CHARTER
You really have to draw up a charter. CanCon didn’t do this at first and we ran into trouble because of it, down the road. The Charter is written to establish the general attitude of the club. (You can see our charter at www.canadiancontingent.com/club_info/charter.html for an example.) The charter contains the standards the club has set for safety, the purpose of the club, player attitude and behavior, and membership standards. The Charter is essentially the “spirit” of the club.
Feel free to use our charter as a basis, but remember our charter is copyrighted, so you’ll have to give credit fro the source.
While sounding rather elitist, not everyone can join CanCon. We are a group of recreational players who enjoy the game and want to have fun when we play. Winning isn’t important, neither is getting eliminations or flag grabs. We don’t tolerate bad attitudes. Our Charter clearly indicates that up front.
RULES
You should either draw up, or adopt, a set of playing rules. The CanCon Rules of Play can be found at www.canadiancontingent.com/rules/CanCon-rules.html. Our rules include terms and definitions (those used in the rules), safety procedures, marker limitations (we play a lot of stock and pump), marker and power source classes, eliminations, games rules, general conduct and sportsmanship and discipline. This was done before CanCon had a home field, so that we would have our own, standard set of rules to play by. We do not expect other teams or clubs to follow these rules, nor do we believe that these are the definitive rules for paintball as a sport.
Where the Charter is our Club spirit, the Rules are the Club’s laws. These rules regulate the game according to how we like to play paintball. They also serve as a basis for membership. The Rules and Charter are also important when new players wish to join, you can hand them a copy of the Rules and Charter and the player will know what type of behavior is expected.
A NOTE ABOUT THE RULES AND CHARTER
You should really tailor these rules to help maintain what you want the club to be. The CanCon Rules and Charter were designed to preserve the spirit of paintball the way I remembered it was, when I first started playing. Paintball is a game of fun and skill where safety and playing with honour are essential to the game. After reading some of the first literature on the sport, namely the Original Survival Game Manual, (written by Lionel Atwill, one of the original creators of the game) I feel the Club has maintained the original intent the creators of paintball envisioned the game to be.
Also, the Rules and Charter apply every time a Member plays. The rules are not just for when the Club plays.
MISSION
You should also establish a mission. This is accomplished by a “mission statement”. CanCon’s mission statement is very simple: “To make paintball safe, fun and affordable.”
REPUTATION
This doesn’t happen overnight. It is something you have to work on a daily basis. Once you’ve earned a good reputation, you must continue to work at it. The funny thing is that if you have a bad reputation — it seems to stay with you forever. The main things that make your reputation are, sportsmanship, honest play, and good relations with the field staff (that means no arguments, no hassles).
You must also remember that EVERY Club member represents the Club and their actions reflect on the whole group. It’s not just up to those running the Club, it’s up to all members.
Members whose actions give the club a bad name should be taken aside and talked to, if the behavior continues — you have the rules and the charter to use to have them removed from the club. (We’ve had to do this.)
EXECUTIVE
You must select or elect an Executive. These players help to organize the Club and help it run smoothly.
As an example, here is the CanCon Exec.
President: Overall supervision of the Club and provides direction in order that the Club maintains the spirit and letter of the Club Rules and Charter.
Vice President: Performs the President’s duties in the absence of the President.
Administrator: Maintain web site, organize play days, road trips, meetings and other Club events. Liaises with field staff.
Sponsor Liaison: This is the main point of contact between the sponsors and the club. (If you have sponsors, you’ll need a person to co-ordinate with them. Sponsors have enough people to remember and they prefer to deal with the same person in the team or club every time.)
Membership Co-ordinator: Maintains the membership list, collects dues, issues Membership kits/cards, and other general duties involving Membership records.
Treasurer: Collects money for events and play days, maintains Club finances and acts as liaison between Club and fields in financial matters.
Club Paraphernalia Design and Co-Ordinator: Designs and co-ordinates production of Club paraphernalia such as ball caps, T-shirts, patches, jerseys, and other items.
Club Equipment Manager: Maintains, stores, and transports the copious amounts of communal equipment and supplies belonging to the Club.
