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Clay Shooting Ireland for those outside the ICPSA READ MOD WARNING IN POST 30

cavan shooter

looks as though someone is trying to formalise the good old fashioned flappers

http://www.caireland.org/News/press_releases/Clay_Sports_Ireland_%28C.S.I%29_join_Countryside_Alliance_Ireland/

might go up and have a look, seems very reasonable too,

Anyone else going??

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Sparks

target wrote: »

If I could get Derek Burnett to wear a lycra bodysuit then perhaps we might get some coverage from Morning Ireland.

Half the top-level NTSA rifle shooters do wear lycra bodysuits.
It doesn't help with Morning Ireland

target

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

That is too defeatest. The same applies to all PR, when used for selling anything, be it nappies, make-up or driving lessons.

Don't confuse my realism for defeatism. You have to know the nature of the beast you're dealing with in order to work with it. Arriving at the door with great expectations will only having you leaving in great disappointment.

The ICPSA spent a lot of volunteers time producing a media guide for the Beijing Olympics. It was sent to every media outlet in the country. TV, Radio, Print.

It received one enquiry. That was from the Lucan Gazette, a free mag. Even then they didn't run anything.

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

As for pro bono, have you made any enquiries about PR or advertising people who shoot? Why not find out and ask them? Most are on their uppers at the moment because of huge cutbacks in advertising budgets. Some might even have some free time.

Yes I have and I do on a regular basis. The feedback I get is always the same. We have a huge problem of image and identity. Image I don't need to explain, just look around the threads here on boards.

Identity not amongst ourselves but our connection with the wider public and in particular the sporting public. TV coverage is a vital key to gaining exposure and sponsorship. Shooting has had a difficult time with this. The ISSF created a dedicated TV production unit but couldn't get anyone to take the product or feed from the events. Coverage at the Olympics suffers a similar fate.

Why do you think the IOC want Golf in the Olympics. The TV guys want it badly.

Sparks

It should probably be pointed out that both target and I did PR for NGBs for years. We've done courses in it, we've built up links to media people and we've had a modicum of success (target more than me). It's a deeply unsexy task, it has to be done continually and consistently over a long period of time. Every single week, you have to have copy going into the same journalists, with scores, photos, names, stories all woven into a single piece of copy, and it has to get in well before their deadlines (which are almost always at very awkward times - if deadline for the Irish Times Sports Monday section is 1800 on Sunday, you can't really get in a story about the Nationals very early because it won't wrap up till 1600 at the earliest, and the earlier you get it in, the higher the odds of making the cut). You need good photos (and for those who don't know, taking a good photo on a firing range is one of the most technically challanging things you can do in photography because of the differing light levels and the safety constraints on angles and distances) and they have to be digital and above a certain number of pixels and that means good camera kit and the ability to use it. You have to have actual content too, meaning not just names but biographical backstories, and papers like heros so you need to pick out a few people and build them up as you go. And all the time you're doing this, you're solo. NGB PRO's ask club PROs for content all the time and it's a near-miracle when we get anything back at all; the usual response is that the club doesn't have a PRO, or not a dedicated one, and he wasn't at the match this weekend, or he'll file something when he gets a spare hour in two weeks time. Newspapers and radio and TV want it yesterday, they want it polished, they want it colourful and easy to read and they want it in their own specific formats for ease of use. So if you want to get the material, you almost always have to go get it yourself - so that's every weekend yo have this year already automatically sacrificed so you can drive all over the place to take photos and do the post-photo work in photoshop or whatever tidying up framing and contrast and the like, and write up a club's match for them and try to submit a few megabytes of data off a 3G dongle out in the wilds of whereever to a journalist who will probably only use it if they get nothing from the lads in the Big Five sports who have professional photographers and a lot more people working on it.

And this hasn't even mentioned the hassles you get when people who win matches don't stick around for the results, don't want to be photographed or to give a few words for the press, don't want to pose for photos, etc, etc.

And that's just the day-to-day of putting the copy together; I've not even mentioned the fun of getting it past editors.

pedroeibar1

I know something is being done incorrectly, it is obvious from a purely business perspective. There is an old Spanish expression “Do not speak Arabic in the house of the Moor” so I’m not going to argue with most of your points. I repeat I am looking at this as an outsider, a bit like McLuhan’s “I don’t know who discovered water, but it wasn’t a fish!”

