Ideas needed ASAP

[the running man]

The nra don't care unless tr is threatend......look how much the graw events cost compared to the imperial! Everything is built around tr at bisley,this is a great shame,as the nra should represent us all,they are starting through neccessity,its going to be along road one feels.....I'm still very bitter about the nra being very quiet during the pistol ban,something I'm never going to forgive them for..........let us look to the future as I feel that bisley and the nra are at a turning point this year, a precipice if you will,and if things don't improve this year I feel it will be the begining of the end for the nra becase folk will be sick and tired of the same old story.......I hope it all goes well and things improve as they have done a little in the past year already..........

[IainWR]

The nra don't care unless tr is threatend......look how much the graw events cost compared to the imperial! Everything is built around tr at bisley,this is a great shame,as the nra should represent us all,they are starting through neccessity,its going to be along road one feels.....I'm still very bitter about the nra being very quiet during the pistol ban,something I'm never going to forgive them for..........let us look to the future as I feel that bisley and the nra are at a turning point this year, a precipice if you will,and if things don't improve this year I feel it will be the begining of the end for the nra becase folk will be sick and tired of the same old story.......I hope it all goes well and things improve as they have done a little in the past year already..........

Your first statement is simply untrue. I am Captain of the next GB TR team. At NRA level that is an irrelevance - GB shooters are capable of looking after themselves in organisational terms. The NRA is a mass-market leisure organisation dedicated to "the encouragement of marksmanship" and I spend a great deal of my precious spare time as vice-chairman Shooting Committee sorting out issues with other disciplines. I actually resent your opening statement quite a lot. GRAW is dirt cheap compared to TR - don't see your point. Post Dunblane we couldn't buy advertising space to counter the false outpourings of the antis - in the hate-filled climate no newspaper would sell us space at any price. The NRA of the time considered that the best course was to engage in quiet diplomacy as a damage limitation process. We will never know whether scweaming and scweaming and scweaming until we were thick would have had a different outcome, but it is not the case that the NRA did nothing - it did a very great deal, then Bliar got elected.

Folk have been sick and tired of the same old story regarding the NRA since before you were born. Mostly they have done absolutely nothing about it. What is it about shooters that gives so many of them the expectation that somebody else will fix their pet problem for them? I say again, for the third time in two days - if you don't like it the remedy is available to you. Join, vote, stand and serve.

Iain

[Dougan]

The nra don't care unless tr is threatend......look how much the graw events cost compared to the imperial! Everything is built around tr at bisley

Although TR is my main discepline, I've not shot the Imperial, but have travelled up for the last 3 years to compete for a day at the Phoenix and Trafalgar meetings...non-TR events...

The turn out at last years' Trafalgar (even accounting for the economic climate) was p*** poor - If people would like to see more non-TR shooting done, then why don't they just do it...

[the running man]

I don't aree,if graw is dirt cheap what are gr events at the imperial then,dirty dirty cheap? I can tell you now that 98 percent of shooters I know think the nra cares for nothing except tr,so I'm offende by your comments,a fact reflected in the nra journal where its nothing but tr,(admiTted the last year has been better)stand and vote,yeah right,I'm actully working class mate,becase some of us do a days work,I've not been to a public school I'm not a retired genral and I've no posh accent so I stand no chance.........I've already put my trust and faith ie my hopes in the nra for another year by paying my membership,I hope with some dead wood now gone, (except chris w) things mite get better,if they don't I would consider not renewing...........the pistol ban thing I was not where u were and can only take your word for it.......

[IainWR]

stand and vote,yeah right,I'm actully working class mate,becase some of us do a days work,I've not been to a public school I'm not a retired genral and I've no posh accent so I stand no chance

Well, I've worked for 34 years plus and from April will again be in full-time employment, I have a state education, I shot Target Pistol and owned a Browning 150 until 1997, I made Flight Lieutenant before I retired and I'm from Aberdeen. I've been elected in the NRA organisation several times to at least four different appointments.

The Journal (when Karen edited it) published everything we got that was comprehensible and not libellous. In 9 years we rejected one article because it was impossible to sub-edit it into comprehensible form. The Journal contained the official notices of the NRA and of NSC, which ran Bisley Camp. The rest was written by the members or their representatives. If you wanted more stuff about disciplines other than TR you only had to write it. And if you actually read the content, particularly if you ignore the stuff that had to be there because it is a journal of record (like the international tour reports), there was material about many disciplines. It is also the case that TR remains bigger than any other discipline by every measure, and bigger than all other disciplines put together by some measures. But the NRA isn't doing the others down to maintain that. Twenty-five years ago F-class didn't exist. Now, with full NRA support, it's a World Championship event. Fifteen years ago, GR didn't exist. Now it's a recognised international discipline and the NRA rules are the ones used for international competition. This year, Sporting Rifle will represent GB internationally for the first time in about 40 years, under the NRA as National Governing Body. The NRA has just recognised Target Shotgun as a discipline. It's still in development but looks like being a big success. I don't know what will be next, but if it gets lead in the air and people on the ranges, I and the NRA will support it.

