CS: Target-prize money
From: Jonathan Spencer, [EMAIL PROTECTED] In all this discussion of the Great British Weather, range availability, courses of fire, prize money, sponsorship, TV coverage etc we do seem to have overlooked, perhaps more fundamental, reasons why people do not come into shooting - or do not stay. There is a common belief amongst non-shooters that it is near impossible to obtain a firearm certificate. And there is a common view, seldom expressed in public, amongst senior police officers, that the public should not have guns - and they pursue policies towards that aim. While such views prevail, it'll be difficult to introduce people to the sport. And for so long as licensing decisions are left to the whims of individual licensing officers, with the only source of redress being an expensive appeal to the Court, shooters and potential shooters are going to find it difficult to engage in their chosen hobby. --Jonathan Spencer, firearms examiner "Justice is open to everybody in the same way as the Ritz Hotel." Judge Sturgess, 22 July 1928 -- We just need to get more people shooting, using whatever method we can come up with. The police can be a PITA but frankly they are not quite so bad if all you want is a .22 or a shotgun, it's when you start asking for the more elaborate Section 1 (or 5) stuff it starts to get sticky. I realise that is a generalisation and I am sure someone has a horror story about their shotgun certificate being pulled. The best method I have found is not prize money, advertising or any of the rest of the suggestions that have been offered so far - the best method is to simply put a flyer on the noticeboard at work and being prepared to make the effort to take people shooting with you. You must have the guts to talk to people about the sport. A lot of people don't because they think they'll be treated like a leper but I'd rather that than attempt to follow conversations about football! Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Target-Prize money.....
From: "jim.craig", [EMAIL PROTECTED] Since the discussion seems to be centering round how to attract people into the sport, I'd like to expand a bit on the suggestion from a previous correspondent about the use of airguns. Today's airguns are a far cry from the toy-like guns you may remember from the days of your spotty youth and with bolt-action repeating pre-charged pneumatic rifles and mega-mag scopes to play with most clubs could easily hold open days with non-FAC weapons to bring people in the door and give them a taste of shooting. Outdoors, any range suitable for firearms could be used (50m is pretty well the maximum distance for a 12 ftl lbs air rifle) and since, in terms of trajectory, an airgun pellet will do pretty much the same sort of thing over 50m as a fullbore rifle round will do over 500m, you can see that interesting and challenging courses of fire could easily be established. With reactive targets (knock-downs, chalk discs, even electronic wonders that go bleep when you hit the right spot) a bit of imagination is all that is required. The same is true indoors and at even shorter ranges, with CO2 pistols and rifles fitted with red dot sights and again reactive targets just think of the fun folks could have without the hassle of the legalities associated with firearms use. Believe me if they enjoy themselves, they'll be back and it will be only a matter of time before they show an interest in the other shooting disciplines available and in the meantime having an activeairgun section can be of benefit to the club in many ways other than just attracting new members for other disciplines. As I've said in other postings, airgunners are by far the most numerous of any shooters and it will do the sport nought but good to try and bring them into clubs and associations where they can both enjoy their sport and be part of the fight to defend it. So who'll be the first first firearms club to form an airgun section and use it as a positive recruitment tool and campaigning aide for the sport? Jim Craig Dechmont Airgun Club GLASGOW -- Air pistols have come a long way of late but air rifles don't seem to me to be much different than they did 20 years ago, though I'm not "in" to this sport in that great a detail. Unless of course you splash out for a Walther or Hammerli but obviously a new shooter won't. I often start new shooters off on something like the Walther CP88 at 10 metres (hits at short range breed confidence) the only problem is that there is a bit of a logical disconnect now that handguns are banned. There is no particular reason why a club cannot have a minature rifle range and use .22 rimfires on it, without all the hassle of club probationary periods and so on. I have noticed that .22 rifle shooting is extremely popular on the Isle of Man, I think they won a silver at the last Commonwealth Games. If an island with a population of 70,000 can turn out top class shooters and have an active club league, we should easily be able to get new shooters into it by comparison. We have definitely got to make an effort to get more people shooting. Frankly it's the perfect sport for the couch potato population being raised at present. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Target-prize money
