fnra friends of NRA

[rockriver]

folks,
i attended a friends of NRA banquet this weekend..

this is the tax ded. side of the nra. money raised is used to provide funds to boy scouts, rotc, 4-h
etc youth groups to teach hunting/gun safety and marksmanship.

good fellowship. good fun. good food. silent auctions. live auctions. games with many guns/knives etc as prizes.
if you see one in your area, i recommend you try it out!

they are family friendly... feel free to take your son, daughter and/or wife.
because of their 501c3 (sp?) tax free status, there is no political stuff .
weatherby, kimber, keltec, springfield, ruger, diamondback, bushmaster, armalite, s+w, marlin, etc..
9, 40, 5.56, 38 special, .22 etc..

rr
(only rockriver there was the one walking around!)

[Matt In Oklahoma]

hmmm last one I went to was heavy pressure for money, maybe there are different events

[rockriver]

i've been to a lot of these FNRA events i
i have not seen any request for donations at the event. ..
would they have accepted a donation? sure.
i donated a picture taken from a bomber in ww2 with explanation of the event one year.
i was on the committee putting on the event...

here's what i've seen for those that haven't attended.
a door ticket of 25 to 40.
lots of times a business or individual will buy a "table"
which typically includes 8 tickets... maybe you'll be lucky and your business friend will give you a free ticket.
sometimes a door prize for every person attending . worth 5 to 10 each.
sometimes a door prize drawing for for 5 to 15 folks 10 to 50$ per.
a big dinner... all the seafood i could eat. or a huge steak is typical in our area.

1/3 to 1/2 the folks there will sit there and smile and enjoy the meal, and buy no drawing tickets, and wonder when they are gonna win a 1,000 rifle. (they ain't gonna win nothing, unless it is one of the door prizes worth 5 to 50!)

1/3 of the folks will buy a few drawing tickets, or game tickets,, costing $5 to $30each. and 1/4 of the folks will buy a bunch of drawing tickets! to be used at various games around the room.
example:
1. card game: they will sell each card in a deck of 52 for 10.00 each... half goes in a bucket. half goes to the ticket buyer... the lucky winner will be the guy or gal holding the other half of the card drawn from the bucket. they collected $520. winning prize will be a henry lever action .22 or similar priced gun. if it sells out quickly the card game can be replayed.
2. number board: large board with a grid... letters across the top a -j and numbers
down the side 1 - 10 making 100 squares. you buy all the squares you want. at 20. each or 6 or 100. Fnra will bring in about 1900. prize will be a scoped 700 cdl rifle or maybe 2 springfieldxd's or similar. if this game sells out quickly, the fnra will play it again.

3.. dice game. you roll 3 dice and add up your total.. and are given a ticket for the sum shown on your dice. $10 for one roll of 3 or $20 for 3 rolls. my bride likes this game... but the odds are bad. there were 3 small pistols as prizes... they sold a "pile" of tickets.

white bucket tickets. the fnra will display a bunch of gun or knife or backpack or scope or jewelry or tent, or ?? with a bucket next to each item... tickets purchased can then be placed in whatever bucket they choose... i saw a guy put a whole bunch of tickets in a bucket that went with a poor painting. that was good.. i put most of my tickets in the buckets next to bb guns.. (to no avail!)

silent auction. there will be many items displayed with a "bid sheet" next to it. the attendees have the option of bidding on the item... i bid more than any one for a few boxes of "BB's " the silent auction will run most of the evening. \

live auction.. y'all know how this works.. as the auction goes on, and some folks "spend out" i've seen nice items go for great deals.

so, try it. you may like it! each banquet committee in a state will send a rep to a meeting to determine how the money will be disbursed around the state... if your town's banquet yields big bucks, you can count on big money coming back to your community to he used locally. in our area, the biggest recipients are 4-h shooting teams, scout weapons training and rotc weapons training. if you have a child or young friend involved in a shooting program, you are invited to have the program leadership submit a "grant request" to the FNRA..
btw, if you helped with the committee or at least attended the banquet, this can possibly go a long long way in influencing the committee to send funds toward your school or scout program!!

p.s. now, for the rest of the story. back to the donation i made one year. . the bomber member who helped me obtain the photo was at the banquet to sign the certification document.. the bomber member got choked up as the picture was explained by the auctioneer. my wife saw him getting choked up. she bought the picture back at auction.. i think you call that redeeming... anyhow cost us a wad. i gave it away. i bought it back. the ww2 vet has passed on.. my wife made a good call, though it blew our budget for that nights' banquet!