The Olympic Coaches Association

tireur

This existence of this group and their input to the debate on conditions affecting shooters in this country has come up on the NTSA AGM thread. I would appreciate hearing from any member of the group or anyone else who can tell us what their aims are and how they are contributing to the shooting community.

JunkieW

tireur wrote:

This existence of this group and their input to the debate on conditions affecting shooters in this country has come up on the NTSA AGM thread. I would appreciate hearing from any member of the group or anyone else who can tell us what their aims are and how they are contributing to the shooting community.

You seem to know more about this group Tireur than the rest of us. Can you tell us what you know?

tireur

What I know is subject to verification which is why I would like a member of the group or someone close to them to elucidate their programme.

tireur

JunkieW wrote:

You seem to know more about this group Tireur than the rest of us. Can you tell us what you know?

I see you just registered today JunkieW, to comment on this item. Clearly you know the subject but are unwilling to share your knowledge along with your two colleagues quoted below
Quote from Sparks on the Olympic Coaches Association

" What has that got to do with the NTSA?"

Quote from Foresight on the same subject:

" Hi Tireur,
Your questions to Sparks here are irrelevant the 'Olympic Coaches Association' has nothing to do with the NTSA"

Does this mean that JunkieW, Foresight and Sparks are part of this group?

JunkieW

tireur wrote:

I see you just registered today JunkieW, to comment on this item. Clearly you know the subject but are unwilling to share your knowledge along with your two colleagues quoted below

Yes I did register today, but have been reading this forum on and off for quite a long time. I'd been meaning to register, but only got around to it today. I didn't register just to ask this question, but it's the first one that interested me enough to post to. (All the other ones seemed a bit long winded )

And the first thing I did was vote on the minutes poll. That's the one that prompted me to register.

And Sparks and Foresight are not my colleagues, I really don't know anything about the OCA... That's why I asked the question. It just seemed to me that having read the other thread, you weren't going to get an answer and it was pretty obvious that you knew something.

JunkieW

tireur wrote:

Does this mean that JunkieW, Foresight and Sparks are part of this group?

Actually I was far too bloody polite in my last post. Consider this a correction.

What sort of paranoid suspicious crap is this?, I post to this board for the first time and get the above as a response. None of this "Welcome to the board" airy-fairy nonsense, no, straight for the jugular.... "Are you or have you ever been a member of...." Actually McCarthy was a pussycat. Tireur goes past question 1 and straight to "You are, and have been until proven otherwise.."

Try taking your blinkers off Tireur, and read your post as if you had never posted to this board before and got that crap as an answer. I had thought from reading your posts that you were a rational, straight thinking member of the shooting community. Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

It's looking unlikely that I'll ever post to this board again, if that response is anything to go by. Or maybe I shouldn't say that in case dark motives are ascribed to me by some other warped individual.

entropy

JunkieW wrote:

It's looking unlikely that I'll ever post to this board again, if that response is anything to go by. Or maybe I shouldn't say that in case dark motives are ascribed to me by some other warped individual.

i wholehartedly agree with you on the poor welcome you got from tireur. its a pity that such a response is illicited for just asking a simple question. im afraid this thread that he started says more about tireur and his motives than anything else hes written so far on the boards.

i feel sorry for the ntsa and its membership, vindictiveness and paranoia is something we dont need in shooting

and before im assasinated by him i just want to point out i have no interest or connection to the rifle or pistol world, im just a plain ole dtl shooter, so spare me the conspiracy theories!

tireur

JunkieW wrote:

Actually I was far too bloody polite in my last post. Consider this a correction.

What sort of paranoid suspicious crap is this?, I post to this board for the first time and get the above as a response. None of this "Welcome to the board" airy-fairy nonsense, no, straight for the jugular.... "Are you or have you ever been a member of...." Actually McCarthy was a pussycat. Tireur goes past question 1 and straight to "You are, and have been until proven otherwise.."

Try taking your blinkers off Tireur, and read your post as if you had never posted to this board before and got that crap as an answer. I had thought from reading your posts that you were a rational, straight thinking member of the shooting community. Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

It's looking unlikely that I'll ever post to this board again, if that response is anything to go by. Or maybe I shouldn't say that in case dark motives are ascribed to me by some other warped individual.