Take the GAA as an example – it is the biggest beneficiary of State funds for sporting facilities. It is a unified association and covers football, hurling, ladies football, camogie and handball (and probably the Rules stuff also). Shooting has too many fractional / fractionalized interests, too much strife - we see the usual comments on driven shooting, paid-for leases, private land, pistol sports stuff, whatever. And that is before the infighting on the same disciplines.

Ok, already I hear you say the GAA has a huge membership and is a bad example. So take some other sport. There are about 200,000 members that belong to about 400 or so golf clubs. There are about the same number of registered firearms owners many of whom are in more than 900 local game clubs spread throughout the country. Rugby has only 60,000 players in about 200 rugby clubs. Now, why is Shooting not getting more State funding?

As for just one idea on helping to promote interest, read my post #44 on page 3. The results board could be created, sound byte comments could be added. Not for shouters, but it would provide informed data for simple comment by those who could promulgate good news.

I’ve got to stop, off on hols tomorrow for a week, way behind in everything.....
P.

Sparks

Pedro, you really can't say shooting has too much politics compared to the GAA

But they do do something that we don't on the grassroots level, and that's that they feel a lot more pride in their clubs than we do in ours, by and large. We gripe at membership fees; they spend insane amounts of time and money supporting their clubs. We complain about the 2% rule; they complain about the 20% rule.

The players-v-coverage point as well has a flaw, in that GAA football and Rugby and other contact sports are far more spectator-friendly activities. And I don't mean that their matches are organised like that, I mean the basic physics involved is like that. Spectators can see the players move, can follow the ball themselves, and can see the game as it goes. That doesn't happen in shooting. You can't see the shooter's view, you can't see the round, you can't see the point of impact. We can try to fix those things using electronic targets, gun-mounted cameras and so forth, and it's a reasonably successful thing when we do; but it costs more money than people are willing to spend in our community.

why is Shooting not getting more State funding?

Laziness. We don't apply for state funding at a club level as much as the other sports do. Hence, we don't get as much funding. We had several threads in here over the years pushing folks to ask for that funding, and we were pushing our clubs off-boards as well from the NGB level, but noone ever asked, so noone ever got. It was written off as being impossible to get (even though several ranges like Courtlough did go for it and got it).

a sticky on the general shooting board that could be updated with a table with the following headings

That's actually not a bad idea, though it'll suffer from the Top Shot problem of comparing utterly dissimilar competitions. Still worth a try.

I think though that most of these problems boil down to the 2% rule in the end. No manpower means no grants applied for, no work done keeping the range clean or developing the range, it means everyone settles for less until the range is a derelict ruin falling down around our ears (and then we convince ourselves that that state is a reason why we can't fix it), it means not enough people to go looking for corporate sponsorship for prizes for matches (and I've done that search and it's far easier than you think), it means not enough people to advertise the sport, or run the matches or run the training courses or the coaching weekends. It's the single biggest problem we have in this sport, and unless we either change it or get a shedload of money donated to us, we're always going to be in the ha'penny place compared to other sports.

target

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I know something is being done incorrectly, it is obvious from a purely business perspective.

Indeed your right, there is something wrong with the model. If we take the sports you've mentioned as examples the one thing they all have in common are very high rates of volunteering. The 2% rule becomes the 80% rule in those cases.

We cannot change overnight the inherited volunteer model that we have, it's been tried. The ICPSA has set up several task groups to put the control and the operation of many aspects of the sport directly into the hands of those who participate in those disciplines. The task groups find it hard to attract any participation. That hum is there again "... not interested, I'm only here to shoot!"

We have members who are solely consumers of our sport, that is not a criticism but a statement of reality. Many initiatives have been tried and some are still ongoing to try and improve that ratio. Anyone here who is a member of a club realises the amount of work it takes to stage a competition. The work starts long before the start of the competition and finishes long after it is completed. But that is what being a volunteer is all about. You giving freely of your time so that others and your sport can benefit and grow. By its nature volunteerism is not a model that stacks up from a business perspective. It's a loss leader by nature.

cavan shooter

target wrote: »

We have a huge problem of image and identity. Image I don't need to explain, just look around the threads here on boards.QUOTE]

Explain the image bit please, I would like to hear peoples opinion on it, its something that bothers me, how can we do something to improve it

also while on about identity, there seems to be a massive identity crisis in Irish shooting look at what happened to this thread and the answers from some. There seems to be a sneaking class war coming into our sport, i.e your not a real clay shooter unless you are in the ICPSA and shoot those events, your not a game shooter unless your in a gun club etc

So long as its like that what hope..

