The Tennessee AIM State Shoot is approaching quickly! It’s hard to believe. I really didn’t expect to be able to have the shoot this year so I am pleasantly surprised to be able to move forward. But unfortunately it will not be “business as usual” and you should expect significant impacts of the social distancing requirements set by the Metro Nashville / Davidson County leadership. As I mentioned before in the email on 5-15-2020 the major inconveniences will be as follows:
- The gun club building will be closed to everyone except a few people who work at the gun club and essential personnel.
- Tables for classification, squadding (squad changes), and payment processing will likely be set-up behind the clubhouse using a system of ropes to establish one-way, single-file lines. Everyone will be required to maintain the six feet of separation while in line. Since this process will likely be even more difficult than usual, I have created an online payment portal to allow prepayment following pre-squadding using PreSquad.com. The goal is to give opportunity to every competitor to squad, pay, and check their classification without any interaction with the cashiers and the people who are hired to run the scoring system.
- A big part of being able to make the remote registration and payment system work will be to post live scores and also post reports of the squads, the individual shooters classification, and their payment status so that any issues that you might find can be handled by email or text message.
- To help with the need for real-time communication and scoring, I have created a custom domain and website exclusively for the Tennessee AIM Program. The web address (URL) for the home page is https://tnaim.org
- Since it is brand new, I will be adding content and creating the basic design over the next few days and it will be the focal point for all information about the Tennessee AIM Program and especially the State Shoot. As a volunteer I have been reluctant to ask the TSTA board for a budget to establish a unique website for the Tennessee AIM Program but this year has required us to advance our plans and I am grateful to have that new resources. Expect many new features next year that build on the unique web identity such as independent coach, athlete, and parent mailing lists, year-round posts and news, as well as a central repository for Tennessee AIM information.
- In addition I was able to get the National AIM staff to provide me with an email address list for all the Tennessee AIM shooters as of a couple of weeks ago along with the coaches. Believe it or not, until this year, the National AIM leadership located in Sparta, Illinois with the rest of the ATA staff have refused my requests for a list of emails because they claimed that the emails were protected by privacy laws and could not be given out. So I have been at the mercy of the AIM Coaches Portal to disperse information without any real feedback about the number of people I was reaching and who I might be leaving out. Using this email list I have established an account with an email marketing service that will allow individuals to self subscribe or unsubscribe as well as to send out mass emails without overloading my email server.
- Here is my new email that will be used for all AIM correspondence going forward: rob@tnaim.org
- Also my cell phone number is (615) 542-7773. I am best reached by using email or text messages since I often ignore calls from numbers I don’t have in my contact list assuming that they are spam. Usually people who have legitimate reasons to call will leave me a message if it is important and I can then return the call later. My preference for these types of events is text messages and if you introduce yourself in the text, I can very easily add your contact info to my phone and will be able to recognize your number in the future if needed. Also I generally am working during the day and the text message approach gives me a chance to reply even if I am in a meeting or am on the phone
So in summary, you can expect to visit the https://tnaim.org site for news, scores, results, etc. and eventually methods for joining the email groups. And my new email is rob@tnaim.org
With that long explanation, here is the process for pre-registration and pre-payment:
- This can be done by a coach or by each individual shooter:
- The site to register for events is: https://www.presquad.com/ShootDetails?shootid=4151
- After entering each shooter in presquad, you will need to use the following payment form (PayPal based) to pay the event and daily fees. The daily fees are included in the singles cost but there are options for the handicap and doubles events to allow for paying the daily fees without entering the singles event if necessary. That page can be found here: https://www.tnaim.org/AIMPay.html
- Pre-Squadding will end on June 14th at 1:45 p.m. in the afternoon after which I will calculate the shooters classification (just singles) using the AIM classification rules and I will post all the squads including their category and class along with an actual field schedule by Monday June 15th and will send out another email. The goal is to allow each shooter to show up, shoot, then leave assuming they are not waiting around for any additional events.
- Since there will be no awards and no shoot offs except for 200 straights, everyone is encouraged to leave the gun club property as soon as possible. Gamaliel is offering pre-sales on Ammo but won’t have any tent for display and there will not be any food vendors to my knowledge. Since the gun club handles all of these negotiations, I will let you know if I hear anything different.
- Also remember that there should only be 7 people on the field at any one time and that shooters should not gather at the scorer’s bench or at the gun rack. Also there is a “no tent” policy that the gun club is requesting and, even though I realize the inconvenience and the potential to be without shade, I do understand the effort to limit any gathering spots or areas where it is likely that the six foot social distancing rule could be ignored.
Finally, I am going to be sending out other information as I become aware of it so expect to get updates between now and the 15th.
I have gone way over my word allowance for this email so I am going to stop there. Email me if you have any questions as you work through the process…..
Thanks,
Rob