You are right JunkieW. Before a few days ago, I was a shooter only interested in shooting and enjoying myself in the company of like minded individuals. I did not know about the boards and the amount of politics lurking in the background. I found the debate on the NTSA AGM, UDI etc very sad indeed .I was especially saddened and annoyed by the amount of very obvious personal animosity and bias promulgated by a small number of individuals and decided to join in the debate. But horror of horrors! I have been infected. I began to enjoy being biased and one sided, because that seemed to be the modus operandi needed to survive. There is a rich vein of paranoia running throughout much of what is posted on here and if you saw my questions about what moderators do earlier in the AGM thread you could see that I expected some semblance of moderation from them but I was wrong in this.
Now to answer your original question, which I was rude about before, the Olympic Coaches Association clearly exists and some of the regular posters to this board know about it. I believe that it has met with some Government bodies to put forward a view on organising and regulating shooting in Ireland. I would like to know is this so and if so, what are they saying because they could affect all shooters current rights.

tireur

entropy wrote:

i wholehartedly agree with you on the poor welcome you got from tireur. its a pity that such a response is illicited for just asking a simple question. im afraid this thread that he started says more about tireur and his motives than anything else hes written so far on the boards.

i feel sorry for the ntsa and its membership, vindictiveness and paranoia is something we dont need in shooting

and before im assasinated by him i just want to point out i have no interest or connection to the rifle or pistol world, im just a plain ole dtl shooter, so spare me the conspiracy theories!

You are of course right entropy!

Sparks

Right, finally got time to reply.

It doesn't exist. At least not as far as I know of.

And if an organisation like you're describing does exist tireur, I'd like to hear about it please, because I know of at least two highly successful olympic shooting coaches who'd be bloody interested to know why they've not been invited to join such a group to represent their needs to the DoJ, DoAST, ISC, OCI, FIS, PSNI, SCNI, NCTC, or any other relevant body.

And on the whole "attack the new guy" approach tireur, the courtesy of not doing so was extended to yourself in the NTSA AGM thread, I'm dissappointed that you didn't extend it yourself, but fair's fair, you did apologise and that takes some measure of guts.

Sparks

tireur wrote:

I found the debate on the NTSA AGM, UDI etc very sad indeed .

The day of shooters not taking an interest in what their NGB does and having opinions on it won't ever come, tireur, it was there decades before either you or I were born, and will be there decades after you and I are dust.
The sad thing is when that debate has to be kept in the dark, lest the debaters suffer sanction from those they question, whose job (and remember, as the NTSA is a limited company, their legal duty) it is to put the shooters' and the sport's interests first.

Now to answer your original question, which I was rude about before, the Olympic Coaches Association clearly exists and some of the regular posters to this board know about it.

And *now* I want to hear where this is coming from tireur, because as I've said, so far as I am aware, this body does not exist and I know at least two people who would be interested (and a few more who probably would be interested) in finding out a hell of a lot more about it. Who's in it? When was it formed? Where is it operating from? Who do I contact in it to get details from the horse's mouth?

tireur

Sparks wrote:

And *now* I want to hear where this is coming from tireur, because as I've said, so far as I am aware, this body does not exist and I know at least two people who would be interested (and a few more who probably would be interested) in finding out a hell of a lot more about it. Who's in it? When was it formed? Where is it operating from? Who do I contact in it to get details from the horse's mouth?

It seems we have a common list of questions about the OCA Sparks. I too would like answers to those questions. I have only second hand reports so far hence I am not going to further promulgate these reports without verification which was the reason for starting this thread. Your initial response to the topic, endorsed by Foresight, was to tell me that the OCA had nothing to do with the NTSA. This may be true but it is an odd response considering your current statement that the OCA does not exist. Why not just say this to begin with?

Sparks

Because I wanted to check about first Tireur. I called around a few people to see if this group did exist; it doesn't; and several of those I spoke to would now be quite interested in knowing more. So where did you hear of this and who do I go to in order to get more information? And at the time you put it out, it was little more than a diversion from some rather fundamental questions I had asked (though, I'll say again, which I was not by a very long shot the first to ask) and which you have yet to answer. And you'll have to forgive a certain curtness in my replies by this stage tireur, but so far, it's not been a most enlightening discussion with your good self.

tireur

Sparks, was a there a meeting between the DOJ and some of the target shooting community in the last year?

tireur

Sparks wrote:

it was little more than a diversion from some rather fundamental questions I had asked (though, I'll say again, which I was not by a very long shot the first to ask) and which you have yet to answer. .

All of your questions which were based on sensible logic and facts have been answered Sparks. Perhaps you were referring to the ones based on rumours, half truths and innuendo which have been treated the way they deserve. Anyone reading this thread who has not looked at the NTSA AGM thread is urged to look there to see what I mean.

Sparks

tireur wrote:

Sparks, was a there a meeting between the DOJ and some of the target shooting community in the last year?

