Volunteer Day at Capital City Paintball - Potterville, MI

[ClockworkSoldier]

Hey everyone! Completely forgot to share this here sooner, so sorry for the short notice. But we are organizing a volunteer work event next weekend, the 12th and 13th, at Capital City Paintball, just Southwest of Lansing. The major goals are clearing junk/debris/paths in order to get a portion of the woods reopened for general play, repairing some of the dilapidated buildings on our village field, and also making preparations for our upcoming zombie hunt event. I personally plan to arrive around 9am both days and, once more volunteers arrive, will organize a walkthrough of the field to give everyone an idea of the tasks we hope to complete.

Rewards:
Free food and drinks will be available to all volunteers. For each day of volunteer work, individuals will receive one field fee and paint (one case) voucher, which can be redeemed at any time.

What everyone should bring:
- Long pants
- Sturdy shoes/boots
- Work golves
- Eye/hearing protection

Extras to bring:
- Additional trucks for hauling materials, junk, and debris (we will have one truck available, and may rent a U-Haul if necessary)
- Building tools (if you'd like to help with village repairs, a limited amount will be available at the field)
- Chainsaws (we have one gas chainsaw at the field, and may be doing a large amount of cutting, depending on how many tasks we can accomplish, or how many volunteers we have)

If you are interested in volunteering, please comment below, shoot me a message, or feel free to simply show up! And if you know of anyone else that may be interested in helping out, please let them know!

*As of writing this post, we currently have 12+ volunteers signed up, an extra 14ft trailer to utilize, and multiple sets of power tools being supplied.

[Cross-Country]

How is this going? Wasn't able to make it out as I'm preparing for a flight, but hope it's productive. Gotta try your field soon!

[ClockworkSoldier]

It went great! We ended up focusing the majority of our efforts on the woods, as it needed the most work by far, and we want to open it back up for play as soon as possible. We had a ton of old, rotted, wood to get rid of, from old bunkers and buildings that the previous owners just randomly tossed in piles all through the woods. We also uncovered a large portion of the old net in the back of the woods, that had come down during a big wind storm a number of years ago, and had 8+ trees laying across it. New paths were cut through the woods, and we also cleared the main section for our small road that will pass through as well.

There's lots more to do though, and I'll be organizing more volunteer days going forward. We still have two big piles of old materials that need to be removed from the woods, more work to make our new paths/road permanent, putting up new posts and raising the net that we uncovered, and lots of work to repair and update the village. Once we've completed basic repairs on the village, we also have plans to start work on a complete revamp, to change the village into a more realistic setting, instead of a smattering of basic plywood buildings.

That being said, once the last two piles of old junk in the woods are removed, a large portion of that field will finally be playable again.

[Cross-Country]

That's awesome! I'm so glad to hear you're getting the woods in play. Woodsball is my true love, having more places to play it is more than welcome. Glad to hear your plans for the village, too. Hopefully I can join you on one or more of these future work days.

[Cross-Country]

I need to get a straight answer: Are you guys open for rec ball consistently? Like, can I show up on a Saturday or Sunday when you're supposed to be open, and open play is not gonna be closed to either host or travel to a tournament? Because I am sick and tired of showing up to my local place and finding out us rec ballers can just get fucked AGAIN. Can I just come play some fucking paintball somewhere in this state?!

[ClockworkSoldier]

Yeah, the field is open every weekend for recball, unless there's a special occasion, like this upcoming weekend, which is both a big game, and a 1v1 tournament on the same day. And even then, I imagine it would still be possible to do some open play on the Hyperball field. But as Nak mentioned below, it's always a good idea to call ahead, and see if there's groups signed up to play, and whether they're open or private parties. Also, if you happen to use discord, I could send you a link to the field's discord channel, and you can easily ask about it there. Like Nak said, it can be pretty surprising what days we get a bunch of people, and what days are really slow. I'm out there almost every Saturday and Sunday, and have the opportunity to play pretty regularly, even if it's just smaller walk-on groups. But I also spend a lot of time working on the fields, and the shop, helping ref, or even just walking around the field taking pictures for the walk-on groups.

[Cross-Country]

Thanks! Unfortunately, I don't use Discord, and have no intentions of using online platforms that aren't searchable (I'm weirdly old fashioned), so I'll have to pass on that. I do really appreciate it, though! It's about a 50 minute drive for me to get there, but I'll do my best to get up there and try it out as soon as I can.

[nak81783]

I need to get a straight answer: Are you guys open for rec ball consistently? Like, can I show up on a Saturday or Sunday when you're supposed to be open, and open play is not gonna be closed to either host or travel to a tournament? Because I am sick and tired of showing up to my local place and finding out us rec ballers can just get fucked AGAIN. Can I just come play some fucking paintball somewhere in this state?!

The best thing to do is call on Friday to see if they have groups scheduled for Saturday or Sunday. Make sure to ask if the groups are open play, private party, 50 cal, 68 cal, how many people, and what time the groups are scheduled.

Sometimes I’ll ask if the groups prepaid or put a deposit down, but I feel bad asking that because it’s none of my business. However, money down typically guarantees they’ll show.

It’s hit or miss. There have been gorgeous days where no one shows up, and there have been rainy days where 30+ will show up.

I will say, even if no one shows, there’s always something to do to help. I know it’s not the same as playing, but I still enjoy just being at the field, fixing rental markers, working on the fields, etc.

[Cross-Country]

It just broke my freaking brain today that I got to my local place, and it's been closed to open play all weekend because of a tournament. Normally that doesn't bother me, but today it just ruined my entire state of mind. I could have called other places, but gas is almost five dollars a gallon, I can't afford to go an hour out of my way and THEN dump another ninety bucks to play. I just need to play, apparently that's too bad unless I join a team to play a style I don't even like. I just got diagnosed with diabeetus, been looking forward to playing through a hard week, because this is the one thing I can do to pretend everything is fine, and boom, can't freaking play. It just made me mad at the entire state of this industry, playing second fiddle because I won't participate in something I think is a negative direction for this hobby. I assumed all the other fields within an hour would be closed for this thing, taking their teams to it. I just want a place where I can play paintball when the website says I can play paintball.