Turmoil at the top of GB Shooting

TrapperJohn

I see Phil Boakes has been forced to step down as chairman of GB Shooting as he went against his boards decision to back bisley for the london Olympics.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/shooting/5941625/London-2012-Shooting-venue-row-takes-twist-as-British-Shooting-chairman-resigns.html

Sparks

Not the first time there's been turmoil at the top - the NSRA secretary being a famous example. Just goes to demonstrate that administration in sport, to quote a well-known Irish sports journalist, "turns into a crock of ****e once you get above club level".

Sparks

Another kick to the admin in GB is here:

Following the scheduled CPSA Board meeting held last week, Chairman Terry Bobbett, on behalf of the CPSA Board of Directors, yesterday advised Ken Nash, Chairman of the NSRA and Robin Pizer Chairman of the NRA, that CPSA is withdrawing (with immediate effect) from the National Association of Target Shooting Sports (NATSS) project.
29th July 2009

NATSS was the GB project to unite the NRA, NSRA and CPSA in one body; that seems to be dead on its feet now.

Sparks

And there's much more detail from InsideTheGames.com:

British Shooting chief steps down in London 2012 venue row



July 30 - Phil Boakes (pictured) has been forced to step down as chairman of British Shooting after he defied his members by admitting that staging the sport at Bisley during London 2012 Olympics was not viable.

His resgination has also led to the former Sports Minister Kate Hoey stepping down as the President of the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association (CPSA).

Boakes had told London 2012 officials earlier this month that he accepted their argument that it was not possible to stage the sport at the National Shooting Centre in Bisley.

But he was forced to withdraw his statement after British Shooting's Board of Directors objected.

The organisation, the governing body for all target shooting within Britain, continue to want the venue moved from the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich to Bisley to ensure that shooting is left with a legacy after the Games have been held.

Boakes had tried to retain the support of British Shooting's directors by issuing a statement earlier this week.

He said: "British Shooting continues to seek a shooting venue for London 2012 which is a permanent 'bricks and mortar' legacy.

"British Shooting therefore wish to make it crystal clear that their preferred option is to host the 2012 shooting event at Bisley."

But even that was not enough to save him and he has now stepped down.

Officials in Britain are also out of their step with the sport's world governing body.

Earlier this week, as reported exclusively on insidethegames, Horst Schreiber, the secretary general of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), backed Woolwich as a venue claiming it offered a unique opportunity for the sport to be showcased at the Olympics.

He also said that he did not want the venue moved to Bisley because "[we] do not want to be somewhere isolated outside London with only a satellite village."

Hoey has now resigned in support of Boakes, who is also the chief executive of the CPSA.

The Labour MP, who advises London Mayor Boris Johnson on the Olympics, has described the decision to force Boakes to step down as "short-sighted and wrong".

British Shooting has suffered a troubled build-up to London 2012 under Boakes.

Besides the bitter row over Woolwich, he has also had to campaign for Britain's draconian pistol laws, introduced after the Dunblane Massacre in 1996 and which he claimed is preventing many of the country's potential Olympians preparing for the 2012 Games, to be lifted.

The sport has also had to cope with 78 per cent funding cutbacks after it failed to win a medal at last year's Olympics in Beijing.

Out of the team of five, only Richard Faulds qualified for the final.

Their budget for London 2012 was slashed to just £1.225 million, leading to number of athletes the sport funds to be slashed from 46 to just five and John Leighton-Dyson, the performance director, being made redundant.

Boakes was tonight unavailable for comment.

Sparks,

Roughly, is the LRC being ruled out for other reasons apart from the distance from the Games primary site? I remeber reading something on Stirton years ago (well one) about there being insufficient seating or something like that?

Sparks

I don't exactly have an in here zara
But I do remember David Parish saying that the LRC would never be accepted for any ISSF match because there was too much vertical movement from the floor, and that they'd have to rebuild the whole thing to sort it out. And since he's on the ISSF technical committee and in the NSRA, I guess he'd know.

