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.