There was a disappointingly low turnout of LBTSA-qualified shooters at Alloa’s Double Dewar Open Meeting at the weekend but there were enough to provide our Outdoor Champions for this year.

Congratulations to Sinclair Bruce (Balerno & Currie) on winning the McLennan Medal for the 7th time, and to Rhona Dove (Watsonians) on winning the Ettrick & Lauderdale Trophy for the handicap championship.

[NB The handicap adjustments by Class originally given below were not used. Instead it was thought more appropriate to apply the handicaps used at the meeting for its Team competition, viz. A+0, B+4, C+8 and D+12.]

LBTSA (and under its various guises over the decades) has a trophy for an Outdoor Champion (The McLennan Medal), pus a handicap equivalent (The Ettrick & Lauderdale Papereweight Trophy). These have been competed for for many years at the NSRA’s Scottish National Meeting, based on the Unsquadded Aggregate there.

That meeting has not been held since 2019 so we have not had Outdoor Champions since then. The McLennan Medal goes back to 1910 so it would be a pity if this championship just faded away as the future of the Scottish Meeting is uncertain at best.

So, it has been decided that as long as the Scottish Meeting is not being held, our Outdoor Championships will be decided at the Double Dewar Open Meeting run by Alloa & District RC in August (19th & 20th this year). Take this link to download an entry form. You are advised not to leave your entry too late as this is a popular meeting.

The Scratch Champion for 2023-24 will be the competitor with the best aggregate regardless of class.
The Handicap Champion for 2023-24 will be the competitor from any class with the best adjusted aggregate depending on class (A +0, B +11, C +21, D +32).

These Championships are confined to residents of the LBTSA administrative area (i.e. Edinburgh, the three Lothians, The Scottish Borders and Dumfries & Galloway). There is no fee – all you pay are the entry fees to the meeting (£12 or £10 for Juniors).

The 4th AGM of the Lothian & Borders Target Shooting Association will take place at the range of Balerno & Currie RC on Wednesday 17th May at 7.30pm. Details have been sent to club contacts. All members of affiliated clubs are invited to attend.

As last year, it will be a ‘hybrid’ meeting, but due to the limited bandwidth at the range it is requested that everybody who can attend should do so personally to allow as many as possible of those who cannot do so to be able to join in online.

We are not using Zoom this time but Google Meet instead as there is no time restriction with that. However, users must be logged in to a Google account to join. If you don’t have one, it is free to set one up. Please join by 7:25 in case you have any technical issues so the meeting can start at 7:30.

You can join the online meeting using the link given on the secure area page that is shown by clicking the AGM Minutes button given from taking the Forms & Minutes link in the sidebar. The link has also been sent to club contacts.
(Send a request to the Site Administrator via the Contact Us link above for the password to the secure area if you do not have it.)

The Agenda and the minutes of the 3rd AGM are also available in that page of the secure area, and the Prize List is available here (as well as under Competitions/Prizelists above).

Please note that nominations for the vacant post of County Captain and the new role of Publicity Officer are invited.

The S/S League has finished and it’s a clean sweep for Balerno & Currie, who won both the Scratch and Handicap leagues. The runners-up were George Heriot’s FP and Watsonians respectively. Balerno & Currie also won the Matchplay league.

Sinclair Bruce (Balerno & Currie) had the top average in both the Scratch and Handicap leagues.

Congratulations to these winners.

Take the link in the ‘Competitions’ drop-down menu above to see full details.

The other round 1 winners were Niall Georgeson, James Gutteridge (Watsonians), Alan Anderson (Hawick), Rorie Watt (George Watson’s), Kirsty Scott (Balerno & Currie) who beat the only other lady in the Final, Lilly Brechin who has now learned the rules about cross-shooting; Daniel Gutteridge (Edinburgh University) and Keith Nixon (Hawick).

In round 2, James unfortunately had to withdraw after shooting his first card against Niall due to eyesight problems; Alan was well beaten by Rorie; Sinclair overcame Kirsty helped by the other ‘possible’ of the night and Daniel got the better of Keith after a re-gauge.

In the first semi-final, it took two regauges to separate Niall and Rorie, with Niall progressing to the final. In the other, Sinclair beat Daniel by only one point after matching first cards.

In the final, Niall took the trophy for the first time with scores of 98, 99 versus Sinclair’s 95,99.

The shoot started late due to most of the EU contingent being held up in traffic and it went on far too long and not just because of that. Thanks to all who stuck it out to the end and I hope everyone got home not too late.

The results of the final round of the new Club Pairs League have just been published. Take the link under Competitions above to see full details, but the headlines are:

The winners of Division 1 are Balerno & Currie A (Alasdair Horne and Niall Georgeson), who kept Pentland A behind them all the way.

The winners of Division 2 are Prestonpans B (Greg McMillan and Will Horton) who took top spot after swapping 1st & 2nd places with their C team all season.

The top average pair was, unsurprisingly, Balerno & Currie.

Congratulations to all, and thanks to Robin Thomson for running the competition.