Sparks

Sparks wrote: »

I don't exactly have an in here zara
But I do remember David Parish saying that the LRC would never be accepted for any ISSF match because there was too much vertical movement from the floor, and that they'd have to rebuild the whole thing to sort it out. And since he's on the ISSF technical committee and in the NSRA, I guess he'd know.

Thats a reason I guess!

Will this new range remain in existence after 2012?

Sparks

After 2012? It won't even make it out of 2012
The shooting range will be built up in the middle of London, the Games run, and then the range torn down immediately afterwards.
There's vague hope that the equipment might be specified in such a way that it could then be distributed round the country, a few targets here, a few there, and so on, but that's about it for legacy from what I've seen so far.

Thats a shame, though having two ISSF standard ranges (lets give the LRC the benefit of the doubt) withing 50 miles of each other might be overkill.

Wasted resources though, I'd imagine you could do up the LRC for less then the cost of the new place.

Sparks

Yeah, but you couldn't run it. The LRC barely breaks even as it stands (though how much of that was down to the actions of the last NSRA secretary is anyone's guess), if they took on the cost of upgrading, the debt might well end the NSRA. I mean, the takeup figures on the LRC are abysmally low as it stands.

Sparks

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, but you couldn't run it. The LRC barely breaks even as it stands (though how much of that was down to the actions of the last NSRA secretary is anyone's guess), if they took on the cost of upgrading, the debt might well end the NSRA. I mean, the takeup figures on the LRC are abysmally low as it stands.

I can't understand this though, if they have funds to build a new range (The 2012 people I mean, not the NSRA), then they should be able to upgrade the LRC and that would then create a lasting legacy to ISSF shooting in Britain.

To me it doesn't make sense to build a range, kit it out, then scrap it all two weeks later..

Sparks

Deleted User wrote: »

I can't understand this though, if they have funds to build a new range (The 2012 people I mean, not the NSRA), then they should be able to upgrade the LRC and that would then create a lasting legacy to ISSF shooting in Britain.
To me it doesn't make sense to build a range, kit it out, then scrap it all two weeks later..

British Shooting would agree with you, but lots of folks are convinced that the running costs for that large a range would be unsupportable, and there is the point that the loudest voices calling for it to be held in Bisley are actually coming from the NRA rather than the NSRA - and the NRA wouldn't bear the ongoing costs or risks...

Sparks

Sparks wrote: »

British Shooting would agree with you, but lots of folks are convinced that the running costs for that large a range would be unsupportable, and there is the point that the loudest voices calling for it to be held in Bisley are actually coming from the NRA rather than the NSRA - and the NRA wouldn't bear the ongoing costs or risks...

That is such a waste though. I mean ranges are scalable. Store the equipment so the range reduces to a managable size between matches and when the roller hockery people are there.

Also, lot of land going cheap over here if they want somewhere to store and test the equipment....

Sparks

Deleted User wrote: »

That is such a waste though. I mean ranges are scalable. Store the equipment so the range reduces to a managable size between matches and when the roller hockery people are there.

To be entirely honest, if Bisley can't pull in the numbers now, when it's the best range in the UK, then improving it won't help much. "Come to Bisley, our floor doesn't bounce anymore" isn't much of a sales pitch.
But if they did the equipment right and it was distributable, and they could give ten suis ascor firing points to every largish range in the UK&NI, I think that'd do a lot more for shooting as a whole.

Also, lot of land going cheap over here if they want somewhere to store and test the equipment....

I think Comber, Dungannon and EARPC might have first dibs

rrpc

Sparks wrote: »

To be entirely honest, if Bisley can't pull in the numbers now, when it's the best range in the UK, then improving it won't help much. "Come to Bisley, our floor doesn't bounce anymore" isn't much of a sales pitch.
But if they did the equipment right and it was distributable, and they could give ten suis ascor firing points to every largish range in the UK&NI, I think that'd do a lot more for shooting as a whole.


I think Comber, Dungannon and EARPC might have first dibs

Some of that Sius Ascor stuff isn't easily scaleable. Reducing your 80 points to 10 can actually cost you a lot more money in ancilllary bits to actually make it work in the smaller segments.

