The voice of Clayshooting

[clayman]

Olympic Shooting

 

Please try and visit the shooting pages of the BBC Olympic website and support GB shooters.

 

We have been told that the BBC will be monitoring the number of hits each site gets so this could be your opportunity to show the BBC just how popular shooting is.

 

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/s...ing/default.stm

[MC]

Why?

 

The powers to be won't listen to anything shooters have to say.

 

They have been deaf for years. The CPSA only stand to prove that. I always thought Target beagan with a T not a P, but as they didn't get there own way changing the name so they do it by stealth. One club I have shot at even has a sign up saying that scorecards marked with a K for a KILL will be ignored.

[Mungler]

Shooting "comments" section here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A39265121

 

A very disappointing performance from our shooters will not help develop the sport within the UK.

 

Unfortunately I doubt that I will be checking back on on the BBC olympic shooting web page just to see how many more golds the Chinese have picked up.

[bob300w]

Shooting "comments" section here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A39265121

 

A very disappointing performance from our shooters will not help develop the sport within the UK.

 

Unfortunately I doubt that I will be checking back on on the BBC olympic shooting web page just to see how many more golds the Chinese have picked up.

Some interesting and also some rather naive comments on that page, probably the one that sums it up best is;

 

Perhaps the government will declare an amnesty during the 2012 games so that our top pistol shooters (i.e. drug dealers, teenagers, robbers etc) can compete to give us a reasonable chance in these target disciplines.

[clayman]

Why?

 

The powers to be won't listen to anything shooters have to say.

 

They have been deaf for years. The CPSA only stand to prove that. I always thought Target beagan with a T not a P, but as they didn't get there own way changing the name so they do it by stealth. One club I have shot at even has a sign up saying that scorecards marked with a K for a KILL will be ignored.

 

 

but there lies the point - we are not listened to because we don't stand up and get counted. With only 25,000 odd members CPSA is a tiny body as far as regulators are concerned, but the shooting community is very much larger - 650,000 ish - and by not bothering to register the fact with the media at every opportunity, we continue to be ignored and sidelined.

 

Shooting does not get the exposure it should in the media, but if we, the shooting community, make it clear that we are a large sector of the viewers / readership of any shooting media exposure, then the publishers will give us more space and air time..

 

Hiding our heads and saying, well they don't listen anyway, doesn't get any message across to the regulators that do make our sport an increasingly tough one with more and more restrictions.

[Markio]

Ok, just questions waiting for genuine answers but suppose the BBC (a non-shooting organisation) get loads of hits of the shooting site, what will they do for the sport of shooting?

[clayman]

All media is driven in the same way - the amount of space, the number of topics, the interviews, the profiles of any subject are driven by the number of readers / viewers the publisher believes there are for the subject.

 

If, in a list of available sports subjects, shooting receives a low visitor count, the follow on will be no interviews, short news clips, and this will get reflected in a similar way in the dailies and other news sources - conversely, if shooting shows unexpected high interest, we will see our top people in action, being interviewed etc. The more publicity the shooting world gets the better, as we are a massive sport, and a huge industry, but because we are factionalised and tend to not publicize the sport and country activities, regulators do not have any idea of the number of people involved, and the effect on the country and sports economy when they pass rushed and ill advised reactionary regulations.

 

If we believe in preserving our shooting sport and country rights, placing hits on any monitored media site can only help keep our sport and industry alive.

[deejay]

Can we all just take a couple of mins out to hit on this,after all what harm could it do

[Bagsy]

The voice of Clayshooting was behind me at a shoot this morning, it kept saying 'miss, miss'

[MC]

Why?

 

The powers to be won't listen to anything shooters have to say.

 

They have been deaf for years. The CPSA only stand to prove that. I always thought Target beagan with a T not a P, but as they didn't get there own way changing the name so they do it by stealth. One club I have shot at even has a sign up saying that scorecards marked with a K for a KILL will be ignored.

 

 

but there lies the point - we are not listened to because we don't stand up and get counted. With only 25,000 odd members CPSA is a tiny body as far as regulators are concerned, but the shooting community is very much larger - 650,000 ish - and by not bothering to register the fact with the media at every opportunity, we continue to be ignored and sidelined.

 

Shooting does not get the exposure it should in the media, but if we, the shooting community, make it clear that we are a large sector of the viewers / readership of any shooting media exposure, then the publishers will give us more space and air time..

 

Hiding our heads and saying, well they don't listen anyway, doesn't get any message across to the regulators that do make our sport an increasingly tough one with more and more restrictions.

 

 

Shooting doesn't get the exposure in this country because A) we aren't winning any medals. Faulds can go and win as many haybales or Berretta worlds as he likes but when he is on prime time TV he stuffs it. No medal no coverage. The young girl swimmer Rebecca is all over the papers today and she will be tomorrow as will the rowers and cyclists. Much respect to them all.

 

and there is no encouragement for younger shooters and it is too bloody elitist. 90% of the people involved in competetive shooting are so far up their own backsides it is really untrue. I have met quite a few.

 

And finally C) It is boring to watch. I shoot and love shooting but to watch 10 people laying on the floor barely moving isn't interesting. Nor is watching 5 guys breaking the same trap bird at the same point over and over again.

 

The CPSA don't listen, I cannot wait for the day the NATSS gets going and I cannot wait for the one voice shooting organistaion to happen. But even this I believe is flawed and they do not want people involved who do not agree with the so called comittee.

 

I was invited to join the South east working group for the NATSS and I accepted, I sent every contact detail I had and a list of points which I wanted to discuss.

 

I have never heard another word from them.

[Chard]

there is no encouragement for younger shooters and it is too bloody elitist. 90% of the people involved in competetive shooting are so far up their own backsides it is really untrue. I have met quite a few.

 

Got to agree with you on that one, even if you are from Mersea

 

I've met a good few too. My short spell of refereeing sporting clay shoots was enough to bring me to the same conclusion. It is very off-putting for youngsters coming into the sport to encounter these snotwads. Thank Gawd for club shooting, which is an entirely different environment (it is round here anyway).

[clayman]

I think its unfair to say there is no support for youngsters.

 

At the county level, and I was on the county and regional committees for 10 yrs, almost all the money raising effort after dealing with the county champs goes to support young shots. Regretfully, this is not rewarded with any long term input to the shooting worlds membership, as most young people then fall out of the sport in their early 20s when they discover woman / marriage/ kids / careers and mortgages.

 

If you analyse the age groups in CPSA membership, there is a big fall out as soon as they cease to be teens, so all the time / effort and money that goes into recruiting and supporting young shots is largely wasted. In fact, would it not be better to spend the effort recruiting the grey haired lot, and let them bring the grand kids along? Might have a better success rate!

 

PS, for those of you who have registered a hit on the BBC site, thanks - and for those that havn't, just a note that apathy gets us no-where!

[Jan147]

Come on all, if we ALL show our support and make comments then they realise we do exisit as shooters.

 

If we dont bother then we are never going to get a bigger impact on our sport and make people interested in taking up shooting.

 

Stop being negative and JUST VOTE!

 

The comments saying we did not do well - Not everyone can win at the Olympics - but by having people there competing we are showing the world we have good shooters. At the end of the day they did their best but someone else was better. The point was we were there competing - rather than no one there.

Edited August 23, 2008 by Jan147