Nashville Area Chapter...

[f5fstop]

How many people on this site are in the Nashville area?
Now, how many of you would be interested in getting a local chapter started?
Embarrassing to have local chapters throughout the state, but have no local chapter right in the middle of the heart of Tennessee’s government.

(Could not figure out how to do a poll. What are “Poll Options”?)

[MitchSchaft]

Polls:
Poll question: Do you want to start a Nashville chapter?

Poll option: type in "Yes", then hit the "Add Option" button. Then type in "No", and keep hitting the "Add Option" button for however many options you want to add.

Run poll for Days [ Enter 0 or leave blank for a never-ending poll ]

[Billjr]

Count me in.

Bill, Jr

[f5fstop]

There are more people in the Nashville area who would be interested in starting a local chapter.

[johnharris]

There are many in the Nashville area. I am one, Buford Tune (APPS), Philip Arrington (Goodletsville Gun) and many others.

[f5fstop]

Where are the remainder of the Nashville people? Need more than five for a meeting.

[johnharris]

Nashville had a small chapter about 2 years ago - it dwindled with no attendance. I feel in large part the lack of success was due to the lack of an individual or individuals who could devote some time to the task.

As time has past, the current practice when efforts were made to start a new chapter has been to send a mailing to all existing and former TFA members in the county or area. In general, TFA has covered the postage and cost of the mailing but has needed the assistance of a startup-committee to do the work.

Runnig a city filter on Nashville, Antioch, Goodletsville and Hendersonville identifies over 300 existing or former members in that area. The next place to start is with a startup-committee to undertake the task of a initial chapter meeting.

[f5fstop]

To get involved with a startup committee; anyone else?

[dwaldrip]

[f5fstop]

[Ed__357]

I am in the Nashville area. Franklin to be specific. And I would consider being a member of the Nashville area chapter.

[dunndw]

I'd be interested. If it comes to pass perhaps we could approach The Rabbi into letting us hold the meetings at his new shop if Bufords place didn't work out.

[tnroadrunner]

This is my first post in this forum and just joined TFA on Jul. 5th. I'm in Humphreys county and it looks like the Nashville chapter would be the closest one to me. If I'm not correct on that let me know.

[lassante]

[tnroadrunner]

[johnharris]

[tnroadrunner]

[tnroadrunner]

OK, folks lets pick a date, time and place, I'm flexible.

[Ed__357]

Several years ago a bunch of us met in Murfreesboro Tennessee at the "On Target Gun Range on Thompson Lane." As I recall, it was F5-fstop who is no longer with us, Myself, John Harris, several other members, a few local folks from Murfreesboro, and a lady who was running for state Senate at the time. I had the impression it was a pretty good turnout for a First time meeting, and I think there was around 15 people there total. I believe John even signed up a couple new members while there.

I say all this, because this has become quite a long thread and most of this has been discussed before and felt I needed to recap this topic a bit.

I believe we already have a possible solution for a meeting in the Nashville area. And that is to return to the site of our last meeting. The range there in Murfreesboro has an impressive lobby and meeting space for clubs to meet. We used one of those meeting rooms last time. And Murfreesboro is only minutes from Nashville, Franklin, Columbia, Smyrna, and Mt Juliet. As I see it, when discussing the Nashville Chapter, we keep hitting snags on a meeting location. Well, we already have a location in Murfreesboro just waiting for us.

Right after our meeting there last time, we had agreed to meet there again the following month. But as some of you may recall, the building caught fire and burned down before we could meet again. Well, the place has been rebuilt, and is back in business. We could start meeting there again if we wanted to.

I have a couple of questions for John Harris on this subject:

1). Do you recall how much the facility charged us for the use of that meeting space? And how would that fee be paid? Would each member who attends have to pay a certain amount? If so, how would that work? What if 25 people attended the meeting(s) or only 4 people attended? Do the other chapters pay for their meeting locations or would it be better for us to find a "Free Space" for the Nashville chapter?

2). Do the chapter meetings occur weekly, monthly, or quarterly?

3). What would be the primary purpose for each meeting? Certainly this is not just a social gathering or coffee club is it? That could be done anywhere at any time? So we would have to have a reason and purpose behind every meeting.

4). If you had a list of previous attendees or prospects, and you wanted to invite them or remind them to attend a scheduled meeting, you'd probably want to mail out a flyer. If the "Chapter's Leader" wanted to do this and it involved several bucks for the printing and postage, who would fund this? Would the TFA re-imburse him/her, would a collection plate be passed at the meeting, or would he just have to bear the financial loss himself?

I ask these questions, so that those people who are interested in starting or maintaining a Nashville Area chapter will have an idea of what to expect. Also, those of you who are already involved in successful chapters should comment on these questions as well.

I understand there is a chapter that meets in a restaurant. I'd like to know exactly what occurs at one of these restaurant meetings. Do you all pull a bunch of table together or are you scattered out? Or do you secure the restaurant for that evening? What do you do or discuss while there? Is it hard to conduct business in a crowded noisy restaurant? ...etc...

[SomeGuy]

Ed, I consider Chattanooga a success, so I can answer some of your questions.

I think most chapters meet monthly, I know we do here in Chattanooga.

We vary what a meeting is for. Obviously during sessions we overview what is going on in Nashville, and everyone writes letters. Other times it is more a social gathering, such as going to the range and having a group shoot.

When it comes to getting the members, I went personal and low-budget. I called people. It gave me a chance to actually speak directly with people, and I didn't have to pay and trust the USPS. As far as money goes, my chapter doesn't have a budget. We don't need one. If we need money, we all pitch in, and when it comes to supporting candidates we all send individual contributions.

Chattanooga (me) and Knoxville (I think) meet in restaurants. What we do in Chattanooga, is we have reserved their conference room. The conference room has doors we can close, and it becomes a very nice little meeting area. They do not charge us a cent, since the idea is we buy food, and then have a small meeting area. You may want to see if there are any Ryan's in that area, as they do not serve alcohol. (Well, at least our's doesn't.)