I really am missing your point about GRAW / Imperial GR vs TR prices. If there's an issue here I'd like to understand it. Can you give a bit more detail please? There may be an idea lurking underneath that we can exploit to improve things.

Iain

[the running man]

Iain thanks for your lifes history,very informative.......the fact that tr is so big is something in my tunnel vison I completely overlooked,and any comments by me were made with no malice behind them. The tr in the journal did use to be 90 % of it,you cant deny it!

The gr I refer to is the gr events at the imperial meeting,where we are fleeced at graw events (a common complaint and keeps a great deal of shooters I know, away) the gr at the imperial are like £5 to enter and 2-3 pounds for a re-entry......also the tr events at the imperial are cheaper than some graw events....can you explain how this turn of events has arisen?

[Chapuis]

Iain I tend to agree with you that the journal was a much better publication than the new magazine and it certainly contained a lot more information, it was just a matter of sifting through and discarding those matters that weren’t of particular interest to yourself. Generally I think that the NRA are pretty good at disseminating information unfortunately sometimes relevant information to your own club or self gets a little lost due to information overload. That’s not to say that there aren’t occasions when getting information or contacting the right person appears almost impossible. For instance two years running I have requested information on the running boar and running deer events. I was passed from pillar to post and never got an adequate reply to my enquiry the first year, but did succeed in being put in contact with a very helpful guy from the BSRC last year. Only for work to once again intervene just at a time when all the relevant information was available to me and I could send off my application. The result was that and I couldn’t attend, maybe I will be luckier this year.
Incidentally that’s an interesting snippet of information that you slipped into your last post regarding sporting rifle as this is an area that is of particular interest to me. I’m pretty sure that I haven’t read anything from the NRA on this matter. From your posting I realise that this is something that the NRA wish to develop but are they going to inform the affiliated clubs about this soon or is that information going to be kept within the inner circle that is Bisley based for the time being.

[cheeky]

The Journal (when Karen edited it) published everything we got that was comprehensible and not libellous. In 9 years we rejected one article because it was impossible to sub-edit it into comprehensible form. The Journal contained the official notices of the NRA and of NSC, which ran Bisley Camp. The rest was written by the members or their representatives. If you wanted more stuff about disciplines other than TR you only had to write it. And if you actually read the content, particularly if you ignore the stuff that had to be there because it is a journal of record (like the international tour reports), there was material about many disciplines. It is also the case that TR remains bigger than any other discipline by every measure, and bigger than all other disciplines put together by some measures. But the NRA isn't doing the others down to maintain that. Twenty-five years ago F-class didn't exist. Now, with full NRA support, it's a World Championship event. Fifteen years ago, GR didn't exist. Now it's a recognised international discipline and the NRA rules are the ones used for international competition. This year, Sporting Rifle will represent GB internationally for the first time in about 40 years, under the NRA as National Governing Body. The NRA has just recognised Target Shotgun as a discipline. It's still in development but looks like being a big success. I don't know what will be next, but if it gets lead in the air and people on the ranges, I and the NRA will support it.

Iain,

What a good post - good as in useful and good as in it describes good things!

How about sending it (or something very like it) to all members and to all affiliated clubs, on e-mail, on its own (rather than in with the general NRA news), and ask the recipients to do two things: (i) forward it to everyone they know in their disciplines, which may encourage more of those people to join or at least to find out more for themselves; and (ii) to contribute future articles to the Journal.

And can we have the old Journal back as well please? Not only is the new one less well written, with lots of repetition in the photography and a strange focus on individuals and not the teams that are so important in our sport, but I now learn that in one issue it has rejected at least as many articles as Karen did in nine years!

Very best of luck with your GB team. The South Africans are formidable opponents.

Matt

[IainWR]

The gr I refer to is the gr events at the imperial meeting,where we are fleeced at graw events (a common complaint and keeps a great deal of shooters I know, away) the gr at the imperial are like £5 to enter and 2-3 pounds for a re-entry......also the tr events at the imperial are cheaper than some graw events....can you explain how this turn of events has arisen?

I can't explain this, for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is that I do not know the prices for GRAW and I don't have an entry form to refer to. TR events cost over £1 per shot plus ammo last year, and I understand £1.15 plus this year - I would be amazed if a GRAW event costs more on a like-for-like basis. Can you provide more detail?

Iain

[John MH]

Don't try to comare cost on a shot for shot basis between TR and Gallery. Most TR matches have to factor in the cost of a marker, Gallery does not, nor do any other self marking disciplines such as CSR; I have had this debate before with the Shooting Divison who often suggest that CSR matches much cheaper in comparison to TR based on the number of shots fired, which works out currently at about 50p per shot compared to £1.00 for TR, but forgetting that the competitors have to self mark in the cesspit that is Century Butts.