National Governing Body for Airsoft in Ireland

sidneyreilly

CrazyRabbit wrote:

2. We should contact the Irish Shooting Association to gain offical recognition for Airsoft.
.

Thats the firearms dealers association lads, it's The Shooting Sports Association of Ireland you need and I'm not sure how they will view airsoft because of the pointing guns business. If you are to try to affiliate you need to have a governing body set up first. Drop em a line youreself> SSAI@eircom.net

Hope this helps.

sidneyreilly

Sorry, I understand that email for the shooting sports association is invalid, please go to: \http://shootingsportsireland.com/_wsn/page5.html

Sparks

*mutters darkly to himself*

No, ignore me, saying nowt.

Well, actually I am. Why not just go directly to the Irish Sports Council first? Going to the NRPAI (*mutter, mutter, bloody politics*) first is not putting the cart before the horse, it's worrying about fuel injection jet design before inventing the wheel.

Actually, it's worse than that, it's worrying about what colour bicycle to get your fish before you've bought the aquarium. Airsoft does not use firearms. Which is a good thing. The exemption from the firearms legislation is an incredibly large benefit for the sport.

Other than the appearance of the equipment being similar to firearms, there's no common ground with the NRPAI here, and there's so much politics with the NRPAI that it wouldn't be a good idea to get tied into them unless there was a serious benefit to it; and I can't see any such benefit, least of all official recognition, which is not in the power of the NRPAI to grant, despite people thinking it is. Recognition of NGB status comes from the Olympic Council of Ireland (not applicable here) or the Irish Sports Council or the relevant international body. Usually, it comes from all three (or the latter two for nonolympic sports like airsoft and paintball) to the one body; the NRPAI is just an umbrella body designed to give the Sports Council a single postal address/contact point for four different shooting bodies (the NASRC, NSAI, NTSA and the Irish Pony Club).

Seriously, form an NGB for airsoft, and consider linking with the NGB for paintball because there is common ground there, and seek recognition from the Sports Council and maybe you'd see some funding too; but the NRPAI route is just a bad idea.

CrazyRabbit

Sparks wrote:

*mutters darkly to himself*

No, ignore me, saying nowt.

Well, actually I am. Why not just go directly to the Irish Sports Council first? Going to the NRPAI (*mutter, mutter, bloody politics*) first is not putting the cart before the horse, it's worrying about fuel injection jet design before inventing the wheel.

Actually, it's worse than that, it's worrying about what colour bicycle to get your fish before you've bought the aquarium. Airsoft does not use firearms. Which is a good thing. The exemption from the firearms legislation is an incredibly large benefit for the sport.

Other than the appearance of the equipment being similar to firearms, there's no common ground with the NRPAI here, and there's so much politics with the NRPAI that it wouldn't be a good idea to get tied into them unless there was a serious benefit to it; and I can't see any such benefit, least of all official recognition, which is not in the power of the NRPAI to grant, despite people thinking it is. Recognition of NGB status comes from the Olympic Council of Ireland (not applicable here) or the Irish Sports Council or the relevant international body. Usually, it comes from all three (or the latter two for nonolympic sports like airsoft and paintball) to the one body; the NRPAI is just an umbrella body designed to give the Sports Council a single postal address/contact point for four different shooting bodies (the NASRC, NSAI, NTSA and the Irish Pony Club).

Seriously, form an NGB for airsoft, and consider linking with the NGB for paintball because there is common ground there, and seek recognition from the Sports Council and maybe you'd see some funding too; but the NRPAI route is just a bad idea.

Thanks Sparks. I've had my fill of acronyms for the day now

So basically we have to setup a group that starts with 'N' and get it official. Then we're sorted.

Sparks

Bleh. Don't bother with the acronyms, those date back to the '80s and early '90s when if it wasn't an acronym, it wasn't a "real" sports body. The current trend is to just say "<InsertSportHere> Ireland" - see Swim Ireland, Basketball Ireland, Cycling Ireland, Tennis Ireland, Motor Sports Ireland, Triathlong Ireland, etc, etc. So the trendy name would be Airsoft Ireland.

You can find out all about getting registered here:
http://www.irishsportscouncil.ie/developing-ngb-role.aspx

A nice side-effect of this, by the way, would be that you'd have to sort out an anti-doping programme because you'd be linked to WADA through the ISC. And you'd need a strategic plan for developing the sport, and you'd have to have a certain number of counties with clubs in them to get funding and so on. There are a fair few boxes to tick, and it might be a mite early to have them all done yet, but if you're moving in the right direction and are serious about it, the ISC will talk to you and will help out.

Sparks

Also you should register with the Federation of Irish Sports:
http://www.irishsports.ie/

Sparks

Moving these posts to a new thread because we've diverged from the original thread quite a bit, but this is important enough for it's own thread.

NakedHedgehog

Sparks makes an excellent point there. We should try to stay away from associating ourselves with the shooters. No offense to them, but they're (as sparks said) surrounded with politics.

We want to portrait this as a sport, no different than say rugby (except less dangerous) otherwise we'll end up getting labeled with the same judgmental brush as shooters.

This association should not only be representative of the players but should also include a section for retailers (similar to UKARA) to associate themselves with this body.

We have a chance here to create a new (and hopefully long lasting) sport in Ireland and make sure that it's above board and kept legal.

ditpaintball

If i may add my 2 cents. The irish sports council route is a long haul route. You will not get reconition from them for three years as the NGB for Airsoft in Ireland........once you have your organisation set up that is. At that, you would have to have at least 8 airsoft clubs set up around the country whom are affiliated to your national airsoft body. So setting up clubs would be your first port of call I think. Getting membership and then get each club to send a rep to start your national body. Then apply to the Irish Sports Council for reconition etc. This is the rough version.

We have started the IPPA - Irish Paintball Players Association to get our ball rolling, and believe me, it will take time. We are not affiliating to any of the 'real guns' shooting bodies as i we what to seperate paintball 'markers' from the stigma, 'paintball guns' etc. We have do if we are ever to help in the process of people being granted authorisations for their markers, hence grow the sport.

Sparks

ditpaintball wrote:

If i may add my 2 cents. The irish sports council route is a long haul route. You will not get reconition from them for three years as the NGB for Airsoft in Ireland........once you have your organisation set up that is. At that, you would have to have at least 8 airsoft clubs set up around the country whom are affiliated to your national airsoft body. So setting up clubs would be your first port of call I think. Getting membership and then get each club to send a rep to start your national body. Then apply to the Irish Sports Council for reconition etc. This is the rough version.

We've talked on that point before over on i-p.net dit, and that was roughly the consensus. I think though, that the ISC would extend provisional recognition to a body before the three years & 8 clubs and so on because those are the criteria for funding and the ISC's going to take notice if you guys get a lot of people active and especially if there's a competitive element (and if it's international in scope, even more so). Also, having the structure in place early is a very good idea - because when I said the NRPAI had lots of politics I didn't mean the external kind with the DoJ & others, I meant internal politics because it's structure causes them. (In terms of external politics, we have precious little influence at the moment anyway).

So the ISC might give some non-financial support (like opening courses on NGB stuff to you - media courses, strategic planning help, that sort of thing), and the FIS would be even more flexible I suspect. Still though, while it pays to have the structure in place, it is not a good idea to go and put all your efforts in there; otherwise, you're all chiefs and no indians. Growing the sporting base, getting sites open, getting retailers to stock the kit, that's the more important task. It's just that an NGB is often handy for paperwork in that stuff.