Have county shoots had their day

[Deershooter]

As it's the end of the competition year I have just analysed Lincolnshire county shoots this is what I found

Out of all shoots these are the attendances

Discipline Amount of Lincolnshire shooters

Skeet Doubles. 8

Double Trap 3

UT. 9

DTL. 26

FITASC. 19

Sport Trap. 18

All Round. 29

Double Rise. 8

HBD. 7

Sporting. 70

Skeet. 2

SB. 7

OT. 12

ABT. 19

This just goes to show sporting is almost 3 times as popular as other disciplines

The CPSA should help the counties to encourage shooting at this level and stop using the big shoots as a cash cow is it really worth spending on the minor disciplines at all.

There is just too many shoots that call them selves "Championships" sorry but you need more than 10 people for a championship

 

[Doctor Lecter]

looking at your findings , have to say yes .

 

[chubby]

Double Trap 3, says a lot doesn't it. 

 

[ehb102]

I think it's more a comment on the state of the relationship between the shooters and the local CPSA. We have much better attended events in Cambridgeshire, but that's probably because the individuals on the committee do a lot of work promoting championships and encouraging people to compete. Counties should be using county championships as a way to encourage new competitors, but of course most of them don't.

 

[Dog Tyred]

Liz

I suspect some of that may be as a result of having Nuthampstead on your door step which provides all the disciplines for county events...including double trap, Olympic trap and skeet, ABT, UT, DTL and sporting (of sorts). Far more likely to get higher attendance if people don't have to travel 2 hours to get to a ground, assuming of course that there are the shooters anyway?

Don't know what facilities are like in Lincs but I believe the Lincs UT and ABT champs were held at Rubgy this year so quite a trawl. 

Staffordshire's OT county champ is being held at Griffin Lloyd which is in another country, let alone another county!! 

Just not enough grounds have the facilities.

DT

 

[philmoss]

Many competition shooters talk with their feet.........

You can lead a horse to water, BUT you cant make them drink it !!!

 

[Dog Tyred]

Double Trap 3, says a lot doesn't it. 

Skeet was the one that shocked me.

DT

 

[ehb102]

Liz

I suspect some of that may be as a result of having Nuthampstead on your door step which provides all the disciplines for county events...including double trap, Olympic trap and skeet, ABT, UT, DTL and sporting (of sorts). Far more likely to get higher attendance if people don't have to travel 2 hours to get to a ground, assuming of course that there are the shooters anyway?

Don't know what facilities are like in Lincs but I believe the Lincs UT and ABT champs were held at Rubgy this year so quite a trawl. 

Staffordshire's OT county champ is being held at Griffin Lloyd which is in another country, let alone another county!! 

Just not enough grounds have the facilities.

DT

Yes, I nearly posted something to that extent. Still, the skeet numbers are a bit of a surprise.

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Well I hate to disagree with anyone but.....it is the shooters who no longer want to shoot for their county as evidenced across many counties at the minute. It is not the fault f the committees not working hard enough. Most committees have places free for anyone to join them and give addition input into how to encourage more shooters. Many committee members would love to hand over the reins to new groups of shooters....because they have been in post for many years holding it all together and would really like to retire from the committees.

Here in Berkshire we run 14 county championships plus other events like the Stephen Halfacre Memorial Cup that starts this year. No one could accuse us of not working hard for the county....and our committee is held together by only 4 people. We give hours and hours on free coaching to juniors and newcommers. We would be delighted to get more people to join and work on the committee (believe me we would) and we are also just as happy to all come off to let another team take over. The thing is that no one wants to do the work these days. There is no pride in shooting to become a county champion or be in a county team anymore.

In reality shooters are sniffy (apart from a few) about attending county championships when in fact this should be seen as the ideal starter point for anyone looking to do well in shooting or anyone who wants to compete for England or GB. The inter-county matches are where you learn team work and in a relaxed way, just how much your score matters to the whole team....where you learn from more experienced shooters the art of keeping it together until the end of the match.....you get encouragement to shoot well....you pick up tips across the range of shooting.

You do not hear any of the daft comments like....bottled it, blown up, crashed and burned, could not cut it etc etc...like you often see written these days. You learn respect of your team mates efforts....and help to dig people out of a hole and bring them back up if they are having a bad day.

