Foggy Start

Some Hero’s

The Chief

And At Last Some Clubhouse progress (Hurrah)

Next time its Service Rifle – Pay your subs and see you then.

Happy New Year to all

Its raining today but promises better for the Hero Shoot on Sunday. This shoot is to be held at 200 yards and you can bring what you want (provided it’s within the range limits) Shooting will be decided on the day depending on who brings what and what you want to do.

The Electronic Targets are playing up and we will be undertaking some serious maintenance and repairs as soon as the Agent returns from holiday and we can order the parts.

With this in mind we will change the program around depending on the target availability for the early part of this year.

For this shoot it will be hand-held and McQueen etc depending on demand.

Early arrival is recommended if you wish to influence the days events.

We have had some work done on the targets but are not entirely sure if the problems we have been experiencing have been fixed. We are therefore cancelling the scheduled competition and having a practice at 200 and POSSIBLY 300 yards. With potentially unreliable targets it isn’t reasonable to attempt a competition.

Those of you who were at the last shoot will know the drill, report to the RO any of the stray 1’s that happen (they go in the same places as opposed to simply bad shots), together with any sound sensor errors. We will build up a further report of any defects for consideration by the manufacturers (if needs be).

We may also break from shooting at some point and take apart one or two of the targets to see if we can find anything inside that is amiss.

So it’s not a free for all practice and we would like some help in monitoring the problems so we can correct them and get back to normal.

Please therefore  bring something accurate as we need to make sure the flyers are obvious.

Hopefully we can fix the problem or at least get a better understanding of it so please be prepared to be flexible.

The delays in building the pavilion mean we have had to shift the program around a bit. Shoots that were published as being at 600 yards have been amended to 500 yards until we can get 600 up and running again.

A revised program has been uploaded to the relevant page but a copy can be found here:-

2014 Shooting Calendar Post Revision

We will probably switch some back to 600 once we know when we will have the firing point ready. So note the revisions and keep an eye on the web site as we may amend the distances back when we can.

We are currently waiting for the piles to be installed then the base can be prepared and then the pavilion built. We have been promised that the piles will be fitted next week but don’t count on it.

See you at the McQueen on Sunday.

The above competition is this Sunday and we have a couple of notices to inform you about.

Due to the absence of a 600 yard firing point the competition instead of being 2 x 7 at 3/5/6 will be amended to 2 x 10 at 3/5. This will make it easier to run and a better shoot in the circumstances.

On the subject of running it we are very light on committee members available this weekend for a variety of reasons. So our President Graham Arthur has kindly agreed to oversee the event and he will be supported by Malcolm Dalgleish and Greg Box who will cover the Range Officer duties. Tim Hammond will be on hand to sort out Target 4 (battle damage) and ensure the targets don’t play up. We (me especially) are extremely grateful to these members to step up and ensure the shoot could go ahead. Remember the club is run by volunteers not paid officials.

In general we rely on a very small pool of people to run things so going forward we would be grateful for any help we can get. With this in mind I have created a list fo general duties we have to cover in a day and how to set up the range. It may help you understand what needs doing, how it gets done, and perhaps volunteer for some of it from time to time.

Notes on Task Range Operation and Tasks

With regard to the ongoing saga of the George Arnold Pavillion we are currently waiting for a contractor to fit the necessary piles to the build site so we can lay the foundations. They are apparently overloaded with work so we are waiting in a queue. This, I am told, is the reason for the hole in the ground remaining unfilled! We will have to move some of the shoots around for the latter part of the year as a result so we will keep you informed.

Have a good shoot on Sunday and Give the range staff a hand, (Please)

The McQueen was shot today in superb weather. The results are on the relevant page (if you think I have got yours wrong then let me know.) No prizes for guessing the top shooter. The first score of the day set the standard that was unbeaten (50.10 – no practice, just the two sighters).

As regards the next event (the Kirby Cup) we have a manpower shortage. Due to a variety of reasons our usual range staff have other commitments and cannot run the shoot. Our President Graham Arthur has offered to oversee things but he cannot manage the event single handed and we need some help from the membership for this and other shoots in general.
We would like some volunteers to step forward and help run the Kirby Cup and to assist with other shoots in the future. The duties would include early arrival, setting up the targets, face changes range officering and putting away/locking up. We really have too few people to do these things and would like some more volunteers to help. The committee are volunteers and cannot always be available.

The Kirby Cup is a particular problem but in any event some more help with Range Management would be much appreciated. So please offer to help (in advance) and we can run the shoot.

In general we would like to increase our pool of members who can assist with shoots and turn up on a regular and reliable basis.

So offers would be appreciated so the event can go ahead.

Pavillion Update – The watertable is still too high to dig the foundations so we are waiting for the contractors to install the necessary Piling so the build can get started. I dont have any more information than that but if you want more then please contact Frank Roberts or George Cotton.

Membership update

I have been carrying around the membership cards all year and out of nearly 100 members I still have at least 35 who have not been to the range this year!  One of them is for a member who made a huge fuss when I mentioned we may scrap having membership cards!

A small but perfectly formed gathering on a glorious but breezy day at the range. The weather was hot but the cooling breeze played havoc with some of the scores. Well they did mine at least. We kept all the TR shooters on the same details wherever possible so there were no complaints about muzzle blast etc so hopefully we can persuade some more TR shooters along to the next TR shoot in a months time.

The next shoot is a modern McQueen and we may well have a pairs stage if enough people want to take part. so have a think about that.

I should have taken a photo of the range but I didn’t think about it until most had gone and I was walking back from packing the butts away. But by then the flags were still not like the usual pointing in all directions of earlier in the shoot. There was a deer grazing at 200 yards so at least some of the neighbours didn’t mind the noise.

The results page has been updated.