Women are one of the fastest growing demographics of gun owners. The Rose Garden is about to launch and seems like a virtual town square for female shooters to collaborate.
TerryAnn Bowen is one of the co-owners of Manchester Firing Line in New Hampshire and the founder of Iron Rose Women’s shooting club. Bowen has been involved in the Second Amendment community for years, but her level of expertise did not come overnight. Bearing Arms got to catch up with Bowen and she told us about an exciting new project that she’s about to launch, the Rose Garden online community for women.
Readers may remember Bowen from our previous coverage. We first got acquainted with Bowen during a USCCA kid’s event that she hosted at her facility. Following that successful event, the first Iron Rose “Rise Together” weekend was launched with Bowen at the helm.
“I designed Iron Rose women's shooting club online community — which is a national community — and it's designed to be an ecosystem for the entire industry, for women to fill that gap, and not only that, but be there for each other,” Bowen explained. “It's that leadership. Leaders need support too, you know? And so the leaders that are getting involved in this are all across the country. They are going to be sharing a little bit of themselves … so that women across the country who would never be able to get to one of their classes, they can get some instruction (and) information.”
The idea is to be able to create a hive-like network where female shooters and Second Amendment supporters can connect with another. Bowen aims to give her members that little bit of extra information they might need when going to the range or a new class. Things that seasoned gun owners take for granted, like simple nomenclature and 101-level knowledge, Bowen hopes to be able to provide in a one-stop shop.
Bowen was nice enough to give Bearing Arms a sneak peek at what the beta version of the Rose Garden looks like. It’s set up very much like an old-school traditional bulletin board system — for those of you old enough to remember the AOL and Prodigy days and private BBS systems from the 1900s. Is the Rose Garden a forum? Not quite. Is it a social media platform? Not entirely. Is it an information and video page? Well, it’s really a little bit of all of that rolled up into one.
The forward-facing product seems easy to navigate. There’s areas where users can connect with trainers, speak freely about their concerns and/or ideas, answer opinion polls, view member events, share their original stories, watch informational and training videos, and even tune into podcasts.
“The ladies that are joining this understand that this is a collaboration over competition,” Bowen said. “When we come together and we collaborate, everybody benefits from that. Everybody benefits from the knowledge, the care that's put into that, and the entire industry benefits. And that's what this is designed to be. This is designed to help every aspect; from ladies touching a gun for the first time, to female leaders, to the gun ranges, and the instructors that they're going to be going to.
“Our motto is, go where you grow.”
Iron Rose is a membership program with three different tiers. There’s a “community member” tier, “leaders” tier, and a “paterner” tier. Each level has its own benefit and cost associated with it. Depending on where an individual fits in the firearms community depends on what might appeal most to them.
This is very exciting for the Second Amendment community and for TerryAnn Bowen who said that she designed Iron Rose “to be a complete ecosystem for the entire industry.” There’s a lot to what she had to say, so you’re going to want to tune into the full interview if you’re interested in the finer points of the program. To learn more about the Rose Garden, check out their homepage HERE and tune into our interview in full HERE. You can also check out the conversation in the embed below.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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