Nope....sadly shooting is becoming an I I I ME ME ME game......and a lot of the counties will suffer if this attitude to county championships and inter-county teams does not change. There are very very few strong counties left and I can see other regions ending up like the North......with just a regional committee and no county committees.

 

[dashman1]

100% correct atb

 

[Les53]

Well down in Dorset there has been some apathy over the past year or two, mainly due to the likely closure of Southern Counties and also Purbeck. People have started to lose interest and seem to have drifted away, not sure where to though. I doubt if there is a single reason for people not wanting to shoot for their county or attend county shoots. There could be any number of reasons and these could change from area to area and discipline to discipline. I'm sure our county CPSA secretary (Garry2749) will be able to shed a far more elaborate  light on it though!

 

[Julesy]

Lincolnshire have to host all of their championships outside of county. They have a good and well organised committee that try to give good value to the shooters in the county. There are trophies and keepsake glassware for championships, they run a supreme championship and produce a handbook for all the shooters. They have a web page and Facebook.

And as you can see from the level of support on virtually no money from levies.

How many of the championships did you shoot yourself Deershooter? Maybe if you spent more time supporting the county rather than criticising it you would have something to be proud of instead of the constant negativity.

 

[Rosso]

As it's the end of the competition year I have just analysed Lincolnshire county shoots this is what I found

Out of all shoots these are the attendances

Discipline Amount of Lincolnshire shooters

Skeet Doubles. 8

Double Trap 3

UT. 9

DTL. 26

FITASC. 19

Sport Trap. 18

All Round. 29

Double Rise. 8

HBD. 7

Sporting. 70

Skeet. 2

SB. 7

OT. 12

ABT. 19

This just goes to show sporting is almost 3 times as popular as other disciplines

The CPSA should help the counties to encourage shooting at this level and stop using the big shoots as a cash cow is it really worth spending on the minor disciplines at all.

There is just too many shoots that call them selves "Championships" sorry but you need more than 10 people for a championship

That's every shooter in Lincolnshire then.

Don't see what the issue is.

 

[RobertBeard]

There are lots of people who just want to shoot for fun without the pressure of competition or they have the feeling that they are not good enough and will be embarrassed by their effort so fail to enter.  This is the same problem that we have in target shooting.

People need to be chivied and cajoled by those who go and enjoy it to enter.  Try and treat it like any other shoot with your mates and you might find that you enjoy it and surprise yourself!

I wonder how Deerhunter would feel if it transpired that the Committee are all ISSF shooters and decide to junk the rest of the shoots and he lost out!

Well done to the county for continuing to offer all disciplines for competition.

 

[Will Hewland]

I still see it as county shooting just not holding enough kudos or publicity to attract shooters..

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Well for info....as I have mentioned before....we in Berkshire have offered 14 different disciplines as county shoots... for donkey years...we have trophies for seniors, juniors, ladies for each discipline. We also have an end of year Supreme trophy for Senior, Ladies, Juniors and Veterans given to the highest combined scores in each category...............and still we are light on numbers.

If any Berkshire shooters want to take over and try something else...then please feel free....the whole thing can be yours as soon as you want. Failing that....we will not have much after Jan 2015 to play in...if anything.

It may be that the well attended disciplines are taken on by someone or it may be that we have no committee at all.

Time will tell.

 

[bostonmick]

The lincolnshire county sporting shoot seems to attract a decent turnout. I would estimate there were a couple of hundred there this year.maybe not all looking for a place on the team and that I would put down to expense.do county shoots have a future I do not know. Hopefully so.

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Sporting shoots are always well attended because they always have shooters from other counties there as well.

 

[Jan Powell]

What mustn't be forgotten is that the county committee exists to represent the interests for all its members, irrespective of the discipline they shoot. As others have said, the lack of county championship support is widespread across the country and indicative of the state of shooting nowadays. More and more events have to be held outside the county, sometimes even outside the region. In Lincolnshire it's only really DTL, Skeet and Sporting that pay their way but that doesn't matter, the committee should support everyone irrespective of the chosen discipline or shooting ability.

To say only championships with 10 or more shooters should count is nonsense. Those 10 Olympic Trap shooters may be far more competitive than 100 Sporting shooters. The numbers don't matter too much, it's the quality of the event that counts.

Oh, and Dean, I think you're getting confused over English and Olympic Skeet. There were plenty of Lincolnshire shooters at the English Skeet championship.