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Thats what the Club secretary does

Fairly sure we did all that on our regional RCO course a couple of years back.

Incidentally, ours was held over 3 days:

Day 1 - Classroom (plus home work)
Day 2 - theory test and indoor practical range assessment
Day 3 - outdoor practical range assessment and chat with the Range Control.

I enquired last week to the NRA Training Department about two club members wishing to become RCO's and this was the response!

"The two candidates will have to first complete the RSO (Range Safety Officer) course prior to completing the RCO course now." followed by the dates of the upcoming courses.

Twice the price and two weekends "dawn souf" with extra accommodation costs and two weekends out of their family commitments, hardly encourages betterment and CPD.

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Regards
Tony

Www.whitbyholidayflat.co.uk

We already have quite a few RCO's in our club, we ran a course here last year for about 10 of us. At a previous committee meeting we decided that as well as running a first-aiders course we'd train a further 10 RCO's to spread the work load, that's now been cancelled.

When my secretary spoke to the NRA he was told things were not set in stone, that obviously wasn't true.

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There's room for all Gods creatures, next to the mash and gravy

Interestingly enough the NRA are running 'Stalkers' days where Level 1 Deer certificated shooters are permitted to shoot without a certificate of competence and with only one RCO supervising. This obviously conflicts with their own rules.
Page 90 in the latest BASC magazine has the details.

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Purveyor of fine cast boolits.
Owner of Rising Sun Ordnance.
All round good guy and VERY grumpy old man.

I note on the NRA website that the RSO and RCO courses are approximately half the Bisley price if run "in the regions".

Can anyone tell me where/when these courses are run? It would seem logical to avoid paying double the cost just to travel to Bisley.

Daman, they are typically arranged by clubs. The one I went on was organised by a local club who coordinated with other local clubs to make it worthwhile.

Thanks RDC. If anyone reading this has such a course coming up in the next few months, I'd love to join. PM me if possible.

Thanks

Daman

Update to this.

Club secretary has had further detailed discussions with the NRA regional rep and him in turn with the NRA training officer, the outcome being that contrary to what we were previously told no changes are going to be considered.

The MOD feel that the current RCO course over 2 days is too short as they take longer to do the same thing. The NRA instead of finding out where the current qualification (which has been in place and working very successfully for many years) fails to meet the MODs standards or reminding the MOD that the vast majority of club members who take the course are experienced shooters with years, sometimes decades, of shooting experience unlike the majority of their trainees who will have no long term experience of shooting at all never mind shooting on a Landmarc operated range.

From my own clubs point of view, while we can see that the NRA are trying, probably the best of intentions, to keep civilian clubs shooting on MOD ranges they have singularly failed to address the real problem and have instead opted for a Bisley-centric money making option which will only make it harder for the regional clubs to comply and in effect reduce the amount of RCO's being trained.

We have now scrapped plans to run this years course, in total we had 15 members who were wanting to take part, this will now not happen. Neither course is required to shoot on non-MOD ranges and I can't see any club that doesn't shoot there paying good money to take them.

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There's room for all Gods creatures, next to the mash and gravy

I will be doing the Range Conducting Officers' Course next month over two Sundays at one of my clubs.

I have personally paid £89.76 so it won't be costing the club money other than the time they have to open up the premises for.


As regards, civilian verses military shooters, I would imagine that we shoot a far wider range of gun types than the military.