CPSA Clubman Classic Competition

[Hotshot100]

Now good people this is a topic that I can talk about because unlike the majority I was involved in this competition last year.

The Kent & Sussex league started out with 7 or 8 clubs competing and after only 2 shoots this had dropped to 4/5 due to the amount of travelling involved and the cost of entry.

By the end of the series only 2 clubs remained ,Greenfields and Normanton.

Because of the format not one club managed to field a full team for every shoot. Due to the distance between the participating clubs to have shot every shoot would have involved travelling a total of 500-600 miles.

The cost of entry started at £18.00 for 50 birds then at shooters requests it was increased to 70 birds with an entry fee of £24.00.

Don't forget that this was supposed to attract the clubman shooter in 'C' class not the regular competition shots that are used to travelling long distances to shoots.

The CPSA completely bypassed the local committees and failed to contact any of the smaller more local affiliated grounds to see if they were interested in joining in.

One ground actually apologised to shooters for what they were charging bu said that they were forced to do so by the CPSA.

At the end of the series we were all contacted by RW and asked for our opinions of the 2011 shoot and how it might be improved for this year. I know that several people replied and the general concensus was that there was too much travelling and that the costs were too high and suggestions were made as to how these issues could be addressed.

To my knowledge RW didn't have the common courtesy to acknowledge one person that took the trouble to reply to him.

This year now looks like being an even bigger shambles than last year. The league is due to start shortly and even the grounds/clubs that have signed up for it don't know what the format is for this year.

I know that my local ground is considering pulling out before it even starts due to the lack of communication.

This apparently was funded by the Sports Council grant. Good use of the money?? Not in my book.

 

[Michael]

Hotshot100

Oh dear the wife & I have just signed up for one of the Hampshire teams. Just have to hope for the best & prepare for the worst.

Michael

 

[Hotshot100]

Hotshot100

Oh dear the wife & I have just signed up for one of the Hampshire teams. Just have to hope for the best & prepare for the worst.

Michael

I think the Hampshire one worked better because at least it was all kept in one county. I hope that you and your wife enjoy it, if you don't then I'm sure that you'll vote with your feet.

Roger

 

[Fuzrat]

Hampshire one did indeed work well, I'll expand when on the pc

 

[Michael]

I think the Hampshire one worked better because at least it was all kept in one county. I hope that you and your wife enjoy it, if you don't then I'm sure that you'll vote with your feet.

Roger

That's good, I registered her in team without her knowing, only just been restored to normal relations. :rtfm:

 

[DoubleBarrelledDon]

In principle this should be a winner when you think about it. We have been doing something similar for years between 8 or 10 shooting syndicates. We have a home or away match once a week during the summer usually on a wednesday evening, shoot a 40 birder, a flush for some fun and then off to the pub.

Ahhh the summer... i remember having one of those....ONCE!

 

[Hotshot100]

In principle this should be a winner when you think about it. We have been doing something similar for years between 8 or 10 shooting syndicates. We have a home or away match once a week during the summer usually on a wednesday evening, shoot a 40 birder, a flush for some fun and then off to the pub.they were

Ahhh the summer... i remember having one of those....ONCE!

When they were looking to start this up Nick Fellows asked me if I had any ideas of how to go about it. I pointed him in the direction of the Wednesday night pub leagues that they run during the summer up in Yorkshire as these have been going for years, are very popular and raise lots of money for the Air Ambulance.

They were obviously approached as are there are some similarities, however the main differences are cost Yorkshire is £7.00 for 30 clays including a raffle ticket and post shoot meal. They are all close together, I remember going to one ground on a Sunday morning and being able to see 4 other grounds from there.

It is also a very sociable affair in Yorkshire, the Kent & Sussex league wasn't, I didn't even know who some of my teams shooters were let alone those from other clubs. 

 

[Richard59]

Would add that am interested enough to give it a go this year and will be with one of the Hampshire clubs, there's nothing in Gloucesterhire at present although there is quite a few clubs and grounds in the county so could happen here.

 

[Fauldsy]

We hosted an event and fielded nearly a full team at every event of the Hampshire league and everyone who took part (to our knowledge) really enjoyed it.

We converted a good few people into the competition scene that otherwise may have not taken the plunge... Ultimately this was the aim of the game.

We are now recruiting new members for the summer league if anyone's keen??

 

[Fuzrat]

Hotshot, I think you could be right that Hampshire ran very smoothly and was well attended because all the grounds are very local. Kent and Sussex is a long bit of coast to cover. There may well have been mistakes made for the K&S league but it was the guinea pig to a certain extent and hopefully lessons have been learned from the success of the Hampshire competition that will filter into the K&S. I do think the smaller affiliates should have been invited that is after all the point of the exercise, however we can all do our bit to involve these clubs. Surely everyone knows somebody that is a member of the local small club and all it takes is a "have you guys heard of this new clubman league?" Ok not our job but it feels good to get more people into competitive shooting, no?

I for instance, know of a pub league that is operating quite successfully in Oxfordshire/Bucks border that could quite feasibly put together teams for a clubman league as and when it is rolled out in these counties.   