No, there have been several meetings between the DoJ and several sections of the target shooting community in the last year (assuming that you're talking about the meetings related to the Criminal Justice Bill's Firearms Act amendments and not to the ongoing NARGC-Fine Gael meetings to draft an entirely seperate Firearms Bill). The NRPAI, the ICPSA, the NTSA, the IPC, all (and more) have had meetings with them, made submissions to them, given them video footage and photographs and data seven ways from sunday. Even individual members of the community have been involved; see the thread that's been stuck to the top of the forum for the past 13 months with a sampling of the submissions we've seen thus far. Why do you ask?

tireur wrote:

All of your questions which were based on sensible logic and facts have been answered Sparks.

No, they haven't been. Look tireur, perhaps you're a bit confused, but this isn't verbal conversation. People can go and read what you have written in plain black and white. It's kindof like shooting really; the target comes back and there's the hole and there's the scoring rings. There's no fudge involved, you can't convince others that a seven is actually a perfect ten, that's just the way it is. Honesty. Best part about this sport, really.

Anyone reading this thread who has not looked at the NTSA AGM thread is urged to look there to see what I mean.

Something we agree on - I may require medical attention for the shock...

tireur

Sparks wrote:

No, they haven't been.


.

I think you missed the qualifiers Sparks.

Sparks

Nope, read them in full tireur. I think you just have a different definition to the rest of us for the word "sensible". It's a similar difference in definition to that we saw in the speeches against the motions at the AGM, when words like "loyalty" and "unity" were bandied about with abandon, ignoring the fine print that showed that most of the actual competitive shooters in the NTSA are fiecely loyal and united; but loyal to the sport and each other, rather than to the NRPAI; and united as Shooters, rather than as those who are willing to do whatever a private club (in which they have no direct voice) tells to them to. Similarly, you'd using the word "sensible", but not your definition and mine differ; I would think "sensible" meant, well, nonsensical, well-defined, logically self-consistent, understandable. Your definition, frankly, seems to differ drasticly...

tireur

Sparks wrote:

most of the actual competitive shooters in the NTSA are fiecely loyal and united; but loyal to the sport and each other, rather than to the NRPAI; and united as Shooters, rather than as those who are willing to do whatever a private club (in which they have no direct voice) tells to them to. .

That is why the voting went 68 in favour of staying with the NRPAI to 38(approx) in favour of leaving. Now I suppose you will tell me that the 68 were uncompetitive shooters.

Sparks

I won't tireur; I'll let the participation numbers at the last and the next competitions speak for me, instead.

Rovi

I am sooooooooooo tempted to post this picture of a British Olympic Coach-


...but that would be childish and silly, so I won't.




.

Celer et Audax

Excuse me but I am new to this board. Is there an issue between target shooters and other shooters regarding what type of guns should be allowed or have I misunderstood the debate here?

Sparks

If there is such a disagreement Celer, it's the first I've heard of it.

civdef

That debate certainly exists in some quarters. I've heard several olympic style target shooters say they see no need for anyone to own centrefire pistols, for example.

Sparks

I dunno civ. Example;

That's an ISSF pistol. .32 calibre Morini. Centerfire. ISSF shooters arguing against centerfire pistols would be odd beasts.

That said, I know I've heard people lamenting the fact that the sidearms were the pistols being most loudly yelled about (hell, I'm one of 'em, I'm still puzzled as to why air pistols aren't being shown off from every media outlet available with disabled shooters shooting alongside able-bodied juniors and septagenarian veteran shooters); I'm hearing from all sides that the time is fast approaching where the more, well, daft elements will have to be told to reign it in before we all get it in the neck as a result of their shenanigans; and there is more than just myself that feels personally uncomfortable around practical pistol; but someone actually saying "no, too dangerous, take them away please Minister"? Nope.

(Mind you, if what I heard is true, I'd *dearly* love to find out exactly who it was that told the Department of Justice that 9mm pistols were needed to shoot Olympic pistol events...)

tireur

Sparks wrote:

(Mind you, if what I heard is true, I'd *dearly* love to find out exactly who it was that told the Department of Justice that 9mm pistols were needed to shoot Olympic pistol events...)

I'd like to know who in the target shooting community told the DOJ that nobody in the country needed a pistol with a calibre above .22. for target shooting.

Sparks

Have the DoJ been told that, tireur?

tireur

We have building towards this point since last week Sparks, You have asked a number of questions and finally, I will answer the question at the heart of the debate,This is the question about shooters standing together. This is the question about the Olympic Coaches Association and how they have not demonstrated this unity. But first, as you have pointed out, this is not a verbal debate A record exists. Let me remind you of what you said about the Olympic Coaches Association in a number of posts:

QUOTE SPARKS--from several posts

START OF QUOTES

"It doesn't exist. At least not as far as I know of.

