Chairman’s Newsletter October 2008

What a Glamis we had! After a spell of very indifferent weather the two nights required to move all the equipment up to Glamis and get ready for the event proved to be dry and calm enough to allow the work to be done. The full glory of this year's plans by the group headed by Andy were not apparent until the Saturday morning  when the outside of our site was judged by all members who spoke to me about it, to be the best and most professional looking of any of the club's attendances at Glamis to date.  Special thanks for this  are due to Jo Preston who got the badges printed onto 4x4 ft banners, set up the display boards outside the tent and arranged for a tablecloth and flowers on the admin table. It looked absolutely brilliant. The dividers made by Andy and stained by various club members also set off the shooting lanes and were a huge improvement on the old room dividers.

Despite weather which was less than ideal and with the show-ground looking less full than usual, the teams on the shooting positions got to work with their usual patience and forbearance especially with the younger children who came to have a try. With such an approach, as well as keeping the cost to participants as low as possible, the club easily outstripped the throughput of previous years. The competition was won on the Saturday with a score of 17 and on the Sunday with a late 7 which proved to be better than earlier 7s when the count-back was applied. All the feedback from customers seemed very positive with many kids and adults emerging from the tent with wide grins. 

A heartfelt thanks to all of you who helped on any of the days or nights and especially to the few who did both days and evenings. By adopting a different plan of packing up and due to the tent being taken down dry, almost everything was put away in the barn by the group who went back there to unload the trailer on the Sunday evening. I'm sure many of you were as tired as I was by the end but at least I got to sleep without the funny dreams I had in the run up to Glamis; you know the one, where you're trying to catch a train wearing pyjamas with a pig under each arm. 

On Sunday the 21st, the club was visited by Joe Fitzpatrick, MSP. We didn't want to take up too much of his time on his day off so some members of the committee made him aware of shooters' view of any proposed change in legislation relating to air guns. He listened carefully to what we had to say and promised to feed our concerns back to the Justice Secretary. In particular we were relieved to find that there are no plans to restrict activities of clubs like ours. We then made a short visit to the HFT course and he had a shottie. Some of you may think that it's unwise to get involved with politicians but he went away knowing a bit more than when he came. In my view it's better to light a candle than complain about the dark. 

We've a lot of enquiries from potential new members following Glamis.  Please make any newbies you see wandering about feel welcome. 

Bill will be writing soon to inform you of the date and time of the AGM. It will be held on the 16th Nov at 11.00 in the barn. If there is anything you want discussed, please contact him and get it on the agenda! When there's a lot of AOCB the meetings tend to drag on and shooting time is wasted.  

See you on the course.