A lot of the success was, I believe, down to the ground owners at the various venues that welcomed all shooters. I personally think RichW should be applauded for his efforts at this, granted the K&S might not have lived up to your expectations, but as an initiative I think its a great idea. RichW was always available at our shoots for suggestions and criticism and it has to be remembered that inevitably there will be teething problems.

I say give it a few seasons to evolve, lets see how the new Surrey league goes (along with the second Hants and K&S) and hopefully lessons will have been learnt. 

 

[Hotshot100]

Fuzrat, If you look at the CPSA front page there's a bit on there about the K&S league this year. There is only one Kent club in it and they're thinking of pulling out because they can't see their members being prepared to travel to Sussex for all bar one shoot.

It's no wonder that none of the clubs in West Sussex entered last year as they would have had to travel to Canterbury and Sandwich for two of the shoots and that's a hell of a trip.

Just out of interest what is the distance between your two clubs that are farthest away from each other? Ours was over 100 miles.

You're right there are a lot of clubs in Kent and I would have been quite prepared to approach them as I know the owners/committee members. We could have probably run at least 2 or maybe 3 leagues in Kent alone but I wasn't asked.

The only shoot that I saw Richard at was the one at Greenfields in February and he made no attempt to introduce himself. We were told that Nick Fellows was coming to make the presentations but he didn't turn up.

I'm glad that it worked for Hampshire and hope that it does for Surrey but I don't think it will ever work as a K&S league the two counties need to be seperated.

I don't know how much support it would get in Kent, It is very difficult to get any one to take an interest in the county. I have lived here all my life and still don't know why this is so, maybe it's apathy or just that people want to just do their own thing.

Two years ago I tried to run a free to enter competition at one of our local clubs, I got a trophy plus nearly a £1,000.00 worth of really good shooting related prizes. All that the shooters had to do was hand in their score cards from 3 club competitions but most couldn't be bothered in fact some were even quite rude and abusive when asked to do so. In the end I cancelled the whole thing and returned the prizes to the donors. Was I frustrated or what??

 

[RichW1234]

Hi - I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the Kent & Sussex League last year but we had 50 - 60 at each of the fixtures who did and the majority of the feedback was very good indeed. Both myself and my colleague Peter Tomlin from the CPSA attended every shoot right from the beginning in both the Kent & Sussex and the Hampshire League's and sorted out the winning scores etc after each event so that they could be posted on our website asap for people to see.

Admittedly it would have been good to have more Clubs from Kent involved but we did try and you have said it yourself there doesn't seem to be much interest in Kent to take part in these things! Without the level of interest from Kent Clubs we decided to merge the two counties into one League to make it worthwhile! I appreciate that there was some travelling involved (as we did it every time) but I did speak to the Captain of the Greenfields Team who said they were used to travelling to other grounds and that they enjoyed shooting at the different locations.

We have set the fixtures for this year's League which will continue the 70 bird format and Stumbletts GC are now holding a fixture and Mill Farm CPC are holding a fixture and entering a team for the first time. If you think you can get other Clubs to enter teams by all means speak to them as the more the merrier.

As fuzrat says the Hampshire League went very smoothly and we have now got two more full teams involved for this year's League but it actually ran for 2012 with less numbers than the Kent & Sussex League!

I'm sorry I didn't attempt to introduce myself at the presentation shoot. I don't know everybody individually and as I believe you only shot in two of the 6 fixtures I obviously didn't get to meet you. I'll try harder this year!

Richard

 

[Hotshot100]

Thanks Richard, I have now found out that some of the people with similar observations to mine that should have replied to you actually didn't. Kent again!! :spiteful: :spiteful:

I will certainly try to get some more clubs involved in the county although this might be difficult maybe I should try for next year. If I have any success I'll let you know.

May be a slightly different format would work better in Kent, I don't know how you feel about that, perhaps you would let me know.

I still think that it might help if you tried to enlist the help of the County Committee as they feel that they are being bypassed. Tim Greenwood our county chairman was actually at the Greenfields shoot and if I had realised who you were I would have made a point of introducing you.

Never mind we unfortunately don't live in a perfect world,it wouls probably be extremely boring if we did!!

ATB

Roger

 

[Hotshot100]

I have just read the rules for this years competition and am now a lot better informed and happier with the way that the league is being run. The cost being set by the CPSA is advisory (30p per clay) which is very much in line with what I would expect to pay at most grounds. This is not compulsory, the only thing that is is the £1.00 per head levy which is payable to the CPSA and which I feel is not unreasonable.

I also now know how the classification system works which was previously a mystery both to myself and the majority of others.

For the full rules go to the Clubman Link on the CPSA website and open the PDF document. It's worth a look before shooting.

I don't know if this has been changed from last year or whether some members/clubs weren't aware of the rules.

Can't do anything about the travelling for this year but hopefully next year might be a different matter.

 

[Jonathan Sargent]

I for instance, know of a pub league that is operating quite successfully in Oxfordshire/Bucks border that could quite feasibly put together teams for a clubman league as and when it is rolled out in these counties.

Fuzrat - I've just moved to Oxfordshire Buckinghamshire border. Got any details of the pub league? Please...

 

[Fuzrat]

Its based Bicester way I think matey, PM heading your way with contact details, Wouldnt want to put them on here without the guys knowledge