What happened in May, 2007

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Rumors and Facts<br />
Please note that this is old stuff and does NOT effect our late 2007 schedule

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You may have heard some rumors regarding our shoots, so here are a few facts. We apologize for not posting this sooner, but we were awaiting approval from our attorney.<br />
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When the Good Guys Posse was approached by the land owner of our range back in the Summer of 2005, we were promised several things in return for raising thousands of dollars and spending it to build a berm, repair the entrance road, remove trees & stumps and to provide all the necessary things so important to a successful and safe cowboy match.<br />
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First, we were promised a five year lease. Yet, after we had invested our funds (and yours, too, since many of you donated), built the new range with the help of many volunteers and were ready with our first matches, the land owner refused to sign a lease for more than two years! If we had been smart, we would have insisted on a signed five year lease before we spent a cent. But we believed in the “Cowboy Way” and were not overly concerned. We were finally able to get a lease through the end of the 2008 shooting season.<br />
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Second, we were promised that this would be the Good Guys Posse match and we would be running it. Yet, the land owner has several times tried to take over the match and turn it into his own private operation.<br />
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We give the land owner 1/2 of every dollar you pay to shoot a match. And we have to pay all the expenses out of our half – porta-potty servicing, awards, copying costs, website costs, two very nice props (at $600 each), tables donated by you folks, and the big one – insurance – among other things. That doesn’t leave us a lot of cash to spend. Yet, the land owner has consistently tried to get us to spend cash we don’t have on projects that would largely benefit him. He has tried to get us to build a permanent “pavilion” on the range, to provide insurance for his own private events, to invest more money in fixing larger sections of the road (the short section we fixed on the curve ran about $900) and, the latest, to pay to have a bulldozer come in and remove the trees and growth behind our berm and pay to have dirt hauled in at about $100 per load and then pay to have a bulldozer pile the existing berm on top of the new dirt. Running the math on this project shows it would approach five figures to complete it.<br />
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Our Saturday shoots started out as a way for the Rough Riders, who do much of the work setting up the shoots, to do any final chores before the main match and to allow them to shoot the match so as to be available for other duties, such as fixing lunch, on Sunday. Yet this extra day of shooting quickly became a burden and Wednesday setups were much more efficient, so the Rough Riders unanimously voted to drop the Saturday shoots as we felt the majority of shooters would shoot Sunday with the exception of those few who preferred to go to Plainfield on Sunday. And we were right, as our May, 2007, match drew about 75 shooters even with the rain. This is the highest single day attendance we’ve had.<br />
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However, after our recent match on May 20th, the land owner informed us that our lease was void. When pressed to explain why, he told us that we had not paid him the $1.00 the lease called for. He told us that since we didn’t have a receipt for the $1.00, the lease was void. Several of us had made a little ceremony at brunch with him one day to pay him the dollar shortly after signing the lease. But, no, we didn’t get a receipt. We still believed in the “Cowboy Way” and didn’t ask for one. He also gave us an ultimatum that either we started to shoot on Saturday again to increase his income or our match was finished.<br />
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From the above, you can probably guess how we felt about the way we’ve been treated. So we have hired an attorney to initiate legal proceedings against the land owner. Unfortunately, there will be no further cowboy matches at the facility. We’ve cancelled our insurance and are preparing to remove all our props and equipment from the range. We are actively looking for another place to hold our matches with some promising locations already under consideration. It may take us awhile to begin our cowboy matches again, but we are certainly not giving up! We will strive to keep you informed as we are allowed by the circumstances as they unfold, but for the time being, ALL FUTURE MATCHES ARE CANCELED!<br />
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We want to thank each and every one of our shooters who have contributed their time and money to help us build the range and participated in our events to help make our matches one of the best in the area.