The Newsletter of: Marple Target Sports Centre
Issue 01. December 1999
Welcome to the first copy of SIGHTINGS the newsletter of MRPC.
The thoughts of Chairman John.
The committee decided to produce a trial newsletter and Rod Simpson very kindly offered to produce the broadsheet. I would like to offer a few thoughts from the chair, all of you will have seen the excellent work carried out by Messrs. Sharpe and Stopford and the continuing of the upgrade of our facilities, I'm sure you will join with me in thanking these gentlemen for the time and effort they have given to improve our surroundings. I know Peters an optician, and I feel that the way he is trying to increase his business is to be applauded.
Dave Bates should also be thanked for his generous donation of Kitchen units and the units that are being installed in the Stats. Office.
We continue to shoot competitions but we really need to be more competitive and the club championship should help to foster this initiative so please join in the competition.
We have also approached the Army for the use of the range at Altcar, having sent off our cheque we await a response, this will allow fullbore rifles to be shot over a distance of 50 to 1000 yards and allow us to experience shooting with other people as well.
As we move up to the festive season and a new millennium, lets face it none of us will see another one, I feel we should celebrate this for the club , so Ladies and Gentlemen please could we have suggestions to consider for our next meeting.
John (the chairman)
24 Heures de Tir de Chabris. (The Chabris 24 hour shoot).
Chabris is a small village in north central France, about 150 miles south of Paris and each year since 1984 they have run a 24-hour airgun shoot over the first weekend in November. The organisers like the shoot to be as international in participation as possible and it is open to both air rifle and air pistol in teams of two.
The format of the shoot is that during the 24 hours, from 9.00 a.m. Saturday to 9.00 a.m. Sunday, each team fires a total of 16 separate U.I.T. 60 shot courses of fire. The members of each team shoot turn and turn about, with a hand over process to ensure that the cards are shot in proper time and sequence.
I was originally concerned that my shooting performance would drop off over the duration of the shoot, but it did not. Nor did it seem to fall off for any of the other competitors, either rifle or pistol.
The organisation of the shoot is in all respects excellent, with overnight accommodation available on the Friday and Sunday nights if required. In addition, there are rest rooms available for the sleepy during the event itself. A full 24 hour catering service is provided and is included in the 650 Franc per team entry fee; you can have steak and chips at 3.00 a.m. if you wish!
At the end of the main shoot, there is an Olympic final for the top eight rifle and top eight pistol shots. The prize giving (very French, very formal), vin d’honour and closing meal (with ¼ litre wine each) are competed by 3.00 p.m. Sunday and then it is time for some serious sleep.
Dave Wilson and I have taken part in 1996, 1997, 1998 and will be going again in 1999. We have been the only ‘Brits’ present, which is a pity, but all attempts to raise any enthusiasm both locally and nationally have up to now met with no success.
Mike Williams
Shoot for the Net
What an anorak! At least some of my leisure time is spent lying on my belly on cold concrete attempting to put a small 40 grain lump of lead through a piece of cardboard 25 yards away. And (outside licensing hours) when I'm not engaged in this pointless pursuit I'm rearranging electronic zeroes and ones and watching the results on a cathode ray tube. How sad can you get? A shooter AND a messer-about-with-computers!
Undeterred by this unflattering portrait of myself I determined that I would seek a way to combine my two pastimes, so I decided to ride the Information Superhighway. I bought a modem, plumbed it into my trusty PC and set off surfing the Internet in search of shooting-related sites. Believe it or not there are hundreds of 'em.
You can tap into the British Association for Shooting & Conservation, the National Rifle Association (both UK and US), the National Smallbore Rifle Association, the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association, the Sportsmen's Association, Shooters' Rights Association, Justice for Shooters, the Campaign for Shooting ... like I said - hundreds of 'em. You can spend hours (and run up obscene 'phone bills) checking out the relative merits of Lee Enfields (www.uidaho.edu/~stratton/en-page/html), Russian rifles, pistols and shotguns (http//guns/ru), or your local clay shoot - plug, plug - (www.frommacc.freeserve.co.uk/welcome.htm) which also contains a plug for MRPC. Hours of fun for all the family.
However, what you will also find on the 'Net is a vast amount of uninformed and undiluted hatred for shooting and shooters. There are some websites which are implacably opposed to our sport (like the Gun Control Network site) but the REAL vitriol comes on Usenet. This is the "newsgroups" area.