Sparks

cavan shooter wrote: »

Explain the image bit please, I would like to hear peoples opinion on it, its something that bothers me, how can we do something to improve it

Rewinding back to something I seem to be saying a hell of a lot over the last decade or so (this is from 2004):

Sparks wrote: »

Look, right now you pick Joe Bloggs on grafton st. and ask him what's his first thought when you ask him to think of shooting. It'll be one of the following five: IRA/UDF, Armed Robber, Army/ERU, Hunter, Nutter.
The job I've been trying to do (but which Derek Burnett's performance did more for than anything I've done) was to add a sixth category - sportsperson.

also while on about identity, there seems to be a massive identity crisis in Irish shooting look at what happened to this thread and the answers from some. There seems to be a sneaking class war coming into our sport, i.e your not a real clay shooter unless you are in the ICPSA and shoot those events, your not a game shooter unless your in a gun club etc

So long as its like that what hope..

That's beeing going on for longer than I've been alive. Fullbore looks down on smallbore who look down on airgun. Old shooters look down on young shooters for being uncommitted, young shooters look down on old shooters because they talk a better game than they shoot. And between pistol and rifle and shotgun, every discipline looks on the others as being of less merit than their own.

Thing is, the phrase is "shooting sports". Plural. We're no more one sport because we all shoot than GAA, soccer, rugby, tennis and golf are one sport because they all use balls. But so long as you keep that in mind, and try to act like a reasonable human being with basic civility, we all get along more than well enough to work together. Hell, this forum's lasted six years and most thought it wouldn't last six weeks when it started up, because when people stick to the rule of being civil to one another, they can get along famously.

target

cavan shooter wrote: »

Explain the image bit please, I would like to hear peoples opinion on it, its something that bothers me, how can we do something to improve it

Simply the image problem is down to shooting sports not being seen as a fully legitimate sport. In using the phrase "legitimate sport", I'm referring to the phrasing that is used to me by media and others.

They just don't see shooting as a sport. A sports administrator once said to me "Its not sport if you don't end up with a lot of snot." Frankly, we're perceived as a pastime.

cavan shooter wrote: »

There seems to be a sneaking class war coming into our sport, i.e your not a real clay shooter unless you are in the ICPSA and shoot those events, your not a game shooter unless your in a gun club etc
So long as its like that what hope..

I don't think there is a class war out there, just many different goals.

Some want to represent their countries at the highest levels, some just want to socialise and plink/bang at the weekend. To me the only difference between the two is what they want to achieve. To me they are all shooters and deserving of respect and support.

target

Sparks wrote: »

The job I've been trying to do (but which Derek Burnett's performance did more for than anything I've done) was to add a sixth category - sportsperson.

That last line is very important. The word "shooter" get a very pejorative reaction. I've often referred to shooters as athletes in articles and correspondence, not out of embarrassment but to put in into context that we are no different to other sportspeople.

Just searched google news for the term shooter and this is what I got.

Authorities looking for teen's shooter
Search continues for shooter in Kalamazoo
Mt. Pleasant shooter, victim identified
Four Denver officers hurt in hunt for drive-by shooter

cavan shooter

target wrote: »

That last line is very important. The word "shooter" get a very pejorative reaction. I've often referred to shooters as athletes in articles and correspondence, not out of embarrassment but to put in into context that we are no different to other sportspeople.

Just searched google news for the term shooter and this is what I got.
Authorities looking for teen's shooter

Search continues for shooter in Kalamazoo

Mt. Pleasant shooter, victim identified

Four Denver officers hurt in hunt for drive-by shooter

Excellent point, but can we not find a term to describe what we do like "Sporting Shooter" or Sports Shooter

target

cavan shooter wrote: »

Excellent point, but can we not find a term to describe what we do like "Sporting Shooter" or Sports Shooter

Funnily, the most common term that has been used when referring to the shotgun shooters at the Olympics was "Marksman".

I don't know how you get them to change as unfortunately "shooter" and "marksman" are readily identifiable words with the ordinary public.

Target Shooter is often used within the ISSF to describe the shooters. Imagine the horror when trying to explain "Clay Pigeon Shooter" to the uninitiated :eek:

Sparks

Yeah, the "Can you eat clay pigeons?"-"Yes, but you have to braise them for hours" joke does pall after about the 53rd repetition...

