Piazza Hits UNDO. Front Sight Restructuring Update

The Late Boy Scout
February 8, 2022

Unedited transcript

Front sight restructuring update a lot has changed or should i say changed back since that first email let’s talk about it hey everybody welcome back and yes as you know i recently posted a video outlining front sight’s restructuring plan and what they intended to do as far as how memberships would have to pay a whole lot of new fees i was pretty outraged by it pretty upset by it a lot of you guys were outraged by it and said so in the comments section um and a lot of other members were definitely outraged by it and didn't appreciate the uh the changes that front sight was making and basically it all kind of stemmed from just to briefly recap stemmed from some financial difficulty that front sight has found itself in due to some bad business dealings and yeah everybody was pretty outraged by the fact that well you know we as members are now going to have to change everything we do and pay a bunch of new money that we didn't expect to pay to help front sight out of this jam and it felt unfair a lot of people didn't like it and uh they let front sight know with emails and phone calls and you guys in the comments section but also dr piazza from front sight sent out uh many emails saying okay that restructuring is on hold until we get more input from our members what did that mean well it meant that he was going to send out what he eventually ended up doing was he sent out some sort of like polls to find out exactly what members want from their memberships what they'll put up with basically as far as new fees are concerned and the result of those polls led him to basically offer two paths for front sight members going forward and that’s what we're going to outline here today the two paths that he talked about and i also want to thank a couple of commenters who mentioned on that recent video one this is elaine said i returned from front sight yesterday you can absolutely use ammo that you are bringing with you you can also buy from them the amount of ammo you will use each day you are there and she says it was only a few cents higher than cabela’s great another commenter said this is sar dot it’s changed again for the better maybe read the latest email from the good doc if you do nothing nothing changes in your membership i'm at fs this weekend bought into the gold star deal got the 5,000 fs bucks although i can only purchase the ammo i need for the current course makes sense using the bucks cost this the ammo cost 10 cents on the dollar plus tax on the retail price can't beat that price on ammo anywhere could still use my own ammo too that’s huge the pro shop has lots of good stuff not just a few xxl clothes and lefty holsters as years past that’s good to know as well armory still has lots of stuff all for what works out to be 90 off plus tax when using fs bucks so apparently i'll be charged for future courses don't know if i can use the bucks don't know yet what other benefits are the gold star dealer are to come or what the coins are good for so i think there’s a lot of confusion in that regard from a lot of members like what does the what exactly do the um the fs bucks mean the front sight coins mean what what benefits are we really going to see from all of that that’s kind of the big question but as he outlined there if you know you're going to be going to front side a lot in the future it does make financial sense to buy the it’s actually they call it the gold members sorry the gold status member fee to pay that fee and then use that to get to accumulate the fs bucks that you want uh for the amount of ammo you expect to use in the next i don't know two three years whatever so you could spend a thousand bucks and get this many front sight bucks and spent you know up to up to i don't know five thousand bucks i can't remember what the what it caps off at but you can spend a whole bunch of money and get all this fs bucks non-refundable so you put the money in you can't get it back out um and you can use that for stuff like ammo paying for background checks paying for daily um you know the maintenance fees and all that stuff so you can use all that fs bucks use all that stuff to towards your course and that makes a lot of sense so if you decide to upgrade and get that gold status member status then you will probably benefit from that and more or less profit like you're going to be getting this the training you want the training you want and you're also going to be paying less for it than you would have so uh it turns out there are some good reasons to i guess move into that uh gold status member path but i guess also for all of us who don't want to go that route you can also just do nothing and keep what you currently have so he did a really good job sort of summing it up right there but i'm going to go into a little more detail from dr piazza’s email just trying to pull the highlights here and i'll try to give you exactly what’s going on here so for the gold status member path you get a 50 you spend fifty dollars an annual for criminal background check fee and that’s annual so you pay that for the first course that you attend for that year and then it’s good for the rest of the year 25 day 25 per day facility fee for the number of days attending course plus the 25 day a 25 staff support fee plus the 25 per day insurance fee so all those things i talked about would still apply but you can use your front sight bucks or fs coins or whatever to pay for it i believe and it also says the above fees will be charged for all new students so if you haven't attended front sight before you just got a membership you haven't um haven't attended yet i think that they basically immediately put you into the gold status member path there is no option to be a sort of a legacy member anymore and that’s for new students uh and also for gold status members but then this is huge no membership maintenance fees at all for the gold status member path i think that’s also true for the non-gold status member path no membership maintenance fees at all they've just done away with that so what i think i said it was gonna be 500 bucks a year if you paid it in lump sum that’s gone you don't have to do that at all but those who did pay that before that uh that deal was rescinded and they said we're putting that on hold there are lots of people who did pay that and those who did are getting i don't remember exactly what it is but some level of fs bucks or frontside coin um reward that they can put towards their stuff towards you know things that they do their front sight including ammo by the way you can buy ammo with that so that’s awesome uh and also you know the members that uh commented there said yes you can bring your own ammo currently still i don't know if that’s gonna change i don't have enough information right now i'd have to specifically ask and talk to somebody at front sight or you can do that email somebody and ask them can i still bring my own ammo as of right now people are bringing their own ammo and they're being allowed to take the course with it but they can also use fs bucks to buy uh ammo there so seems to be again kind of a more open approach uh what else your personal membership is now willable upon your death that was true in the previous video transfer fee for your personal membership to anyone other than an immediate family member is 100 payable by either transfer or transferee again it says anyone other than an immediate family member family member so an immediate