These positions will evolve as the need arises within your club. At one time the positions of Administrator, Membership, Equipment Manager and Treasurer were all done by the same person. As our club grew, we had to get other members to take up these duties so as not to overburden one person. (Besides, he was starting to go a little stir-crazy.) Also, due to the fact that all of these positions are voluntary, you might want to think about some sort of “perk” such as discounts on play day, or free membership so long as they hold the position, et cetera. In CanCon the Executive have shied away from perks, most of us just happy to have a group of guys and gals around who like to play paintball the way we do. It’s really up to you and your Club.
The other job of the executive is to make important decisions on club policy when gathering the membership for a vote is impractical. Major decisions have to be made and the club membership must vote to allow the Exec to make decisions on their behalf. (You’ll read more on this, later on.)
MEMBERSHIP
Our newest policy is on membership. At one time we were selling memberships to players on their first day out. This lead to problems later on down the road when we realized a couple of new members weren’t really abiding by the spirit of the Club. Of course, as President, I had the unfortunate job of telling these players they were no longer welcome in the Club.
Our new policy is that prospective members must be vouched for by a current member in order to be able to join the Club right away. All other prospective members are encouraged to play with the Club for a few play days to see if they like the way we play.
I know it sounds like we’re being elitist but we enjoy a very good reputation on dozens of fields both in Canada and the US. We also have to think about our sponsors. You see, when you play with CanCon, you don’t get lit up, you don’t get bunkered, you don’t get shot at close range. Everybody has a barrel plug and knows how to use it, everybody keep their goggles on in the playing area. You’re also not going to go through a half a case a game. We have a really fun and relaxing day of paintball every time we play. We’d like to keep it that way.
MEMBERSHIP DUES
Membership dues should be low enough so that the financial burden on members is not great and high enough that they generate revenue for the club. Now you have to realize that eventually you will have more money int he club that you can spend. This is when the executive can decide on purchasing club paraphernalia and the like. Our dues are paid on a yearly basis and are $15.00 for new members and $10.00 for renewal. We also provide laminated membership cards.
We also have Honourary Members. The Honourary Membership is given to fellow paintball players as a token of our esteem and admiration. We even have a couple of paintball celebrities like Steeve Moore of Zap Paintball, Dawn and Bill Mills of WARPIG, Tom Harrison of Straightshot Squeegees and writer Rob “Tyger” Rubin — amongst others.
HOME FIELD
We found out that having a home field is the best way to recruit new members. For the longest time we played on private land, but our membership didn’t grow and the Club was very close to folding. When we found our new home field our membership doubled in a year.
The home field can also have the advantage of being your first sponsor. Once you have one sponsor, you can use that sponsor to help you find more. The real key to sponsorship is not to ask too much from your sponsor and ensure the sponsor’s logo is displayed on a club banner. CanCon is now making a sponsor banner we’ve collected so many sponsors. A listing of CanCon sponsors can be found at www.canadiancontingent.com/ack/sponsors.html.
THE MORNING BRIEFING
Every play day, all players who are playing with CanCon must attend the orientation briefing. At one time we attended the field briefing, but we later secured permission from the field owner to give our own to our group. No matter how many times you’ve played with CanCon, no matter how long you’ve been a member, attending the morning briefing is mandatory.
If there are first-time players they are taken aside after the morning briefing and given a little “pep talk”. They are told that there are some very experienced players in the Club, more than a few with over 10 years of playing experience. If they feel they are being “walked on” or they’re not having a good time, they should come and see me. I tell them that because of their inexperience they may find themselves outmatched. If the new players know they can come to one of the Executive and voice their complaint, they will and the problem will be rectified. It has happened before and we have found the best (and easiest) way is to have some of the more experienced players switch teams and even out the balance.
The problem lies, sometimes, in the way we pick the teams. We have players draw an armband out of a bag (without looking) to determine what team they’re on. This random draw sometimes “stacks” one team with experienced players. When we have had complaints from newer players it was usually after the first couple of games in the morning and when we reshuffle the teams, we don’t get any more complaints.
Individual members of the Club have also helped newer players by teaming up with them and helping them out during games.
