STS are holding a one day muti-disciplinary Coaching Conference for Target Shooters in Perth on the 5th of October.

This is a great opportunity to learn and develop various skills and techniques to bring out the best in your fellow shooters!

For further information please check in to the STS Website (www.scottishtargetshooting.co.uk).

If you have any specific questions about the course, please contact STS directly,

As intimated below, the final results of the winter league programme are now on the website.

Also, the winner of the County Silver Medal has been deternined – it’s Tom Diggle of EU Alumni, so contgratulations to him. Those attaining a County Award have also been declared.  Take the County teams | Indoor teams | NSRA leagues link at the top to see details.

The NSRA’s three annual matches for 2019 have been shot, and  the estimates for the BSA Cup, the Commonwealth Cities match and the Cites & Boroughs match are now available in the link in County teams | Indoor teams | NSRA Annual matches.

The NSRA’s 100th Scottish Meeting ended last Friday after a week of rather mixed weather – mainly cloudy with sunny spells and one or two showers but fairly windy all through. There were some good performances though, and the contingent from George Watson’s excelled themselves this year.  They won seventeen trophies, and their parent club Watsonians won another six.  The winners are too numerous to list here, but mention must be made of James Topley, who won all the Weekend Aggragate competitions in Class C and also the C Class Main and Unsquadded Aggregates, winning two of the three Unsquadded Aggregate competitions (3rd in the other). Lucy Richards won two of the three Junior trophies (and was just two months too old to win the other).

Watsonians’ Susan Jackson retained the Ladies trophy.  Watsonians won the Pullar Targe for the 50m Team Championship of Scotland for the first time since their consecutive wins in 2006 & 2007. In the County Sextette, one of Lothian’s scores had still not been posted by the end of the meeting. An assurance has been given that every effort will be made to track it down. Obviously with a score missing we were listed  in last position, but if the estimate of the score is good then we should come third, our best placing for many years. Take the County teams|Outdoor teams link at the top to see the scores.

There was much excitement in the final stage of the Earl Haig Championship that is the culmination of the meeting as there was a three-way tie for 1st place after the 60 shots at 100 yards.  Those tie-ing were Ollie Barron of Watsonians, Bill Vaughan of Hawick and Lenny Thomson of Banff & Macduff.  After the 20-shot tie-breaker was over, it was Lenny who had won, with Ollie second – a very creditable performance seeing he hardly does any outdoor shooting. He also gained his first full cap for Scotland at a National Meeting. Both the Open and Women’s international matches were won by England, the latter by only two points.

The NSRA were making a big thing of this being the 100th Scottish meeting and one of the celebrations was to hold a special one-off match for all the former winners of the Haig who could attend. Eleven of them turned out and another was present but could not shoot.  Local representation was by Sinclair Bruce (2011), Bill Gibbon (1989) and Anne Hamilton (1984) (all members or ex-members of Balerno & Currie) but Susan Jackson (2005 & 2015) couldn’t make it to the range for this shoot on Wednesday afternoon due to work. Unfortunately none of the locals won the match, but all credit to Bill and Anne for taking part despite not having shot for some years (in fact many, many years in Bill’s case). It was won by Ian Shanks (Bon Accord).

The entry numbers were well up on previous years at 275. Long may that continue but there’s a feeling that the increase of over 70 from last year might just have been due to the ‘100th’ effect and things will revert to normal next year (again at Lauder).  The firing point has been improved by topping a layer of hard-core with a thick woven material.  All it needs now is to keep the cattle off it from one July to the next…

Remember, the Annual General Meeting will be held at Balerno & Currie on Thursday 16th May at 19.45. It promises to be the most interesting AGM for years.

The Agenda is in the Forms & Minutes section in the Information menu.

The final results for the Individual Postal League are now available.  Take the drop-down in the Competitions menu to see full details.

