paintballing in a sports hall

[uther313]

hiya guys im thinkin bout trying to set up trainign sessions in my uni sports hall using re-balls and sup'air bunkers.
befor i go and put the idea foward to the union and grounds manager what are the possible problems i will encounter and how can i argue against these? clearly masks will be needed by anyone in the hall but other than what else needs to be considered? insurance is paid for by members of any society and by the union and the hall is used for archery so if the insurance covers that it should all be ok? also as long as ten members sign up and pay the union has to recognise it as a club or society and as a club you get free access to the sports hall. im sure this idea has some major failing point that i just cant see right now so what do u guys think?

 

[john251282]

Double check insurance covers paintball. Much easier to check now than deal with issues if you are not covered after something happens. Then arrange details on how to warn people that might pop there head in to see what is going on that there is a risk. e.g. a sign on the outside of door in big bright letters, probably red would be best as it normally indicates danger.

They might object to the noise, if there are other activities nearby. You will need a method to gas the markers, dive tanks being the only real option. You will also need a method to secure the bunkers a weighted base is normally the method used indoors and a way to fill them up petrol leaf blowers are unlikely to be accepted but electric should be ok.

 

[spangley_special]

speak to devrij, he helps to run the uwe paintball soceity and they run reball sessions in their gym hall.

If any one on here could have an insight its him

 

[uther313]

the hall is on campus and the noise would only be an issue in the mornings. as for filling we would defo use dive tanks looking in to gettin some for the team already. as for the bunkers can u put water or sand or somethin in the bottom to make them stay still?

and i will drop him a pm cheers guys

 

[Ion]

Having spent my four years at uni trying to sort exactly this my advice would be go and have a quiet chat with whoever is responsible granting access to the facilities. In our case we had the approval of the students union but weren't able to get *exclusive* access to the hall for any period of time which was required for the insurance.

*ninja edit*
one idea we did consider was using squash courts if you have access to them as they are easy to get exclusive access to and they are generally full contained. Not big enough for games but for snapping against targets it would be ok.

 

[JamieD]

i dont really have experience in this but heres my 2p worth

insurence is the definate must, double check this before you spend anymore time planning anything else because that is the main deciding factor of anything like this.

Once you know insurence covers it (or you can pay to upgrade the insurence) then you can talk to the person responsible for hiring/ booking it. Reasure him that all precautions will be taken, everything will be done in a profesional manner and run through the process with him, you will find people a lot more understanding once they know what your talking about.

Some suggestions maybe.... Say you will turn your guns down to say 220-250 fps (or less if you want) this shouldnt cause any problems, im guessing the hall wont be huge and since your using reballs then you dont exactly need them to burst, this will also help bring noise down, even if the hall is in the middle of nowhere, its still nice to know.

suggest that you will put numerous ammounts of signs up outside the venue and ask if it is possible to lock the door to stop people from coming in, if not then maybe worth getting a bit of net to box the door off.

as for the bunkers i cant imagine he would be too pleased to heard that there was a possibility of water covering his gym floor so two sandbags will probably do the trick for most bunkers

hope this helps, if i think of anything else i will post it here

 

[Leezo]

Hi mate, I do exactly what your wanting to do every week for our youth club except it's not at a uni and we can use it every wednesday night. We have public liability insurance in place, we are AALA (Adventurous Activities Licensing Authority) registered and all participants have filled an indemnity form in.

We lock the main door so no one can get in but the gym has 3 fire exits so it is totally secure but we can get out in the case of a fire. I have a sign on the door with my work number on if anyone needs to contact me whilst inside.

I have netting either end of the gym so the balls aren't bouncing all over the place. All our guns are turned down. The bunkers are weighed down with bungees on the pegpoints and weights on top of the bungees to hold it in place. We have a safe area for people to take their masks off.
The only pain in the ar$e is picking the reballs up.
I hope you get sorted mate and if you have any questons that i can help you with give me a shout.

 

[uther313]

thanks for all the help guys im goin to try and get things moving with it and let u all no how i get on.

also the door locks to sports hall so thats a plus and i spoke to somone else who does this and they use duct tape to hold the bunlkers down so that will be good only other question is anyone no where to get reballs cheapish

cheers

 

[joshiro]

awsome this is good news uther. as uthers vice captin i really hope we can pull this off as our team realy needs a place to train regular

 

[Raffles]

Don't use gaffa (duct) tape - as this may leave marks/sticky on the floor.

As for cheap reballs - see http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=126349