In today’s news section, you’ll see that Safari Club International and Grand Slam Club/Ovis have gotten together to partner to create a unified get-together. The first of these events will happen during and after the SCI convention beginning January 31 and running through February 4, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee.
This, I’m told, will combine the two long-established groups for a combination event that should be a harbinger of “other things” to come.
Many outdoor groups, although these are decidedly not among them, are struggling to make and/or keep their events relevant and attractive to members. This year, several events were quietly discontinued or canceled following the organizations being unable to generate enough industry interest to make them viable.
Being big enough hasn’t been an SCI issue. Last year’s convention was the biggest membership event -every- for Nashville’s Music City Convention Center. This is decidedly not an event looking to prove its worth. And this joint 2024 gathering, according to SCI CEO Laird Hamberlin, will be “even bigger and more attractive for attendees.”
So why combine? To get some of the rationale behind that collaboration, I had a Zoom call with SCI’s Hamberlin and GSCO Executive Director Jason Price. What they told me essentially confirmed the fact that the “post-COVID” world is decidedly different, especially for organizations.
“For the past ten years,” GSCO Executive Director Jason Price told me, “we’ve been hearing ‘the market’s changing’ but COVID sped that up.”
A “get acquainted” meeting with SCI CEO Laird Hamberlin, Price told me, “really got him thinking out of the box.”
“When I left that meeting,” he told me, “I felt like we had the potential to have a true partnership. The full fruition is still ongoing, but I think the sky’s the limit for this. It’s a bigger deal than probably most people will pick up on. But it has the opportunity to be really big; industry changing, and I think it will be layered. “
Hamberlin agrees, saying the events combining gives both organizations the chance to play to their strengths. “We already partner on the Pantheon Award,” he told me, “the toughest award in hunting there is to get.
He’s not joking about the toughest award. Here are the criteria:
“The criteria for the Pantheon are easily defined, but extremely difficult to ultimately accomplish. It takes a lifetime to meet all the requirements for being inducted into the Pantheon. Concerning Grand Slam Club/Ovis’ award family, an individual must reach the highest levels. One must have a Grand Slam of North American Wild Sheep; an Ovis World Slam Super 30 of the world’s mountain sheep; a Capra World Slam Super 30 of the world’s wild goats; and the Super Slam of 29 North American Big Game. SCI’s top objective award is the World Conservation and Hunting Award. The requirements for this SCI award are that members must achieve all SCI Grand Slams, and reach the Diamond Level of ALL Inner Circles. This necessarily dictates that one has traveled to all the hunt-able continents and taken all the major big game of the world.”
On the surface, this might not seem like a gigantic thing, especially if you’re not into hunting.
But this isn’t just the combining of two like-minded groups into what they described as a “layered” relationship. Looking at this as the first story of a construction project might be more accurate. The two groups originally partnered in 2013 for the Pantheon Award. It could be viewed as having served as the successful foundation that preceded the overlapping events in Nashville next January. That event may be the initial indicator for just how far- and fast- the cooperation/collaboration progresses.
If it succeeds, it may be the first in a number of collaborations where other organizations not blessed with the individual and collective strengths of these two see a possible way to be more relevant to their collective memberships. Otherwise, it’s not unreasonable to see fewer organizations and events in the future. As GSCO’s Price pointed out, COVID accelerated changes that might not have happened for years otherwise.
As always, we’ll keep you posted.
— Jim Shepherd
EDITOR’S NOTE: A full interview with SCI’s Laird Hamblerin and GSCO’s Jason Price are featured in this week’s QA Outdoors.