The Final stage of the Individual Championship (Indoor) took place on Saturday 30th March at Balerno & Currie’s range.  In the final, with a brilliant shoot to win his first Championship, Peter Brett (Watsonians) consigned the host club’s Niall Georgeson to the runner-up spot for the second year in a row.  One day, Niall, one day…

Take this link to see full details but here’s a summary of the proceedings:

14 of the hoped-for 16 finalists attended this knock-out championship, and there was some good shooting along the way. In round 1 the top shooters were Peter Brett and Alasdair Horne of Balerno & Currie, both with 199s, beating George Watson’s Neasa O’Connell and Watsonians’ Adam Brown respectively.  The ‘hot’ tie of the round between Jonty Barron (Watsonians) and Bill Vaughan (Hawick) went Jonty’s way, 197 to 193. The other round 1 winners were the experienced Alan Anderson (Hawick) who squeezed past young Sam Coates, (another of the Watson’s shooters) on a re-gauge,  Jamies Topley (GWC), who beast Watsonians’ Rod Bryce-Stafford with something to spare, and Adam Dove (Watsonians) who overcame clubmate Mike Warwick quite comfortably.  Robin Thomson (Watsonians) and Niall Georgeson were the lucky recipients of a Bye in round 1.

There was some good shooting in round 2, the pick being Niall’s 200 to take care of James Topley, and the 198 from Peter Brett to see off Alan Anderson. Jonty Barron beat clubmate Adam Dove by one point and Robin Thomson beat the defending Champion and multiple winner Alasdair Horne, also by only one point: Robin’s 100 on his second card to come from behind was the decider there.

So, there were three from Watsonians and one from Balerno & Currie in the semi-final. It was Peter Brett against clubmate Robin Thomson and Peter came away a convicing winner, 198 to 192. In the other tie, Niall Georgeson came out top with a fine 199 against Jonty Barron’s 196.

It was a high-scoring final, with Peter Brett putting in a wonderful 200 against Niall Georgeson’s 197.  These two were undoubtedly the best shooters on the night and deserved to contest the final. Niall scored three 100s (all consecutive), two 99s and a 98 in the three rounds he took part in, and Peter scored four 100s, three 99s and one 98 in his four rounds. Fine shooting and a deserving Champion for 2019.

As mentioned below (25th February), a General Council Meeting was held on 5th March. The draft minutes are in the ‘Forms & Minutes’ secure area of this site (see the Information menu in the sidebar). Update: A revision has been made to Para 4i (30/3/19).

As a result of the discussions, an EGM will be held at Balerno & Currie on Thursday 11th April, commencing 7.30. Here is the notice calling the meeting. All members of affiliated clubs are invited to attend.

The business of the meeting will be to discuss the various roles and responsibilities of the posts in the Management Committee and to receive nominations for any vacant posts (see sidebar) ahead of the elections at the AGM in May.

Here are ‘job descriptions’ of all the current Committee posts. If anyone is interested in taking up any post, please attend the EGM.

The final results for the Team Postal League have come through.  Take the link in the Competitions menu above to see the details.

The winner of the Duncan Cup for the best average goes to O Barron of Watsonians for the second year running, and the Smith Shield for the Best Improvement goes to T Diggle of Edinburgh University J Tracey of Prestonpans.  <=== Correction

There was an error in declaring the winner of the McLennan Medal for the LBTSA’s Outdoor Championship (see below).

The actual winner is R Olley of Edinburgh University, not R Thomson of Watsonians, who, it has been pointed out and this reporter was aware of but is rather annoyed with himself for overlooking, is ineligible as he is not resident within the boundary of the old Lothian Region.

Apologies to all concerned.

The Individual League Secretary apologises for the errors that crept into Divisions 10 and 16.  Now corrected.

MEMBERS OF AFFILIATED CLUBS SHOULD READ THIS – IT’S IMPORTANT

Please see below the text of an email sent to the secretaries of all affiliated clubs yesterday (24th Feb):

“Hi Everyone,

I hope you’ve received the announcement of the General Council which I’ve copied to you *.

I can now confirm that I have arranged to hold a General Council Meeting for the L.S.S.A in the club room at Balerno and Currie Rifle Range on Tuesday 5^th March 2019, commencing at 7:30pm. This gives a little more than the seven days notice required by our constitution.

The invitation is for at least one person – hopefully more – from each club to attend.

I realise that several of our affiliated clubs are based at a distance from Edinburgh, and it may not be practical to travel to the meeting.