family member like your spouse your child and your parent as well you can transfer your membership to them for free i believe i remember reading that somewhere in this but if it’s somebody other than immediate family it’s a hundred bucks and you can apparently use fs bucks in your account to pay for those transfer fees uh the two to be determined memberships in your account are also now transferable the transfer fee to your transfer fee for your to be determined memberships is 100 private training also also available to gold status members and there’s various fee structures for that front sight certificates here account that are previously covered for a wide range of uses have all been converted to two-day four-day handgun tactical or practical rifle courses tactical shotgun or practical weapons courses the empty hand defense edge weapons rope repel and climb children and youth courses will remain in our curriculum so they said before they're getting rid of all that looks like they're going to try to keep it now they also said that frontside alaska is going to remain open they said they're getting they're closing frontside alaska apparently they actually have enough money to keep it open so whatever i don't know and the champion club remains open under its original terms so that’s all for the gold status member path and to get the gold status member path i've been trying to figure this out and try to understand how what makes you a gold status member but it sounds like all you're doing is you're buying a bunch of fs coins and that’s all it is that makes you a gold status member and so you say yes i want to be cold status member at what level and then you buy the 50 level 100 of the 200 the thousand dollar level whatever the different levels are there’s a bunch of different levels and you're awarded that many fs bucks according to the level that you buy now if you don't want to go the gold status member path you don't do anything you simply do nothing as he says you'll continue to be able to attend courses under the original policies procedures and fees which uh fees were basically 50 annual criminal background check i believe your account will revert back to its original ledger removing all the refunding of what you have spent in the past and fs bucks and fs coins your account will revert back to holding credits patronage points only that you can use for your criminal background checks partial purchase in the pro shop membership transfer fees and any other special offers in the future that will allow the use of credits patriotist points your account will revert back to the original tbd memberships and certificates it held so kind of back to status quo if you were happy with what you had at front sight you still have all of that according to what he says but if you want this next step up which is buying into the front sight bucks and front sight coins thing then you just decide what level you want to buy and that’s it but again you don't have to if you're already a member you don't have to do any of that you can keep your membership as it is pay just 50 bucks per per year for your criminal background check and attend all the courses the way you did and that’s it and it sounds like you can also bring your own ammo like as before now i will update in a pinned comment if that turns out to be not true but it does seem like all the things that we were scared of that i was upset about with front sights restructuring it seems like that has all effectively been rescinded and they've found another way to try to raise money to deal with the financial issues that they have and if that’s if that’s the case great i have no problem with this i have no issue with it and will i continue to go to front side i don't know maybe maybe not if i can i guess the main thing for me is getting some training for my daughter and for my other son who haven't been down there yet doing that with them at some point because that’s been a fun thing to do family-wise so if i can still do all of that without changing uh my uh gold status member changing to a gold status member um then i probably will but i think that anybody any one of them who becomes a new member from receiving a membership they will automatically kind of be converted into the gold status member which means they have to buy some front sight coins and pay the 75 per day fees i think that’s correct i think that’s correct so so um you know for me the two things that really killed the killed the previous deal for me were the fact that you had to buy your ammo from front sight and the fact that you had to pay an annual membership maintenance fee those two things made me say no i don't want to do any of this anymore and they've rescinded that for everybody it looks like if that’s the case then i think we're done here there’s nothing nothing left to complain about at least from my standpoint now you can still complain about oh i don't like the way they teach this or teach that or i don't think they do a good enough job with this or that that’s why i'll never go to front side and i've heard so many bad things about frontside blah blah blah man i've never tried to say you ought to go to front sight you should definitely go to front side and it’s better than any other place i don't feel that way at all i think that it’s better than no training a lot better than no training at all and i feel like when i take when i've taken my son there taking my wife there they learn more from their experience at front sight then i could easily teach them from a couple of days at the range because i mean it’s more than just the fact that they've got the the whole curriculum figure out figured out and they know how to teach it well and explain things well and get through things in a very progressive this than that than this than that kind of a way they're very good at that much better than i am and so that alone is worth the money to me but um man i'm really kind of off on a big tangent right now i guess i'll wrap it up i do think that it is worth it for you know for folks who just don't have any training whatsoever and probably wouldn't get training if the bar were so high that it was like a thousand bucks for the course and you have to bring a thousand rounds of ammo or 2,000 bucks or whatever but you know if that was the standard that was the bar then yeah a lot of people simply wouldn't get the training and for that reason i'm glad front side exists because it’s a place where you can get some basic safety training basic marksmanship training gun handling skills and so forth not again not limousine not the best stuff but way better than nothing and so for that reason again i'll probably i mean i'll keep my membership as it is i don't anticipate going to this gold status thing um but i'll look into it some more and maybe i'll think about doing that for my kids um in the future and that is essentially the update i hope that that was helpful to you guys um again it’s been a long time since i've been here on youtube this this whole thing with front sight really kind of made me want to speak to you guys because many many many of my subscribers came about from my front sight videos and a lot of people um associate me as the youtube front sight guy not trying to claim anything but i know a lot of people look at me that way and so i feel like i have a little bit of a responsibility to address this here on youtube explain what i can and uh dispel uh whatever mistruths i can anyhow hope that helps i'm late boy scout we'll see ya.

Source: https://youtu.be/cRExi7kP0H8