Summer Season
Summer, what summer?

High winds, torrential rain, fog, the occasional dry spell so damn hot it turns the soil to dust, OH that will be the United Kingdom then!

Game Keepers in the county are cursing so loudly it make your ears burn. With poults out and due out, wild game birds are suffering as every time there is a dry warm spell the chicks fair well for insects, then everything gets sodden and the mortality rate soars. The hardiest birds seem to be Partridges, with the success of the rearing and release programme near Royston the population is spreading and increasing in numbers.

Whats that got to do with clay shooting? I hear you ask. I will put it like this, if the 'keepers and farmers who release game and rely upon the return it gives them are successful they will be in better mood and might let you put on the extra shoot or two over the summer, if they are loosing a vital part of their income, they could put up their prices for the rent on the land you use to compensate........ Next time you see your landlord farmer or 'keeper make a point of asking how things are, it could win you some serious brownie points.

Shooting Sports Future

As one of the few CPSA representatives at the NATSS South East gathering on the future of our sport, the level of apathy inherent in clay shooting was really driven home to me. The only other people in the room from the CPSA were from HQ, no-one from any other county in the South East Region! There were a few ground owners there, two actually, but most all of the other attendees were from the many branches of target shooting.

Admittedly, there had been other meetings, but having chatted to the orgaisers over lunch, it would appear that they were not as well attended by CPSA members as they should have been.

The message we were all pushing back to the organisers / facilitators was -we need more communication like this!
Open and honest, no punches pulled. We will all know where we stand then. The move to a centrally run organisation can do us nothing but good.
Independently, we have relatively little power to change our sport for the good.
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.

Anon