The Subject of the Council Meeting is:-

“The Future of the Lothian Small-bore Association”

This is intended as a discussion forum so that we can seek ideas and make plans for the future of our association. There will be no votes cast during the meeting, but it is to be hoped that it will pave the way for a constructive, and productive AGM a few months from now.

If there are any useful suggestions which could be acted upon before the AGM, then that could happen.

Please feel free to offer constructive comments and feedback to me** at [redacted] at any time,

I look forward to a good turnout,

Regards,

Robin Thomson
LBTSA Leagues Secretary
On behalf of the Committee of the LBTSA”

* Robin initially sent this to the clubs on 19th Feb:
“As you will be aware, with the loss of John Buchanan, the recent illness of Carl Broughton and several unfilled positions on the committee, the Association is going through a difficult time at present.
I feel that we need to take action before the Association goes completely “down the tubes”.
After a brief discussion with interested parties we have decided to call together a “General Council” as soon as possible, in order to discuss the future of our Association.”

** Send anything you wish to send to Robin to the Site Administrator using the Contact Us link above and it will be forwarded to him.

Editorial:
Some might be unaware that our Secretary/Treasurer is suffering a serious long-term illness and is scheduled to undergo a bone-marrow transplant in the near future.  It is not known whether he will be able to attend this meeting or the AGM in May.

The Association has been sleep-walking into this situation for many years with positions becoming vacant and not being re-filled. It began in 1999 when Ian Thomson, the then (very effective) Chairman of a full committee, left the country to work in Sweden: he has never been replaced. John Buchanan our Vice-Chairman until his passing last July did little except chair the AGMs and very few committee meetings were held after Ian left. The clubs appeared to accept this situation and as long as the competitions kept going, nobody seemed to be worried.

Well, the writing is on the wall now and if anyone has read the sidebar on the right recently then it’s obvious that positions of responsibility have to be filled if LBTSA is to continue as a viable organisation: Chairman, Vice-Chairman, possibly a new Secretary and Treasurer, a County Captain (an official one anyway), an NSRA Representative and, certainly not least, an Awards Convenor. We cannot continue like this, hence Robin’s initiative in calling for a General Council to be convened under Article 18 of the Constitution.

It is important that all the affiliated clubs (well, the local ones anyway) encourage as many of their members to attend this meeting as possible so that full discussions can take place with as many people as possible. Every such member is invited. As Robin said above, this is not a decision-making meeting: its role is purely advisory and any proposals made can be formally addressed at the AGM.

It should be noted that the Association is in danger of breaking the terms of its own Constitution in that the Management Committee currently consists of only five members, which is the minimum permitted number. If Carl Broughton decides that he cannot carry on as Secretary & Treasurer and nobody steps up, then we are unconstitutional and could theoretically disband unless emergency action is taken.

A way ahead has to be found if LBTSA is to continue.

The draw for the first round of the Choose-Your-Own-Handical team knock-out competition has been announced.  Take the CYOH link in the Competitions dropdown above to see the details.

There are four entries – same as last season. More next time please!

As given below, the club is holding its annual Open Meeting on the weekend of 10th & 11th November, commenciing 10am each day.

Entry forms can be obtained on request here. Postal entries are encouraged, but entries will be accepted on the day subject to range space.

The meeting consists of two 30-shot competitions in four classes, shot in six 10-minute details which need not be shot consecutively.  There are also Ladies, Junior, Pairs and Team (of 3) competitions.

Catering will be provided, so no need to bring your own lunch.

The NSRA have announced a recall of faulty 2510 targets (10-bull 25-yard indoor targets).

If your club has bought any of these recently, do not use them! See here for a description of the faults (yes, there’s more than one) and the procedure to have them replaced.

If your club ends up not having any usable targets by the time our postal leagues start, then the Assocation will consider giving an extension, but inter-club lending might be a short term solution, especially in the shoulder-to-shoulder league.

Here is a reminder of the closing dates for all the LBTSA competitions for this winter season:

10th September:
Shoulder-to-Shoulder league, Team Postal League, CYOH team KO

17th September:
‘Word Cup’

3rd December:
Individual Championships, Individual Postal League

The CYOH comp needs more entries than in recent years!