Congratulations to Meredith Ackrill and Stephen Thessman on winning their respective grades in the champion of champions match on Wednesday night.

Brooklyn gained many of the WSRA trophies this year, presented at the WSRA prizegiving on Saturday night.

It was great to see so many at the club prizegiving BBQ yesterday, a really good opportunity to socialise outside of regular club shooting.  Congratulations to all trophy winners, and thanks to Mark Robinson for photographing the awards.

The committee will be considering options for tweaking the 2020 club competition with a  view to having more members complete the full season’s competition.  Some of the options being considered are a reduction from the current five-series five-week competition to a five-series four-week competition, or alternatively a four-series five-week competition, but there are many other possibilities that could be considered.  If you have any ideas for the competition structure, or what you would like to do in the gap weeks (i.e. specific training sessions, novelty shoots, designated for 20-shot targets, or simply used to fill in gaps on the scoreboard), please forward them to Dianne for discussion at the next committee meeting.

Summer shooting is available during the off-season on Thursday evenings, firstly as a visitor to the South Wellington club, and then as part of the Association’s summer shooting programme once South Wellington have finished their season.  If you are interested, please ensure you contact Evan Little, particularly if you are using club equipment.  The cost is $5 per night (not including ammo) for Association members.

The start date for the 2020 Brooklyn Club season will be advised in January/February but is likely to be early March.  Have a very enjoyable summer – see you next year!

Upcoming events:

  • Thursdays throughout the summer off-season, 7pm, cost $5 not including ammunition.
  • Early March, likely start date for Brooklyn Club’s 2020 season.

Thanks to Mark Robinson for organising college shooters’ photos on Sunday, and for so many taking up this opportunity.

A 90-second novelty shoot was held with extremely good results achieved.  Of note Meredith Ackrill 97.4, Ryan Day 93.1, Bex Gibbs 92.1 and Erin Little 92.0.

Many also took advantage of the final night to fill in blanks on the scoreboard.  Congratulations to our 2019 club graded champions who will now compete against other clubs’ graded champions on Wednesday:

  • D Grade: Stephen Thessman
  • C Grade: Casey Israelson
  • B Grade: Dianne Grain
  • A Grade: Evan Little
  • Master Grade: Meredith Ackrill

There are still a few outstanding grading returns.  Please ensure if you have not yet returned your grading return that you do so THIS WEEK as these all need to be collated and forwarded to TSNZ.  It is the responsibility of every shooter to compile their own individual grading return from all competition scores shot between April and September each year.

Top scores achieved this week were recorded by D Graders Jaz Hamilton (new PB 99.5), Cassie Truscott 97.3 and Josh Whitehead 92.1, and in C Grade Inge Little 97.3 and Emily Lockery 93.2.

A final reminder that our club barbecue prizegiving is being held from 4.30pm on Sunday 13 October at 1 Shoal Place, Whitby.  Please advise Dianne whether or not you will be able to attend.  If you haven’t already indicated which food you are bringing, desserts would be preferred.  Family members are very welcome to come along as well.  Let’s get together to celebrate the club’s successes as well as individual achievements.

Upcoming events:

  • Wednesday 9 October, Champion of Champions match, 8.00pm C+D Grades 1x10: Casey Israelson, Stephen Thessman; 8.20pm Master+A+B Grades 1x20: Meredith Ackrill, Evan Little, Dianne Grain.
  • Saturday 12 October, 6pm, WSRA prizegiving dinner.
  • Sunday 13 October, 4.30pm, BSRC prizegiving barbecue.

As the grading season has now been completed, please forward your Excel spreadsheet grading return to me this week for collation and on-forwarding to Target Shooting New Zealand.

Next week is our final club night for the 2019 season.  If people are interested, we could organise a couple of novelty shoots.  This is also a last opportunity to fill in the gaps on the scoreboard.  The graded champions to shoot in the champion of champions match on Wednesday 9 October will be determined following next week’s scores.

Please remember to contact Meredith to purchase tickets to the WSRA prizegiving catered dinner being held at the range on Saturday 12 October at 6.30pm.  Tickets are $40 per person and family members are welcome to attend as well.  Payment can be made direct to the WSRA bank account (BNZ  02 0500 0025335 00 - include your name as the reference with the code: dinner), or you can order and pay via Meredith.  The deadline is Friday 4 October.  Come along and celebrate our club’s and our members’ successes.

Our club barbecue prizegiving is being held from 4.30pm on Sunday 13 October at 1 Shoal Place, Whitby.  Please advise Dianne whether or not you will be able to attend, and whether you will be bringing meat, salad or a dessert that is not ice cream.

No PBs this week but highlights from club shooting were all in D Grade: Cassie Truscott 97.1, Jack Day 95.6, Stephen Thessman 95.4, Mike Williams 93.1 and Daniel Johnson 92.1.  Casey Israelson also shot consistently in C Grade achieving two 96s.

Full results are now available for the interassociation matches.  Congratulations to the Wellington D Grade team which included Stephen Thessman, Cassie Truscott and Josh Whitehead on their 3rd placing and to the Wellington Women’s team which included Meredith Ackrill, Bex Gibbs, Dianne Grain and Erin Little on their 2nd placing (ahead of Manawatu!!).

Upcoming events:

  • Sunday 6 October, final club day.
  • Wednesday 9 October, Champion of Champions match, 8.00pm C+D Grades 1x10, 8.20pm Open+A+B Grades 1x20.
  • Saturday 12 October, 6pm, WSRA prizegiving dinner.
  • Sunday 13 October, 4.30pm, BSRC prizegiving barbecue.

Many thanks to all of you who helped with cleaning the range on Sunday – your efforts were really appreciated.

