Trusting technology, All dressed up with no where to go.

[Olive Mae Burr]

I usually have to work every weekend but manage to get one Saturday a month off to go to a match. As luck would have, or not, I recently ended up with a Sunday off. I had no special plans for the day so on got on the SASS Affliated clubs page and found a match scheduled for the day. It was the 3rd Sanday of the month. I did a little online research to find the location of the match and a contact number. I called to contact number to varify the amount of rounds I would need and other important info like if they had lunch arrangements.
The day came, I got up bright and early, put a selection of cowgirl clothes on, loaded up my guns, ammo, cart, slathered myself in sunscreen and hit the road.
I used my GPS to direct to the location listed online for the match. Found the place after a few glitches but still on time. One thing wasn't quite right, there was no body there. I figured I'd call the contact to varify where I was supposed to be. No signal. I drove around the countryside a bit til a found someone to ask about any other ranges in the area. Found my way there, without the GPS. No one was there either. To the cell phone again, no signal. I then drove around back roads hoping I might find some sign for a cowboy shoot or gun club to no avail. Check my cell phone status often, no signal. An hour later I was headed back home disappointed.

I learned something here though. I should've asked the contact person for a address and specific directions when I had the chance. Although I did HAVE and address and a GPS navigator, it was not the right address. The information I found online must've been somewhat dated and they moved the match location without updating the info. Some on the info I found online was correct, such as the number for the contact guy, so I figured the rest would also be correct. I was wrong.

[Adirondack Jack]

Well it woulda been a really good idea for the club to call SASS and get that fixed, don't ya think?

[Percussion Pete]

Your biggest problem was your cell phone signal. 

[Preacher Earoff]

If I might make a general suggestion: Any club that has a website (and my personal feeling is that every club should have one), please make someone responsible for updating/verifying/correcting the information on it (it's really not - or at least it shouldn't be - hard). A lot of people (myself included) use the internet to find out about stuff like this and it's a real hassle when the information is incorrect.

In my recent surfing I've found problems ranging from bad links (the website that the link points to no longer exists, and the clubs page seems to have completely disappeared) to information that was hard to find and/or incorrect.

One problem, and this isn't the fault of the club, is that some of the map sites, I usually use google maps, may have completely bogus coordinates. I recently "asked" google maps to give me directions to a place about 15 miles from here (I live in Maine) and it gave me a route to someplace in Virginia because the GPS coordinates (I'm guessing - because it seemed to be using the coordinates rather than the address) were wrong. So another suggestion would be to use the online maps and check the route before hand (which might help you verify the coordinates), and/or use a physical address rather than the coordinates, or, as you mentioned, check with the contact person in advance 

Rob