And *now* I want to hear where this is coming from tireur, because as I've said, so far as I am aware, this body does not exist and I know at least two people who would be interested (and a few more who probably would be interested) in finding out a hell of a lot more about it. Who's in it? When was it formed? Where is it operating from? Who do I contact in it to get details from the horse's mouth?


Because I wanted to check about first Tireur. I called around a few people to see if this group did exist; it doesn't; and several of those I spoke to would now be quite interested in knowing more. So where did you hear of this and who do I go to in order to get more information? And at the time you put it out, it was little more than a diversion from some rather fundamental questions I had asked (though, I'll say again, which I was not by a very long shot the first to ask) and which you have yet to answer. And you'll have to forgive a certain curtness in my replies by this stage tireur, but so far, it's not been a most enlightening discussion with your good self.




No, there have been several meetings between the DoJ and several sections of the target shooting community in the last year (assuming that you're talking about the meetings related to the Criminal Justice Bill's Firearms Act amendments "

END OF QUOTES

Now, bearing in mind your statements here is the information you requested:

A delegation from the SSAI was at a meeting with the DOJ in April of this year. During the debate ,the DOJ officials gave the impression that they had been told by another group of shooters, that nobody needed a pistol with a calibre greater than .22 for competitions.When asked who had said this, they replied that it was the target shooters.The NTSA had met the DOJ and had not made this statement.The NTSA group had also heard from the DOJ, in their meeting with them, that a representation had been received from another group of target shooters styling themselves the "Olympic Coaches Association" .The SSAI had also asked , in the course of their meeting, who these people were and who they represented. The answer was that they called themselves the "Olympic Coaches Association". When asked who the actual people were, guess whose name was mentioned as one of the attendees?.

It seems that you have been in a position to answer your own questions all along Sparks..

Sparks

tireur wrote:

We have building towards this point since last week Sparks

You didn't just come out and spout this crap you mean?

Now, bearing in mind your statements here is the information you requested:
A delegation from the SSAI was at a meeting with the DOJ in April of this year. During the debate ,the DOJ officials gave the impression that they had been told by another group of shooters, that nobody needed a pistol with a calibre greater than .22 for competitions.When asked who had said this, they replied that it was the target shooters.The NTSA had met the DOJ and had not made this statement.The NTSA group had also heard from the DOJ, in their meeting with them, that a representation had been received from another group of target shooters styling themselves the "Olympic Coaches Association" .The SSAI had also asked , in the course of their meeting, who these people were and who they represented. The answer was that they called themselves the "Olympic Coaches Association". When asked who the actual people were, guess whose name was mentioned as one of the attendees?.
It seems that you have been in a position to answer your own questions all along Sparks.

Bull**** tireur. I'm not in this "Olympic Coaches Association", so far as I know it does not exist, if it did I couldn't be in it as I'm not an Olympic Coach, and I've never, ever said that pistols with a calibre over .22 inches aren't needed, to anyone, nor would I let anyone say it in front of me without correcting it - in case you missed the above post, ISSF shooters need centerfire pistols in calibres up to .38 themselves so why the hell would I say anything like that?

I am curious, by the way - whom in this SSAI delegation told you that this is what was said? Or were you not in the room and are we hearing this fifth-hand after a good round of chinese whispers?

Sparks

And since you're obviously privy to SSAI minutes tireur, perhaps you'd answer the previous question - were the rumours I heard true? Did the DoJ think that 9mm pistols are needed for the Olympic Games?

tireur

I do not think you have the credibility to continue posting to this thread but I know that will not stop you. You seem to have missed the main points as usual so to borrow one of your techniques, let me take you slowly through it:
The key issue, is that when it was important for all shooters to stand together and put forward a co-ordinated and well thought out position, one group of shooters, the OCA, put forward a narrow self centred position, with no notice to, or debate with their NGB..This view has done some damage to the overall position. I am not surprised that no one from this group wants to confirm this. You have no respect for the NTSA or the SSAI or for any other shooters it would seem. Whether anyone in the OCA is qualified to call themselves an Olympic coach is beside the point but I suppose it was chosen because it sounded official and impressive. The ISSF issue is also irrelevant because, as the styled themselves the OCA, it is reasonable to assume that they would have put forward an "Olympic" as opposed to an ISSF position hence the. 22 statement which has done the damage.