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CPSA Hertfordshire
Website

APRIL
The ESP team kicked us off recently at Southdown, finishing 8th in the South East Region table (See the Results page for breakdown). Well done all, with special thanks to Roy Tyler for pulling together the team at extremely short notice!

Individually some of our members did rather well in the Essex Masters 2008 - Jane Malloney managed a 145 to place her 5th in the Ladies, Jack Lovick an impressive 163 to place him joint 2nd in Colts.

It would appear that the rust on Chris Winebank's gun did slow him down a tad, after being in storage for the past two seasons he finally managed to jemmy open his gun cabinet door and squeeze a cartridge or two into the chambers for a 13th place at the Essex Masters (unlucky for some). Maybe a little oil and some elbow grease might help! But I did hear that he cleaned up at a local shoot with a few mates recently, he's probably not up to the stamina required for the Masters yet!

May
The true start to the Summer Season, and we start with Tythe Farm this month
I do hope everyone who is interested in representing their county has let the respective Team Manager know that they are available to compete, We will be selecting the best shots from the County Championships to fill the ranks of the teams as usual, but we also need reserves.

Flaming June!
If the old saying is anything to go by we should be in the middle of a heat-wave.
I suppose we can all dream………
Making the most of this months fixtures the county teams will be in full flow at inter-county competitions. I hope all interested parties have ensured a place by registering their interest with the appropriate team manager.

Shooting Sports – The Future
As the only CPSA County representative at the NATSS South East gathering on the future of our sport, I found myself embarrassed to say the least, as I was surrounded by a sea of full and small bore shooters, who obviously take their sport seriously enough to show their commitment in person.
I do not know why there were not more CPSA members there, but what I do know is they missed a prime opportunity to voice their opinions and have a hand in the move to a centrally governed shooting sports body. It is disheartening to hear the same people moan time and again about things happening that they have no say in and being ridden roughshod over where decisions are concerned and how well they would do things if they were in a position to affect the future of our sport. If you value your opinion but did not attend how do you expect to be heard! Email and telephone communications are OK but if you want to make a point, BE THERE!
The series of meetings was well publicised on the CPSA web site, why did you not ask to attend?
A sustainable future for shooting sports relies upon the full support of the individual grass roots shooter, in case you don’t realise who that is - it’s YOU and me.
I attended to represent the county membership and can report to you now that the message that all of the delegates there were pushing back to the organisers / facilitators was - we need more opportunity for open and honest, no punches pulled communication.
Whether there will be remains to be seen, but I believe that is the plan.

To be frank, the move to a centrally run organisation can do us nothing but good.
Independently, we have had relatively little power to change legislation around shooting sports to our favour.
United, into a cohesive strength of approaching 1.6 million people, (that many votes - governments listen) we will be able to lobby government, put to bed the international issues we suffer from in competition, and have a much LOUDER, SINGLE voice which we can put to good use.

We stand alone as sports men and women, largely competing against ourselves to grow and develop, the idea of a centralised ruling / guiding body is not new, but in today’s uncertain political climate it makes sound business sense, but the transition will take some serious management. I would therefore like to ask all county members to give the plans their backing and make the transition – when it comes - as easy as possible.
The central body must be run as a business – it’s the only viable alternative, it cannot show favour to any one of the sports that it will represent, but must support them all with the same vigour, tenacity and even handedness.

I look forward to reading the HQ’s take on the series of meetings and the general viewpoint of the attending membership.

Paul Blackman - Webmaster