I don’t know what’s happening in the North Island, but it seems the rats are jumping ship and coming south. Your loss is our gain! Over the last few weeks, several pistol shooters have moved to Nelson and joined our club. The addition of experienced people has been a real bonus for our small club, helping to run weekend shoots, training sessions, and ‘Sunday Gun Days’.
Our club and its reputation are very important, and we do a lot of work to keep our club, its members, and others safe beyond question. What this means for new members is a few emails and the odd phone call, just as an extra check to see what their last clubs thought of them. This is something we’ve have done for many years.
Range safety is not something that should be talked about every ‘once in a while’ or just when someone is watching. We all understand that even a small mistake can have huge consequences. As we primarily compete in IPSC pistol, and to a lesser extent 3Gun, we run to the international IPSC rule book like it’s gospel. This helps us keep it tight at our club and when we travel to away matches. Range officers keep a very close eye at these events and disqualification is embarrassing.
Like all clubs, we are made up of volunteers and this can take up a lot of time and often falls on the same few people. Over the last few years, we have been lucky and gained some new people making our club a lot stronger. With the next wave of changes that the police will be enforcing on clubs this is extremely important.
Now, let me tell you what you can do to help at your own clubs. We all have different skills and demands on our time but if everyone does a little bit then it lightens the load for us all. Have a look next time you are at your club and see what needs a little TLC. Ask someone on the committee if there’s something you can do. Most importantly, talk to people. If you shoot, be it target or hunting, you can help get more and more people to understand that they have nothing to fear from the licensed holders.
Our problem is so many people don’t understand what we do and who we are. We are a very diverse group of people, who are honest and trustworthy. Unfortunately, that makes for poor stories in the mainstream media. So, we need to step up and explain what we do and why we do it. Information and understanding are key.