Grizzly 45

target wrote: »

Funnily, the most common term that has been used when referring to the shotgun shooters at the Olympics was "Marksman".

I don't know how you get them to change as unfortunately "shooter" and "marksman" are readily identifiable words with the ordinary public.

Target Shooter is often used within the ISSF to describe the shooters. Imagine the horror when trying to explain "Clay Pigeon Shooter" to the uninitiated :eek:

Thats why I use the term GUNOWNER..It just signifies you own a gun,and doesnt confuse the uninitated,and actually compells them to engage more in the conversation,by having to say "what kind?"Then you can get in to specifics.Not to mind it is neutral,and very difficult to be elitist about either.As well as cutting thru the eliteism as we are no matter what we shoot,we all are one.

Sparks

Just owning a gun seems a bit passive compared to the image of a sportsperson though Grizzly. Like the difference between car owner and driver...

Grizzly 45

True,OTOH is it better to be compared to a "car owner"[generic] or boy racer?[negative specific]

cavan shooter

is it time that we on these forums pick a phrase and stuck at it, be it "Sporting shooter" or "marks man". We do the same for "firearm", wow betide you if you there refer to your "Sporting Firearm" as a "weapon" here you will be put straight very quick.

Sparks

I always tended to use the word athlete when referring to shooters to the media or PTB. Granted, some of our shooters are the opposite of the physical stereotype you expect with that word, but then, they're also the opposite of the doping stereotype as well...

Not sure I could go along with gunowner. Sorry Grizzly, I just don't feel any degree of connection to that word at all. You might as well call me a shelfowner for all the identity that word conveys.

But I'm also not sure any one word would do, because our sports are so diverse -- and yes, one or two of them at least would be validly called pastimes.

Half-cocked

Sparks wrote: »

I always tended to use the word athlete when referring to shooters to the media or PTB. Granted, some of our shooters are the opposite of the physical stereotype you expect with that word, but then, they're also the opposite of the doping stereotype as well...

31 stone professional darts player Andy Fordham was classed as an athlete when he recieved sponsorship from a well known sports footwear manufacturer. I think it safe to call shooters athletes too, despite not conforming to the stereotype......

Grizzly 45

200kgs or 434 Pounds??????:eek::eek::eek: Holy FK!!!That guy can take up professional Sumo wrestling when he isnt playing darts!!!
well maybe darts and sumo wrestling will be Olympic sports soon tooo...Who knows??

cavan shooter

I note the next shoot is the 15th August at Delvin Banks and the scores are up for the previous shoot on the website

http://www.claysportsireland.webs.com/

Most of the winners are ICPSA members as I recognise there names from the Shooters Digest, Maybe bygones are bygones

rrpc

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Ok, already I hear you say the GAA has a huge membership and is a bad example. So take some other sport. There are about 200,000 members that belong to about 400 or so golf clubs. There are about the same number of registered firearms owners many of whom are in more than 900 local game clubs spread throughout the country. Rugby has only 60,000 players in about 200 rugby clubs. Now, why is Shooting not getting more State funding?

There are a few things wrong with your analysis of numbers Pedro. The first is that there are over 200,000 registered firearms in the state, not 200,000 owners.

The second is that a very high proportion of firearms are owned by farmers who are not members of gun clubs or target shooting clubs.

The third issue is largely hidden, but the fact is that the majority of volunteers come from within sports where they have passed their competitve age and transferred to coaching, admin and organisation. Shooting does not have an early 'retirement age' and so the pool to draw volunteers from is largely non-existent.

Then there is the workload. The NTSA currently have three athletes in Munich to take part in the World Championships, the ICPSA have five. I can't speak for the ICPSA, but for the NTSA, the work to get those guys there started last year and continued unabated right through to June of this year. This involved running enough qualifying competitions for six different disciplines to give every potential candidate a fighting chance to qualify. Each of those competitions required almost three full working days for three or four individuals who carried out the work in their own time at their own expense.

And that was just the running of qualifying competitions, a huge amount of time was devoted to planning and setting standards, identifying suitable venues and putting in place the infrastructure needed.

AFAIK, the ICPSA has one full time employee, the NARGC with 25,000 members has two. More to the point, no grant assistance was given to the ICPSA for some years because of ongoing court actions which I think brings us back to the topic of this thread.