From: "Tom Charnock", [EMAIL PROTECTED] Big prize money will get more NON shooters interested in taking up the sport. But who will put up the money, and it will need to be for a few years to get the numbers higher. It will get little TV etc in meantime. A Negative thought, even our trade suppliers do not fancy making a BIG splash on increasing rifle (pistol) shooting. Why? do they see the potential for another Dunblane Hungerford as too big a downside? Sadly I think business will only come in when it is BIG and they can see the potential. = On one of the US Newsgroups, a guy wanted to start a discipline that combined PR shooting with running. He put a lot of effort into the course of fire, safety etc. He even thought of how to handicap the ace runners to make it more even (bit like golf). Thought that 22 was best round to use as more locations available. Distance was MILES of running, which I said would deter people (well me for sure). He was going to set up a couple of shoots to check out and refine. Not heard recently of his progress. == Great idea to target the graduate parent type, yes they effective in policy and would help on the "we nice people" public relations front. But how do you get to them?? You see lots of charity clay pigeon shooting events which attract great support. Could you do the same with rifle shooting?? What about getting rifle shooting into the Corporate Entertainment arena?? Captains of Industry etc. I feel that legislation is more against setting up this type of corporate / charity event than it is for clay shooting. Anyone aware of specifics for this?? === In the meantime ?? do what Practical Rifle has done... After the self loaders went, the sport went into a nose dive. Efforts by the clubs to keep it going were strained and shooters left the "scene". The London Pract club held the Nationals each year (LPSC) and other clubs tried to do their bit. No overall co-ordination between Clubs or focus and apart from the Nationals little to aim for. Along comes Steve Beard (E-mail Address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) with his idea. Driven by the falling numbers of shooters he decided to start his PR NEWSLETTER. This was based on a number of simple objectives 1) Circulate Newsletter to all shooters who subscribed (UKú5 per year). Including a listing of all clubs, contacts, dates of competitions up to 3 months ahead, match results and reports. 2) Start up a "league table" for the shooters. Again simplicity key in this. Just apply 20 points for a 1st place, and down to 1 point for a 20th place. Show all cumulative scores in each newsletter for information to shooters. At the end of the year, add up the 5 best scores for each shooter over the year, and you have the Winner. What happened?? well there are now up to, 2 or 3 competitions per MONTH, the clubs try to not conflict with other matches. The number of shooters in the League has almost tripled over 3 years. There are lots of new shooters coming into the PR sport. The match reports are sent in by any of the shooters, some humorous, others "Times" style. There is a real sense of success in this sport now. (No doubt those who like to complicate matters will now try and start to interfere and make it more "government" like) What else could be done?? it would be nice to have "open" days so that "newbies" could come along and try out the sport. This is hard to do, not just because of legislation, but someone has to let their rifle be used. As every PR shooter is individually Range Officer supervised, personal supervision / tuition is easy. But "open" days would likely be part of an actual competition day, and time is tight to get through the courses of fire. Could be done, but it would need the pro shooters to assist the "newbies". Pete Bloom (E-mail Address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) has run special range days for PR shooters to improve on their technique and skills. Maybe after an "open" day the "newbie" could be given a day session with someone like Pete, which would give them the fuller confidence to come fully into the sport "Open" days would show to ANY shooter, that PR is not as hard as you think, though getting high scores is. == Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Target-prize money
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The question is, where is the money going to come from? The only place it can come from. Entry fees and club sub's. Unless you can get a few sponsors on board. J. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Target-prize money
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think Matthew is talking lots of sense here. When it comes down to the bottom line, the simple fact of the matter is that we need to attract more People into the Sport. The problem with this as I see it is, a) Many clubs (especially those shooting full bore rifles as opposed to Pistol cal ones.) use MOD ranges as these are the only places to shoot them. The problem being that you can show up to the range only to find that you have had your booking cancelled by the Army or they have stolen your booking. At my local range they have just initiated a new rule that is basically "no army, no shoot". So we have about 3 dates booked for the entire year! This is not acceptable to new comers. b) compared to other sports you are generally restricted to set times, again if booking on another range. My club gets MOD range bookings generally on Sunday Mornings, many People want to take part in their hobby whenever it suits them not when it suits the club or the