These newsgroups are set up to discuss tens of thousands of different subjects and guns and shooting are in there (rec.guns; free.uk.guns; uk.politics.guns: talk.politics.guns). However, the anti-gun brigade, the animal rights protesters, the social engineers are all over the shooting newsgroups like a rash. You are told that YOU are to blame for Hungerford and Dunblane: YOU are only a gun owner because you have a severe shortage in the willie depapartment: all guns were designed as killing machines: all shooters are sexual deviants who could crack up tomorrow and perpetrate mass murder. The allegations are always presented as absolute facts and attempts by shooters to refute the slurs are treated to volleys of obscenity. It's not a pleasant experience to see yourself vilified by the ignorant and the bigoted, but I would urge all members with access to the Internet to at least have a look at these groups on Usenet to see precisely what we are up against.
Mike Tilley.
A few words from the Editor now, first one must thank all contributors to this first edition. In future if any one has any tales of Daring Do, great academic success, stories of exotic holidays, or just what you do in your spare time. Please put them on paper and leave it in the stats office marked Newsletter or even just my name Rod Simpson and it will be used next issue. We will even allow adverse comments about the Committee. Any for sale or want ads will be considered especially if they are related to target sports.
The colour picture is very much a one off, it is a lot of work to set up to print the newsletter economically with colour photographs the one used is I felt rather spectacular. So worth the extra work, any other equally spectacular print would be considered though. After all it is your subs that finance the Newsletter. For those of you that have access to a computer if you put your thoughts on a floppy
Floppy disk and save in text format I can easily transfer the contents of the disk to my computer and return the disk to you. Just for those who are not sure the file name looks like: filename.txt where filename is the title of your piece.
Now for some thing completely different, any one who has not visited the range in the last 12 months will get quite a pleasant surprise. Plus possibly a visit from Mr. Policeman to ask why they have not used their rifle or carbine, the reason is that the club is now compelled to submit a report every month naming those members that have not used the facilities in the preceding 12 months. Very depressing but that is the Law.
The Editor.
Stop Press: News is just coming in that we have now got permission to shoot at Altcar, and it is not only centre fire members that can use the Range over 50 and 100 yards .22 Rifles are very effective. It might even be worth trying the .22s over longer ranges just for fun. So come on get down to the Club and find out what is being planned.
Last April Marple Rifle and Pistol Club had the honour of hosting the finals of the News of the World shoot. The Range was open on Saturday and Sunday 10th 11th of April with Saturday being a practice day for any competitor wishing to avail themselves of the chance to try out what was to them a new and strange range. With the Competition being shot on the Sunday. MRPC only had to provide the range as the Cheshire League provided the Officials. For any of our members who attended on the Sunday it was extremely gratifying to see our Range positively sing with activity it really was quite moving to see so many people enjoying themselves. It was so successful that at least one competitor asked to have the target holder turned round so that their sighting card was on the right instead of the left as they are arranged at present. After a very successful shoot there were no complaints heard about the lighting, but a number of compliments were passed. It was also gratifying to see a lot of younger people taking part, some even bringing young children with them. Now where did the competitors come from I hear you asking? Scotland, Cornwall, Sussex, Northampton, Kent, in fact from every part of Mainland Britain. A strange phenomenon occurred there were upwards of 30 cars in the car park with room for more, so why when we get 6 cars in there does it always look full? Yet another of life’s little mysteries.
SHOOTING FOR THE DISABLED INITIATIVE
shooting is one of the very few sports in which disabled people can compete alongside the mainstream shooters on an equal footing. The involvement by disabled people in the sport has been cited as a good practice for other National Governing Bodies of sport to follow. The English Federation of Disability Sport, a new organisation fully funded by Sport England, will be introducing partnership programmes between the Governing Bodies and Disability Sport.
Shooting has been chosen as one of the lead organisations and a series of meetings have been held between the Federation and the NRSA in this partnership project.
A programme for the coming months has been decided. First is to introduce disabled people to shooting, and second to promote postal competitions for them, particularly for the airgun disciplines.
The first task is to find and identify Focus Clubs.
MRPC is one of the focus clubs, so with any luck we could see some increase in numbers of people shooting specifically in air gun disciplines.
The above article is a very brief extract from an article in "The Rifleman" published earlier this year. (1999).