Young Guns

There has been a lot of talk lately on different things that can be done to keep paintball healthy as a sport especially in these tough financial times.

I have long been touting the necessity of implementing children’s programs designed to introduce the kids to paintball. Through programs such as this its another way to bring new people into the game and stimulate growth.

The Glen Morris Mercenaries Paintball team has been doing instructional programs they call “Young Guns” since 2007 and are now seeing the benefits of the program. Success can best be gauged by seeing “graduates” of the program entering into different areas of paintball and be able to hold their own on the field or court. In the video below one such Young Gun is now a valued of The Glen Morris Mercenaries, yet another plays Speedball with Toronto Massacre and is becoming active in the tournament circuits. Still another has just joined a team competing in one of the Speedball Youth Divisions several hours away.

One aspect of the program is to reduce costs and waive entry fee altogether with the only cost being paint. Parents seem to love the program and as an added offshoot I note field and pro shop owners who have implemented the program see some very lucrative benefits as a result. One such benefit being when a child does have a blast at a Young Guns session,  they quite often get Mom and Dad to go to the pro shop to purchase paintball equipment to start playing the game on a more serious level.

Young Guns Programs/ Paintball Camps and the like  instructing kids is a great way of promoting paintball and bringing more people into the game…I encourage all field owners to consider implementing a program such as this.

Today’s session brought out 30 kids to enjoy learning how to paintball and included such things as snap shooting drills and lots of scrimmages. Special thanks to Shadow Squad for donating a couple of paintball masks to a couple of the Young Guns who did not own such a thing.

For more information or perhaps an outline on how to implement such a program successfully, please contact me at catshackreports@gmail.com and I would be more than happy to explain how.