refs right? Any extra money coming in after they are paid is profit. However,  just off the top of my head - things they could do - Only allow bbs to purchased from them at the higher rate, Charge a higher field usage fee, make membership to their club compulsory, Charge on a game based fee - Like laser tag, operate airsoft games in non peak times (Fridays).

Anyway, food for thought....

[CJ]

@Shelldrake:

As far as BB's are concerned, if Airsoft is legalised on the proviso that they have their own category of licence or are added to an existing licence, and and all projectiles that can be fired out of the Airsoft firearm will be counted as ammunition and therefore will only be available at licenced Airsoft retailers over here, such as a paintball field, and even then, only for the use at the club on said day of purchase.


And as PortugesePlaymaker said, we can only thin out the details when we know exactly what is going on concerning licencing and such, until then we will just have to keep coming up with ideas instead of trying to implement.

CJ

[urbanwarfare]

This is an interesting thread, considering the main reason I first became interested in airsoft was because I wanted to create a Airsoft playing field.

There are many issues to consider:

1. Profitability.
As mentioned above, a paintball operator makes his money from paintballs. The players fee generally covers the tagger, protection and maintaince of facilities and equipment.
In a sport where ammunition has little value, and players purchase their own taggers, the club must then charge the player for the privilege of playing on the field. This means that the field must have a high value and more still a high REPLAY value. It must be dynamic and adaptable.

2. The Tagger itself, i.e firearm/weapon/etc.
This depends on the legislation. Does the licensee have the right to carry the weapon (cased)? I have seen suggestions that licensees may have to "bank" their taggers at their chosen club-field of choice. That is clearly a very strict enforcement of tagger rules. How many taggers can a licensee own? Etc etc, it is very hard to talk about these aspects when little has been fleshed legislatively.

3. Facilities
That depends too. Have we been allowed Milsim weaponry? Does the field offer Milsim? I always thought that if I could get the field described in my business plan operational that I would then have a 24 or 48hr super-session for Milsim. A A-team must conquest B-fort by 0900 hours in two days time. Etc etc. Whether an opportunity like this could eventuate or if we will only be allowed 'deathmatch' style Arena's will have to be foreseen.

4. Sports and Competition.
This is something I have never fully considered but I firmly believe a AUSNZ "league" could easily be established, including trophy, home and away games, etc. Imagine being able to infiltrate new fields and explore not just the club you play at regularly but particpate with a multitude of clubs for honours.
I think the last point should be the issue AA looks at promoting the most - the competitive, sportsman (outdoorsy and active too) field.

I very much hope that this happens before I get too old to play myself!

[CJ]

G'day, and welcome to the forum urbanwarfare

1. On the profitability side of things, since the bb's will not cost much, we'd have to implement another way of keeping the club alive. ie, membership fees, hiring of club taggers, allow public to play without membership fee. Etc.

2. Banking the taggers seems very ill-thought, not only would it be a hassle when a person wants to move, but it also puts all the stress of the club owner to keep every tagger in order, something which the owner of said tagger is obliged to upkeep. No matter what licence Airsoft comes under, we will always have the same rules as live pistols and rifles. We will have to store every Airsoft firearm inside of a gun safe which is bolted to a permant structure, like a pole in a garage. And to and from games we will have to keep them in a portable gun case with a padlock.

3. While I love the idea of a massive milsim conquest game, our government probably would not like it at all One problem our government has with this kind of thing is, our youth today is becoming very militarised with games such as MW2 BF3 and such others. They dislike the rising popularity of violence amongst youths. So what we need to do is show them that it is only a sport, conquest might inhibit that somewhat Awesome idea though

4. That would be great to start an AUS/NZ league. We could go over both countries for games, play on home turf and be visitors. I do believe if Peanut sees this he will offer assistance lol, there is a club in NZ that I know is very interested in this idea, they get Australians come over all the time to play I think they are called Capitol Team Airsoft.

You're never too old to play Airsoft haha, I've seen guys about 50 get up and have a go of it But I am very keen to get into it aswell, very interested in going over to NZ and having a few games, and explore the country

Cheers for the reply

CJ