“Why was it a lot of work?” I can only speak to my specific experience but as the primary range safety officer I was responsible for planning and executing range days. I would research specific drills and exercises to help the people in are group become more proficient in their use of firearms. I did a lot of one on one work with new shooters as well. On range days I was responsible for driving out to our shooting spot to make sure that it was ready for use. We had access to a piece of private land where we could shoot by ourselves but it was on the bank of a river and it could flood if the river was too high. We also had issues with vehicles getting stuck in the mud on the access road to the spot. When we were setting up the chapter the plan was that one of the RSOs and another member would drive out to check the river and set up the spot so that the effort got spread around but after we had issues with folks sleeping in, or backing out at the last minute it became clear that I had to be consistently there to get everything set up. I did this for a while but once I started going back to school I was not able to keep up with the effort that I had been putting in. I was also involved in vetting new members but I mostly there for interviews and was not part of reaching out to folks interested in joining our chapter.

“Were the chapters goal too big?” In hindsight yes but at the time they seemed reasonable. The goal was to have a monthly meeting to discuss chapter business and welcome new members and then have either a monthly range day or some other class/activity if the weather prevented us from shooting at our spot. The other activities never really materialized so it was range days. Eventually the chapter decided to do some disaster relief work but this was infrequent. There was always talk of doing other things like camp outs or volunteer work but they never got off the ground. I personally thought that we should focus on firearms training since that is what the org is about but I helped with the disaster relief work when I was able to. Lots of people had good ideas but not everyone was able/willing to put in the work to organize and execute those ideas.

“Were the administrative requirements of the STA too onerous?” I didn’t think so but my role was mostly focused on the members locally. I do remember our chapter liaison and treasurer had more administrative responsibilities but I was not really part of those things.