This competition has got off to a good start, so perhaps more clubs will be encouraged to join in next season.

The results for round 9 of the Club Pairs League are now available.

Balerno & Currie seem to have division 1 in the bag, but it’s neck and neck in division 2 between Prestonpans B and Prestonpans C. These two have been swapping P1 and P2 all season, and this time the B team are in the lead by a single point having had the top score in the round. Round 10 will decide!

The new Club Pairs League is rolling along nicely. We have two divisions with six and five pairs respectivley, representing five clubs. The results for rounds 5 and 6 have just been published.

Division 1 is already looking good for the pair from Balerno & Currie, with Watsonians A, Pentland and Edinburgh University A all scrapping it out for the runners-up spot.

Division 2 is much closer, with Prestonpans C currently just ahead of their B team clubmates: these two pairs have been swapping P1 and P2 for two or three rounds now. Which one will take the top spot at the end?

In a flurry of activity, the results for round 4 of the Team Postal league, the latest three matches in the Shoulder to Shoulder league, round 4 of the Pairs league and round 3 of the Benchrest league have all been uploaded to the site today. Round 4 of the World Cup went up yesterday.

Frank’s funeral will be at Warriston Crematorium at 11:30 am on Monday 31st October.

I have the sad duty to record the passing of two local shooters this week, both members of Balerno & Currie.

Frank Gifford passed away in a nursing home yesterday (13th October). He had been unwell for some time and had moved there after a lengthy stay in hospital. Frank had been a member of the renowned Edinburgh Citizens club before it folded and he joined BCRC, eventually becoming its Hon. President. He was also active in the world of lawn bowls.

News has just come in today that Adrian Weatherhead died last Sunday while on holiday in Portugal. No further details are currently available. He was 79 and a true gentleman. He shot prone for most of his shooting career but latterly turned his hand to air pistol shooting.  In earlier days, he was a talented athlete and represented GB and Scotland at middle- and long-distance running. Here’s a link to his profile as a runner.

Readers may or may not know that Edinburgh Civil Service Rifle club has closed. It latterly had a smallish membership and the fee required for Home Office approval in order for it to continue proved to be too much, and also the long-standing Secretary, Graeme Fraser, had decided to stand down. Graeme was the club’s secretary for almost twenty years, so he has earned his retirement.

The club was founded on 16th November 1905 (boasting 225 members only a month later) so it was one of the oldest rifle clubs in the UK. They celebrated their centenary with a black-tie dinner in Leith’s Vintners Rooms which was as close a venue as they could find to their original range premises in Lower Broughton Road. The original members formed the club ‘as they recognised that the manhood of the nation should learn how to handle the service rifle and how to shoot straight … in a spirit of loyalty of patriotism and devotion to King and country‘. This was in line with Field Marshal Earl Roberts’ well-known view at the time that British soldiers in the Boer War were hopeless shots and indeed the Earl was appointed the club’s first Hon President the following year.

The club has operated in several different ranges over the years. In 1908 they moved to the range under the Synod Hall (a now-demolished cinema/theatre in Castle Terrace). Several other local clubs also used that range for many years following, but in 1911 Civil Service were off again to a new range in a hall below Lady Glenorchy’s United Free Church at the top of Leith Walk. It has also been described as being below the Playhouse Cinema but was known to the local shooting community just as ‘Greenside’, referring to the narrow lane used to access it. Again, that range was shared by other clubs (Edinburgh Citizens and Eastfield) but Civil Service was the primary occupier. The club remained there for seventy years until the closure of those premises forced another move in 1981, this time to share (with Edinburgh Railways RC and other clubs) the quirky range underneath Waverley Station’s main concourse. Hardly anyone apart from the local shooters even knew of its existence and members and opposing teams often received strange looks from passing travellers as they carried their rifles towards the unmarked and inconspicuous door down to their subterranean lair. It was a warm range due to the station’s steam heating pipes going along the ceiling of the clubroom. There was an incident a few years later when one of the three-inch diameter high-voltage cables in a service tunnel in the roof-space shorted out with a loud bang and it all went dark. Shooting was abandoned for that night.

In 1991 after a tightening up of range safety regulations caused the closure of that range, the club was forced to move again, this time to share the range of Dalkeith Buccleuch RC in the grounds of Dalkeith Palace, but after another ten-year stint the estate decided to redevelop the range area and the club had to find new premises yet again. That move was to the range of Balerno & Currie RC and proved to be their last.

The club effectively became an ‘open’ club when an EGM in 1958 resolved to allow ‘friends and relatives’ of Edinburgh and district civil servants to be admitted as associate members of the club. That was probably in response to a declining membership.

Notable shooters to come from the club included Tom Dowie and Jack and George Proudfoot, who among them won many trophies. Tom was also the County Secretary for some years in the 1970s.

It’s sad to see yet another club having to close, but that seems to be the way things are going these days. Masonic, Pathhead, Dalkeith, Selkirk and now ECS have all gone in the last few years.

(My thanks to Graeme Fraser for supplying virtually all of the above information, padded out with this writer’s personal knowledge)