And grant assistance seems to me to be a chicken and egg situation, you don't get much until you're successful and you don't get to be successful unless you have the money. You mentioned Cricket Ireland who until they qualified for the Cricket World Cup were getting a relative pittance. Having made it there, the money then started to flow, but you can imagine the uphill struggle it must have been to get there in the first place.

jwshooter

i know some of the names and that does not surprise me ,there is to many too fond of running with the hare and hunting with the hound .

to hold a icpsa number and support these lot your a embarrassment to your country and sport .

Half-cocked

jwshooter wrote: »

i know some of the names and that does not surprise me ,there is to many too fond of running with the hare and hunting with the hound .

to hold a icpsa number and support these lot your a embarrassment to your country and sport .

+1 JW, my thoughts exactly.

This lot are going to take much needed revenue from the ICPSA which will in turn limit the ICPSA's ability to support its international shooters, its junior bursary programmes and its coaching and safety officer training courses plus much more. These people are only in it to make profit for themselves, the ICPSA puts all its revenue back into the sport. I'd rather give up clay shooting completely than support this CSI crowd.

rrpc

Half-cocked wrote: »

+1 JW, my thoughts exactly.

This lot are going to take much needed revenue from the ICPSA which will in turn limit the ICPSA's ability to support its international shooters, its junior bursary programmes and its coaching and safety officer training courses plus much more. These people are only in it to make profit for themselves, the ICPSA puts all its revenue back into the sport. I'd rather give up clay shooting completely than support this CSI crowd.

This to me is the crux of the matter. Whaever the reasons, the only damage that will be caused is to the sport as a whole. How many juniors or promising newcomers were left behind over the last few years because the funds weren't there to develop them? Why would people want to do this?

Especially when there's no good reason for it

cavan shooter

I still maintain that something has happened to cause this, and if it was so terrible and wrong there wouldnt be the support their getting.

I said it already It would appear that the ICPSA need to ask themselves whats going on? and how can we pull back lost ground, because looking at the results and the attendance on the day there appears to be a lot of interest in this break away group, who appear to be aiming to pull in the "flapper" shooter who wants to enjoy a clay shoot with nothing too serious.

NARGC made this mistake by ignoring the "loan hunter" and the countryside alliance walked in and offered a fine assistance package.

Why youd be an embarrassemnt to your country and your sport for supporting this I dont get that that one

In shooting sports we all run with the hound and hunt with the hare, because youll find that you dont agree with everything your association does and no 1 association actually covers the sprot of shooting. I am a NARGC member, supporter of CAI and because I shoot in NI and Scotland a BASC member.

When clubs split there is usually other reasons and a lot of them personal but as I said before clubs survive and best thing to say is "best of luck" hope it works out for ye---move on.

rrpc

cavan shooter wrote: »

I still maintain that something has happened to cause this, and if it was so terrible and wrong there wouldnt be the support their getting.

You said yourself that you know nothing of the origins of this group and so may many other people who on face value would turn up to support a shoot in their area or that mates are going to. So is it really support? Secondly, there are always disgruntled individuals who have fallen foul of the association for various reasons (possibly disciplinary) who would jump at the chance to raise two fingers in their direction.

NARGC made this mistake by ignoring the "loan hunter" and the countryside alliance walked in and offered a fine assistance package.

You're making the assumption that the ICPSA aren't providing for the people turning up to these shoots when others have already stated that they run 'flappers' for non-members and so do the clubs. So what are this group providing that the ICPSA aren't?

Why youd be an embarrassemnt to your country and your sport for supporting this I dont get that that one

Simply put, the purpose of the ICPSA is to provide the infrastructure necessary to develop the sport and its athletes in this country and this group have no stated intention of doing anything other than run shoots presumably for a profit. So everyone who attends are not just assisting them but removing much needed funds to support themselves and their sport.

In shooting sports we all run with the hound and hunt with the hare, because youll find that you dont agree with everything your association does and no 1 association actually covers the sprot of shooting. I am a NARGC member, supporter of CAI and because I shoot in NI and Scotland a BASC member.

Speak for yourself, not everyone takes or supports that view. One association covers the sport of clay pigeon shooting in this country and that's the ICPSA of which you have stated you are not a member, so how could you have a problem with what they do?

When clubs split there is usually other reasons and a lot of them personal but as I said before clubs survive and best thing to say is "best of luck" hope it works out for ye---move on.

