We need input on this. It will be a very important decision to be made during the first meeting of the year so give me your input now so we can incorporate it into what we plan to present to the club.

Ok as most of you know we are going to try to get us an on-campus playing field. If we do the field would be open on every weekend and during the week with permission for preactices and certain tournies that we may have and possibly even have intramural paintball some time in the future. But our main concern is the financial issue. Thanks to Chris Anderson and Chris Reardon {no relation} we hope to get $1000 dollars the first year plus about $15-$25 dollars a person for dues for the year. Since during the first year we will probably not be experienced enough as a team to go to any major regional or national tourneys we don't plan on those expenses now unless we hear overwhelmingly from you that you want to go to them. So all of the first year's money could go into one of two things {well there are more options but these are the foremost at this point in time}. Option one use the money to help the A and B teams get all of the members tourney level equipment so they are ready to play one we get our skills up to where we want them. The second option is to wait and see if we could get the paintball field. Then if we get it we can use the money to buy the first field set for the field. Then the next year we can use the money then to get more sets of equip, and keep the field growing.
Just let me know what you think. The second option is a little iffy because we don't know if we can get the field. But even if not we could still buy field sets and use them when we have an outing to the local field. Either way let me know what you think and we will go from their.

In my experience it is always better to wait until every option is crystal clear that is why I say wait and see if the on-campus field thing can get off the ground because if it does then it too will generate money.

If you spend the money on the equipment and then the field option opens up then you are SOL but if the you wait and see you will at least be able to make a better desicion

"Don't need nothing, but a good time"
-Poison(Bret Michaels)

I agree with saving it. We can always buy the markers later, especially if Chris Raehl gets a deal with one of the online companies.

marco

Regarding the possibility of a paintball field at Berry, while I think it never hurts to ask, and for that reason we should ask as soon as we're organized (say halfway through the first semester maybe?), my money says it won't happen any time soon, and here's why.

Dean Carver (and others) voted against the ratification of the Paintball Club because he is opposed to anything that involves the concept of "snuffing people out" as he puts it. It took a lot of careful explaining from Mr. Anderson and myself to convince the majority of the members of the council that first of all Berry students are educated and mature enough to know the difference between killing someone and painting them, and second of all that paintball is an honest-to-god real sport with rules and judges, not just kids going crazy. So anyway, my point is that there are several members of the administration that still think we shouldn't even have a club. They would have to be convinced first. If Brad hadn't mentioned that other schools have clubs, I don't think ours would have even had a chance.

That brings me to my question: Do any other schools (especially our "peer" schools - Furman, Suwannee, etc.) have their own paintball fields? That might help our argument, especially if we could borrow their system of operating their field.

I think we should save the money for a bit since we are not absolutely sure yet. No harm can come from waiting. Besides, we won't be experienced enough to play competetively in tourney's yet.

About the dean. This you might find amusing, maybe even hard to believe. He is a friend of mine. I eat lunch with the man sometimes. He calls me on my dorm phone to see how I do on my physics tests. I only recieved two demerits (instead of twelve) for repelling out of third dana window at five in the afternoon my freshmen year. Maybe he can help us out with this one, maybe not. I'll talk to him about the whole "snuffing" thing, not that it will change his mind.

First in respones to chris' post. Yes I know it will be hard to push through just by the resistance I had in the actual meeting with the Student Life Council. Before I go on I would like to thank you for the work that you did put into helping us out I have no doubt that it made all the difference in the world. Also the field thing is slowly slipping from the front burner. Since I got the club a field sponsor we will be payning less (hopefully starting at the tournament) and we get free practice time on the field. Also we get scrimages against BD's ameture team. They aren't half bad supposedly so that wouldn't hurt. The main worry I have about the field is that it will take a lot of funding from the school and students to get it underway. Even if we did get the field where would we come up with the money for 3 or four 10 man field sets so that those of us without our own equip could play on the field. It would be horrible to have to turn people away because "We don't have any more equipment for you to use." First it would make us look like dorks for not having enough equip for the demand and thereby drive away people who may be interested in joining the club but just wanted to go out a play a game before they did. Second it would further make us look incompitant in front of the administration. As for "peer" schools having a team I will have to look into that. I am not sure if they do and even if they do they are not listed with the NCPA. Schools such as GT, clemson, Ole Miss and other bigger schools like that have teams and have fields as well.
As for Redshifts ideas. For the time being I must agree. We need to save the money for furture use. However I do disagree on one issue. We could very well be a competitor in the NCPA tourneys. If we could get a team together and practicing when we could I am almost willing to guarantee that we could have a competitive team by this spring when nationals comes around. Do I think we will win the nationals like a cake walk? No absolutely not. Can we at least have some fun and win some of our games? Absolutely. As for talking to Dean Carver do what you can but from what the other Mr. Reardon {{no relation}} says and from what we saw in the meeting with the SLC I don't think he is ready to budge at least till we can show that people at Berry are mature enough to deal with paintball.

Well let me know what you think. I am getting my wisdom teeth out tomorow so all I will be doing is sitting in front of the tv and the computer so just let me know your views on all of this.

Brad

I can definately see how the sponsorship makes the field-at-berry less of a burning issue. Saving money that way is much better in the short term than having to pay to operate a field.

So as for money (which the club definately will need in any case) and how to get it, I think we could get some money from vending machine profits the first semester if we meet all of the requirements, and vmp definately beats bake sales and carwashes. One of which is an SGA rep. Who is ours for next year?

Chris

For right now the field on campus has been put on the back burner. My main focus right now is getting things up and running for the club, and especially the tournament coming up. As for the money issue, it appears that we all agree that we should save the money for future us. Since of course we haven't talked to everyone, we will be making that decision at the first meeting, which is tenatively scheduled for the second tuesday when we get back to school. Check out the tenative list of dates and times in the other post. It will let you know what and when the seminars and meetings will be. Also if anyone wants to be our sga rep just post up here and you will post likely get it unless we have a few who want to do it. I can't since as you can see I have plenty of stuff on my plate for the time being.

Brad