Is that not only in the purchase though?

I mean, if someone turned up with a trucload of sius targets outside of a range, then all you need is the controller station right? Which is a lot cheaper then going for the whole hog.

Whats the betting its going to end up in an army or police range anyway? It seems all the gear is going into a sealed auction at the end of the games.

rrpc

Deleted User wrote: »

Is that not only in the purchase though?

I mean, if someone turned up with a trucload of sius targets outside of a range, then all you need is the controller station right? Which is a lot cheaper then going for the whole hog.

Whats the betting its going to end up in an army or police range anyway? It seems all the gear is going into a sealed auction at the end of the games.

No use for police or army unless for a CISM team, and only the pistol ones at that.

The cost of extras for Sius Ascor can be the same as the cost of complete systems from other manufacturers.

Control boxes are usually some of the more expensive bits, having bespoke circuitry etc.

UK Army is the biggest customer of Sius, by a large factor.

Can't you just connect it to a PC like on the megalinks?

rrpc

Deleted User wrote: »

UK Army is the biggest customer of Sius, by a large factor.

Aren't the military ones completely different?

Can't you just connect it to a PC like on the megalinks?

Not that I know of.

The Megalink needs a different adaptor to do that anyway, so assuming Sius need the same thing you're back into money again.

Coronal

From what I remember of the Suis Ascor targets in Bisley, they are separated into groups of ten, with a control station for each of these.

Whether or not these control stations can be run separately is another story, but I would imagine that they could be. There certainly didn't seem to be a problem only using a portion of the range for matches the last time I was there.

Personally, with the problems the LRC has in keeping going at the moment I do agree that splitting up the targets to different ranges is a good way to go as it is a major upgrade to them and could open up a lot of new possibilities, such as training camps to them.

rrpc

Coronal wrote: »

From what I remember of the Suis Ascor targets in Bisley, they are separated into groups of ten, with a control station for each of these.

Those are the printing stations, not the control units. The control box is a bunch of circuitry that ties all the targets and ancillaries together to record scores in a match centrally. When using the system for practice you can turn on and off each lane independently, but the mmatch recording and data collection is a different kettle of fish.

Coronal

Ah I see. I'm not that familiar with the workings of the electronic targets, so apologies for the misunderstanding. Would you happen to know where the processing of information is done? By that I mean is the shot scored at the target, at the monitor or at the control station?

As an exercise it would be interesting to work with the signals and see if they could be read in a different manner, i.e. without the control box.

On a side note, I've been playing around with the idea of building my own electronic trainer using a laser and CCD set up as a side project over the next year, more out of interest than anything. Doing some sort of signal analysis on the data from the targets would be interesting, sorting the targets out could be easier than expected.

rrpc

Coronal wrote: »

Ah I see. I'm not that familiar with the workings of the electronic targets, so apologies for the misunderstanding. Would you happen to know where the processing of information is done? By that I mean is the shot scored at the target, at the monitor or at the control station?

AFAIK, the shot is scored at the target and on some systems (Sius as well I think) the shot data is stored in the target in the event of power failure on flash ram.

As an exercise it would be interesting to work with the signals and see if they could be read in a different manner, i.e. without the control box.

I have most experience with the Megalink systems and they can work like that. They have a PC interface, or the monitor can be directly connected to the target without any control units.

rrpc

rrpc wrote: »

AFAIK, the shot is scored at the target and on some systems (Sius as well I think) the shot data is stored in the target in the event of power failure on flash ram.

I have most experience with the Megalink systems and they can work like that. They have a PC interface, or the monitor can be directly connected to the target without any control units.

Doesn't flash memory die when there is no power?

I just can't get over how much of a waste this all is...

fat-tony

Deleted User wrote: »

Doesn't flash memory die when there is no power?

I just can't get over how much of a waste this all is...

No - flash RAM is non-volatile - no power needed to retain contents, but it generally has a limited (eg tens of thousands) number of read/write cycles. Think of your USB memory stick as an example.