MOD. It is very difficult to simply decide to go shooting because you find you have a spare afternoon c) The British Weather! OK we can't do much about this but we can make it better. Look at us now, all die hard shooters willing to get soaked to the skin and covered in mud for our sport. This is not acceptable if we want to attract newcomers. How many ranges have convered firing points and decent drainage so you don't drown on the firing point? Not many! d) Advertising, how do we get new members other than by personal reccomendation? I don't think you are allowed to advertise Firearms or Gun clubs in the general press or broadcast media so we have a problem there. Havind said all that I think Matthew's ideas are good and are the only serious way in which we should be going. As I've said before, my local range at Ponteland would be a great place to develop commercially if the MOD would go for it, if anyone want's to invest drop me an e-mail. Jonathan Laws. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- You can advertise gun clubs anywhere. My personal view is that many of the obstacles you mention are very difficult to overcome, so a better path might be to simply go around them by promoting shorter range disciplines which can take place indoors or on covered ranges that are open more often. Once you've got people shooting at 100m with a surplus Lee-Enfield, then you can get them interested in TR and so on. The reason why pistol shooting was so popular is simply that it is convenient. Rifle shooting is far less so, which is why less people did it. What needs to be done is to make it more convenient and as interesting as possible. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Target-prize money
From: "E.J. Totty", [EMAIL PROTECTED] [...] I'm not too sure about this. Yes, bigger prize funds will probably see more People shooting but is this the way we want to see the sport going? I don't think I want to see this happening. I want shooting to be about shooting *not* simply about making money. -snip- Amateur Footballers never get to play with or against the likes of Beckham or Shearer and amateur Tennis player don't get a Game against Samprass or Becker, the gap created by the Money is just too great. -snip- Shooting, Rifle shooting in particular, is a sport which requires a lot of space and there simply is not the money availible to acquire suitable pieces of land. This I presume has all been brought about by charitable status in the past, which restricted clubs from making a profit. [...] Jonathan, I do not believe that your nation or any other's for that matter, will ever suffer the quandary of a super paid team of competition shooters - any century soon. Look at Switzerland: do they have such a 'problem'? Shooting, as you already know, requires much practice, dedication, and solemn self control. Other sports aren't much like that. Shooting is not a team sport. There are shooting teams, but their competitive events are solo. By bringing a greater amount of money or other prize that provides incentive to compete, the average person who might not otherwise be interested, will become attracted to shooting, in the hope of perhaps wining a share of the prize. And, as you are already aware, in order for the competitors to remain interested in shooting, there must be many levels of prize. If there is only one prize, not many people will ever show interest beyond the superficial, as they will consider it much beyond their ability of attainment. And that would serve to kill the sport faster than anything, as it will be viewed largely as an elitist event. The trick here is in the undertaking of attracting greater numbers of people to shooting, because if you do not attract more people, your sport will die, and sooner than you'd like. The biggest problem of introducing new shooters to shooting is the trepidation that invariably one encounters, both in the idea (in the modern sense) of pursuing a politically incorrect art form, and the inertia of overcoming the newcomer syndrome that is felt, especially by the newbie who gets from the old timers, the distinct impression that he or she is intruding on sacred turf. There is nothing worse than getting a cold shoulder from someone who could well be a learned mentor. Yes, you will be inundated with new shooters from all walks of life, and the range fees will increase, and the times that the lanes are open will be a challenge for you to arrange, but it's all in a day's restoration of a sacred right. As to the availability of shooting ranges, some enterprising group of people could well design an underground shooting range deep in the heart of an city, town, or other place to accomodate the needs of the growing number of shooter. ET -- All you've got to do is compare the number of shooters in places where there are big prizes to the places where there aren't. I remember the Southern Classic in Florida, the biggest entry we ever had was in 1993 when there were the most prizes. This isn't rocket science. Who cares if it is "bribery", it's not exactly a criminal offence, does it matter how we get more people shooting? Speaking for myself I would enter more comps if the prize table was bigger. It's great having your name engraved on a trophy but at the end of the day you if you can't get a return on the money you're putting into it you're going to compete less. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
