Alan Kasper, the President of the Bainbridge Island Sportsmen’s Club, has plans—a lot of plans. The energetic Kasper, who has been president for only a year, excitedly told me about and showed me evidence of the changes afoot at the Club and described his goals to make the Club safer, more family-friendly, and more attractive.
The first thing he did after taking office was update the website himself, which he knows how to do after a career in software engineering. His other career experience as a project manager is clearly behind the other recent changes at the Club.
Archery range building.
Archery Range
The first change Kasper has overseen is the near completion of a project that started four years ago—the creation of an archery range (Hunger Games fan alert). The Washington Firearms and Archery Range Recreation (FARR) Program awarded the club $91,000, or 45 percent of the total cost of the project. Kasper told me that this grant program is funded by a portion of concealed weapons permit fees collected in the state.
The result is an Olympic-distance archery range and a covered archery shooting area built from fir cut on the site and milled for the purpose. Large doors roll to the sides to open the building to the range, and archers stand inside the shelter to shoot, so they can be protected in inclement weather. A roof extension covered in arrow cloth prevents archers from shooting into the air, which would possibly propel the arrows a distance exceeding the limits of the property. The building is ADA compliant and includes an ADA-compliant restroom and parking space. When targets are completed, they will be set at distances of 10, 20, 30, and 40 yards to accommodate archers of all ages and skill levels.
Archery range lighting.
A row of lights, 1,000 watts each, will illuminate the range for nighttime practice. And a range safety officer who has received specific training will supervise the range. The grand opening is scheduled for sometime in May.
Kasper told me with a bit of pride that the proposal the Club submitted that won the award for the range is now considered the standard for proposals submitted to the program.
The Clubhouse
Clubhouse.
Kasper has been a member of the Club since 1979, but the Club dates to well before that. The Club itself was founded in 1929, and the clubhouse was built in 1939, and, indeed, it looks it. Inside, the mounted heads of a forest of animals look down over the two main rooms, which give off a musty odor, as one might expect for a building that has been around about seven decades. The interiors are paneled in old-growth redwood, and vintage signs decorate the walls. The Club is listed on the Bainbridge Island Historic Preservation Commission registry, and Kasper says his goal is to keep the historically accurate look but modernize the building enough to make it more functional.
Clubhouse interior.
One modernization is the addition of an ADA-compliant bathroom. Another is the addition of an ADA parking spot in front of the club. Kasper told me that he received a call from a man who wanted to volunteer to paint the ADA stencil for the parking spot. The man, a member of the Club, is disabled and eager to see this improvement made.
Kasper, who says he is a bit of a gourmet cook, wants to upgrade the kitchen, first by replacing the electric stove, which I’m guessing hails from the 1970s, with two commercial-grade gas stoves that the club already owns. He wants to update the cabinetry eventually as well but keep it “period correct.”
The Clubhouse.
The Club is also replacing some exterior doors for period correctness, and they just received a permit to re-engineer the front entrance, which is beginning to fall apart. Ironwood stairs and rough-cut 4 x 6 beams will replace the rotting timber currently in place.
A journeyman Club member will rebuild the brick chimney, and Kasper is planning to have the cedar shingles replaced by board and batten on the three gables to tie in the look with that of the archery building. New wavy-cut cedar siding, all cut from wood harvested from the property, is replacing the old siding. The trim and the gutters will be painted Colonial red, again to maintain historical accuracy.
Clubhouse interior.
The club loans out the building as a community service. Kasper hopes these improvements will increase the building’s appeal and use.
Clay bird.
The Trap Range
Right behind the clubhouse and facing a tree-lined hill covered in shot, orange “birds” is the range for five stand and trap shooting. Kasper showed me the hidden sources of the clay birds that get hurled skyward. A Fish and Wildlife Grant paid for the floodlights that illuminate the field. A newly painted large storage shed, the Don Palmer building, sits off to the side.
The Pistol Range
Pistol range.
After an unfortunate incident with a semiautomatic pistol that seriously damaged the Club’s reputation four years ago when an errant shot traveled a mile and a half from the range and lodged in someone’s garage door, the Club has made it a priority to upgrade safety. The pistol range has been re-engineered completely for this purpose. A Firearms and Archery Range Recreation program grant contributed $135,000, or 52.19 percent, toward the building renovations.
Shell screen tables.
Giant wood beams now cross the open sky of the range. They are spaced to make it virtually impossible for a bullet shot in the air to escape the range. A berm at the far end has been reinforced with sand to trap all shot bullets. Steel plates have been added to prevent ricochets. The walls and ceilings of the covered part of the building where the shooters stand have been filled with crushed rock, and the 2 x 6s supporting the building are reinforced with plate steel. Fabric barriers on the walls help reduce sound.
Exterior of pistol range.
Kasper explained that these changes are NRA-recommended design concepts. In addition, a club member has designed wheeled gun tables with easily mounted screens to contain flying spent shells from semiautomatic pistols to prevent them from disturbing other shooters. The state selected panel of experts (part of the FARR process) reviewed and approved the design as part of the grant process.
Another improvement are wheel-cranked pulleys to facilitate the retrieval of targets so that shooters can see how well they’ve done without having to wait for the range to “go cold,” as it is called, and then walk the length of the range to get the target. Also featured on the pistol range is a motorized cross track target system that will propel a moving target either left or right at speeds controlled by the range safety officer.
The FARR money must have come in handy; Kasper told me that it runs between $10,000 and $15,000 to build a berm alone.
The Rifle Range
The shut-down rifle range.
The Club hasn’t touched the rifle range yet, and it shows. In fact, it looks the way I imagine the Club used to look: makeshift and run-down. Some sort of invasive plant is wending through the ramshackle structure. Rifle shooters sit on stools and aim through plywood boxes designed to keep bullets from arcing up or they lie on the cement/dirt ground and aim under cross beams.
Although Kasper says the rifle range is safe, he wants to bring it up to current standards on range safety design. The rifle range will remain closed until the renovations are complete.
Alan Kasper.
Mission
The new website features this tagline: Family, Community, Environment. As part of this refocused mission, the Club is (1) reaching out to the community for new membership and with project ideas; (2) improving its image, safety, and programs to appeal to families; and (3) promoting conservation.
For example, the Club offers NRA-certified training, gun classes for women, hunter education safety training, and Boy Scout merit badge training in rifle, shotgun, and archery. The Club also extends use of the range to the Bainbridge Island Police and use of the clubhouse to the Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Brownies, and Camp Fire Girls for a small maintenance fee. A recent Wildlife Shelter Raptors event drew nearly 150 people to the Club. In 2009, the Club submitted a proposal, Heartland Connections, to the Bainbridge Island Metro Parks and Recreation District. The substance of this proposal is for the Club to donate its pond, forest, and wetlands on the east side of Sportsman Club Road to BIMPRD and for BIMPRD to acquire 19 acres of Club land on the west side of Sportsman for urban wildlife habitat and parkland.
Forested club land across the road.
Kasper is quick to share credit for changes at the Club with the many volunteers who have donated countless hours and funds to the projects—the Club is a 501(c)(3) charity. He freely admits that he is no builder and that his skills lie elsewhere. I asked him how he has helped facilitate recent changes. He said, “You start with a deadline. You make a list of all the things that need to be done in that time. Then you calculate the time available for each thing.” The way Kasper puts it, it sounds as simple as pulling a trigger.
Photos by Sarah Lane.