It might be getting near the end of the season but for some of you that means you’re getting even better.  Personal Bests were achieved this week by:

  • Ethan Haigh who scored a brilliant 99.5 on his first competition card of the night (highest D Grade score of the night)
  • Maia LaPointe (D Grade) who scored an impressive 95.4 on her competition card (second highest D Grade score of the night)
  • Erin Little (B Grade) who shot a sizzling 199.14 on her competition 20 shot card (highest 20 shot card of the night).

Craig Fair topped the higher grades with a 98.6 on his 10 shot competition card.

Attached are the results for the Final Ten shoot of the Wellington Closed Champs. Congratulations to the four Brooklyn shooters who made the Top Ten – Meredith (2nd place!!!), Erin (4th place), Evan (6th place) and Dave (10th as he was unable to make the final shoot).

With only a few weeks to go of the grading season, please ensure your grading spreadsheet is up to date.  These will be collected, collated and forwarded to Target Shooting New Zealand in early October.

Please direct any queries during September to Inge Little.

Any errors in this email are entirely the fault of Mark Robinson who is nowhere as good as Dianne at writing these updates, but he’s trying his hardest anyway!  😊

Upcoming events:

  • Saturday 28 / Sunday 29 September, Interisland Secondary Schools match (Royal Tiger range).
  • Sunday 6 October, final club day.
  • Wednesday 9 October, Champion of Champions match, 8.00pm C+D Grades 1x10, 8.20pm Open+A+B Grades 1x20.
  • Saturday 12 October, 6pm, WSRA prizegiving dinner.
  • Sunday 13 October, 4.30pm, BSRC prizegiving barbecue.

It was a busy night at the Keene Range on Friday the 13th … congratulations to Casey Israelson, Hamish Guthrey, Inge Little, Cassie Truscott, Maia LaPointe and Ethan Haigh who represented Wellington and were in the victorious team that shot against the Hutt Valley in the C Grade shoot.   For the record, Wellington scored 1898.54 against the Hutt Valley’s 1853.51.  Well done to Brooklyn’s Open Team (Bex Gibbs, Mark Baines, Meredith Ackrill and Evan Little) who beat Wainuiomata by 23 points (and 11 inners, but who’s counting???!!!).   Brooklyn’s C Grade Team (Hamish, Casey, Inge and Cassie) shot well but were beaten by Wainuiomata’s C Grade Team.

Smallbore shooting is a very slow, deliberate sport… breathe slowly, relax, gently squeeze the trigger… but the Hertfordshire Match takes slowness to an entirely new level.  Meredith Ackrill, Bex Gibbs, Erin Little, Evan Little and Mark Baines shot well in the Wellington team’s postal shoot against Hertfordshire (UK) on Monday night, but the results won’t actually be known until March 2020 when the Hertfordshire Team shoot their targets (one NZ target and one UK target for each of the 10 shooters in the team).  Now that’s patience!  😊

The Wellington team at the Titipounamu shoot (they still shoot cardboard targets, not birds) finished well to be in the top third of the field, however it was Taranaki who took a fine win to defeat the mighty Waikato who had won 4 of the last 5 years.

Yesterday afternoon Evan ran a well-attended open training session for Brooklyn club members concentrating on the foundations of shooting – the shooter’s setup routine and position.  It included a practical shooting exercise that really challenged those attending to hone their ability to “nail” that first shot.  It’s all too easy to get into the routine of just shooting practice cards and never asking yourself the question “exactly what aspect of shooting am I going to practice this time” so this session provided a great opportunity to really concentrate on one crucial part of shooting and to do it well.  Please let Evan know if you have any comments, thoughts or questions arising from the session and I’m sure he’ll be happy to answer them or perhaps can address them in a later training session.

Stephen Thessman continued shooting well to top D Grade this week with a 98.4 followed up by a 97.6. Clive Brodie and Ethan Haigh were hot on his tail with a 95.2 and 95.1 respectively.  In C Grade Casey top scored with an impressive estimated 98.6.  In the higher grades, Erin Little shot an estimated 99.5 for a Marksman’s badge, but stepped up her game to then shoot an estimated 99.7 for another Marksman’s badge.  Meredith Ackrill shot a 198.11 to lead the 20 shot shooting for the night.  Great stuff!!! 

Brooklyn are responsible for cleaning the range and social area during September.  This will be undertaken on Sunday 22 September at 7pm.  Regular shooting will commence 30 minutes earlier at 6pm on this day to allow time for the clean.  Could all members please ensure they add this date to their calendars as the more hands available to do the work, the quicker it will be done.  Also please bring along cleaning equipment – vacuum cleaners, mops, buckets, cleaning cloths.

With only a few weeks to go of the grading season, please ensure your grading spreadsheet is up to date.  These will be collected, collated and forwarded to Target Shooting New Zealand in early October.

Please direct any queries during September to Inge Little.

Any errors in this email are entirely the fault of Mark Robinson who is nowhere as good as Dianne at writing these updates, but he’s trying his hardest anyway!  😊

Upcoming events:

  • Tuesday 17 September, Wellington Closed Champs Final 10, 8.15pm, 1x20.
  • Saturday 21 September, North Island Open Champs, Palmerston North.
  • Sunday 22 September, 6pm start to allow cleaning at 7pm.  Please bring vacuum cleaners, mops, buckets, cleaning cloths.
  • Saturday 27 / Sunday 28 September, interisland secondary schools match.
  • Sunday 6 October, final club day.
  • Wednesday 9 October, Champion of Champions match, 8.00pm C+D Grades 1x10, 8.20pm Open+A+B Grades 1x20.
  • Saturday 12 October, 6pm, WSRA prizegiving dinner.
  • Sunday 13 October, 4.30pm, BSRC prizegiving barbecue.