CLUB PARAPHERNALIA
CanCon has baseball caps, t-shirts, golf shirts, patches and club jerseys. (We were one of the first clubs/teams in paintball to adopt sports jerseys rather than camouflage for a uniform “team look” — our jerseys predated the first JT “non-cammo” jerseys by two years.) We have also developed what we call an “apre-splat” jersey that is designed for club activities outside of the playing area. (Some club members refer to this as the “shmoozing jersey”.) Designing club paraphernalia isn’t all that hard, as long as you keep the designs simple. We’re lucky because we have a couple of frustrated artists in our Club.
We used an established NHL hockey jersey of the Ottawa Senators (mainly because the colours matched our patch colour of red and black) and created a very simple design for the front of the jersey. The member gets to have their name or nickname put on the back of the jersey and their number is the year they played their first game of paintball.
Keeping the designs simple and limiting the amount of colours also reduces the cost of having it reproduced in silkscreen, embroidery, or what have you. Many print shops have clipart designs you can use or combine to make your club logo and this reduces the cost further.
The real benefit to the jersey is immediate recognition. When a member is wearing the Club jersey their actions are immediately reflected on the Club itself. (Which is why the Rules and Charter must always be adhered to.)
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGS
These meetings are important to get input from the membership and to vote in any changes the executive had made to club policy. The general meeting also allows members to voice their opinions or concerns on all aspects of the Club. This is also a great chance to get all the membership together at our favourite watering hole.
PLAYING SCHEDULE
We have found one of the best things we ever did was set a playing schedule. We do have impromptu pick-up days or visits to other local fields, but by and large we stick to the second Sunday of every month. This allows the members to schedule family activities and lets the family know exactly when Club Day is. We set the schedule at the beginning of every year.
ROAD TRIPS
CanCon goes on two major road trips a year. The first is in May to Long Island, New York to participate in Big Game East. CanCon has been a part of that event since 1990 and we have a stock challenge that runs on the Saturday before the Big Game. Our second major road trip is to EMR Paintball Park for the September installment of Castle Conquest. We also run the Canadian Contingent Pump and Stock Fun Day at EMR on the Sunday following the Castle Conquest.
We also make smaller road trips to fields in our area. The smaller road trips are limited to no more than five hours of traveling time to the location we want to visit which pretty much allows us go anywhere in our part of the province.
We also take part in Skyball since they started a pump division.
COMPETITIVE WING AND SUB-CULTURES
Speaking of Skyball . . .
Team CanCon is the competitive wing of our club. Despite the fact that Team CanCon participates in tournaments, the Rules and Charter still apply to the membership of the Club. Team CanCon isn’t like other tourney teams, we go for the sportsmanship trophy like other teams go for first place.
We have some sub-cultures as well. Road Warriors are those who have participated in an overnight road trip (usually to Paintball Long Island or EMR) and they get a Canadian and American crossed flags patch for their jersey. The Jaded Geezers are members who are over 30. On your thirtieth birthday you receive the coveted Jaded Geezer medal. It is a black ribbon with a simulated green gallstone. Jaded Geezers who have lived past thirty also get red decade bars on their ribbons to denote when they turned 40, and 50. Very soon we will be giving out our first 60 year old decade bar. Other subcultures are in the works. These subcultures usually get established by individual members, rather than a group consensus by the Club. They’re one of the many unique things about CanCon.
We are a recreational club but we do not discourage any member of the Canadian Contingent from playing in tournaments. A few of our members have played in top-level competitions like the NPPL.
ASSOCIATIONS WITH OTHER TEAMS
Throughout the years you meet many teams. Many of them become life-long friends and a few are even considered “family”. Amongst the teams we call brothers and sisters are the Long Island Wild Geese, Seuss Asylum, Thunder Lizards, and Paintball Marshals Stock Club. Many of the members of those teams proudly wear CanCon jerseys and other club paraphernalia.
You will find that your association with other teams will only help your club in the long run.
AT THE END OF IT ALL
After ten hard years of work, the Canadian Contingent Paintball Club is internationally known for our sportsmanship, fair play and friendly nature. Despite the fact that we are not a top-placed professional team, we enjoy the sponsorship of many prominent businesses in paintball (in both the US and Canada) and in our local community.
It will take a lot of work, but you will find that all those blood, sweat and tears were worth the effort.
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