The ICPSA is not a club, it's a National association that's internationally recognised.

cavan shooter

When you put it that way I see where your coming from, I reckon as my father would say "their will be more tears shed before this is put to bed"

splits do happen and everyone laughs when the split is in a minority, I have seen it with game clubs associations then after a while the original club is in the minority. Its a dangerous excercise to scoff at this

its a shocking pity, we shooters cant all just get along.:rolleyes:

rrpc

cavan shooter wrote: »

When you put it that way I see where your coming from, I reckon as my father would say "their will be more tears shed before this is put to bed"

splits do happen and everyone laughs when the split is in a minority, I have seen it with game clubs associations then after a while the original club is in the minority. Its a dangerous excercise to scoff at this

its a shocking pity, we shooters cant all just get along.:rolleyes:

I don't think anyone is scoffing at this, I think what most right thinking people would do is to steer well clear of this group who apparently are intent on creating a division and making a profit from it.

Not what you'd call in the interest of the sport by any stretch of the imagination.

And it's naive to think that everyone can 'get along', there's always somebody who won't play by the rules and storms off the field with the ball when they're called on it. :rolleyes:

pedroeibar1

rrpc wrote: »

There are a few things wrong with your analysis of numbers Pedro. The first is that there are over 200,000 registered firearms in the state, not 200,000 owners.

The second is that a very high proportion of firearms are owned by farmers who are not members of gun clubs or target shooting clubs.

The third issue is largely hidden, but the fact is that the majority of volunteers come from within sports where they have passed their competitve age and transferred to coaching, admin and organisation. Shooting does not have an early 'retirement age' and so the pool to draw volunteers from is largely non-existent.

Then there is the workload. The NTSA currently have three athletes in Munich to take part in the World Championships, the ICPSA have five. I can't speak for the ICPSA, but for the NTSA, the work to get those guys there started last year and continued unabated right through to June of this year. This involved running enough qualifying competitions for six different disciplines to give every potential candidate a fighting chance to qualify. Each of those competitions required almost three full working days for three or four individuals who carried out the work in their own time at their own expense.

And that was just the running of qualifying competitions, a huge amount of time was devoted to planning and setting standards, identifying suitable venues and putting in place the infrastructure needed.

AFAIK, the ICPSA has one full time employee, the NARGC with 25,000 members has two. More to the point, no grant assistance was given to the ICPSA for some years because of ongoing court actions which I think brings us back to the topic of this thread.

And grant assistance seems to me to be a chicken and egg situation, you don't get much until you're successful and you don't get to be successful unless you have the money. You mentioned Cricket Ireland who until they qualified for the Cricket World Cup were getting a relative pittance. Having made it there, the money then started to flow, but you can imagine the uphill struggle it must have been to get there in the first place.

Point taken on registered firearms/no. of shooters. No disrespect intended to you rrpc, but I’m not going to get involved in a fight about the merits/demerits of what appears to be a faction fight the background to which I have neither interest in nor notion of. Usually this type of row is between a few poxy egos that drive others (i.e. sane mortals) away.

I do not accept your argument about workload – yes it usually is big, BUT I do know that lots of people enjoy the organizational aspects of the various sports and do a great job, that is their “thing” be it in golf, football, sailing, whatever. They look at that organizational activity as their hobby and see it the same way that others get their kick out of a high score on clays or a tight group on a target. Participants would be lost without their great work, but it is a red herring to the point I’m making.
The point I’m making is a simple business problem - shooting sports activities get bugger all funding compared to other sports. Seems daft to me to have lots of individuals having a pi$$ing contest about rim fire/centre fire/pistol/clays/rifle/ target / camo/tweed/pump/sxs whatever even before we get to sporting organizations. That is even before entry to a game club is even mentioned.

The various cliques need to get some cop, smell the coffee and get real. NARGC had no competition for years, so it did not do much. CAI started to nibble at its membership, so it begins to wake up. RISE comes from no-where and all of a sudden gets a budget and we get some decent commentary, PR and exposure of a more professional nature. What did Ryanair do to Aer Lingus??? What have Aldi/Lidl done to Tesco/Dunnes??

What I posted waaay back was that – just for starters - shooters should have a place, a point for reference, on which is publicised the results achieved internationally. That way everyone can easily access to results and spread the good news, thus help raise profile. Profile gets PR, then PR gets funds. Long hard slog, but the bickering and s#1te I’m reading here is a sign that the wake-up call is a long way off.
Rs
P.