Dear Member,
Council agreed in October 2005 that in order to move with the times and also to reduce the administrative burden to club officers, that the Spring Newsletter should be sent out by email and posted on the web-site. This move, of course, assumes that the majority of members have internet access and unfortunately this is not the case. Because of this, I am asking both yourselves and District Superintendents to assist with the circulation of this edition as hard copy to members without email in your immediate circle.
The Challenge of Finding an Honorary Secretary
Julie Cane completed her 3 year stint last July, and since then has become the mother of James…congratulations to mother and father, Simon.
Since then, no nominations have been received for this crucial position. As a consequence, Council agreed that the position be simplified by removing all responsibilities from it relating to the Club’s competitions, principally the KGV and Open Championships. The Spring Open Meeting is organised by a separate group of younger members, to be led once again by Paul Sykes in 2006. Thus the Honorary Secretary’s role is that of overseeing the running of the Club. Important tasks such as membership, yearbook editorship and production, clubhouse management and competitions are undertaken by other officers. The main responsibilities of the secretary are to service Council and the Executive Committee, and to ensure that the Club’s calendar of activities is running to plan. During the Meeting itself, there is some effort in servicing Council and DS meetings as well as the AGM, although minutes will normally be written up after the Meeting. This means that the role is not particularly onerous during the Bisley Meeting and so will not interfere with personal shooting commitments.
We are also considering having a Minutes Secretary to service Council meetings and the AGM to alleviate further the administrative burden of the Honorary Secretary.
The proposed Competitions Secretary will have the main responsibility during the first half of the year to ensure that the KGV heats are being run according to the rules and that the Final takes place to plan during the Bisley Meeting. During the Bisley Meeting itself, the main tasks will be the organisation of the Club Championship and Varley, and preparing the results of these competitions and the KGV for presentation of prizes at the AGM. This means that the role is ideal for a retired shooter, spouse or partner of a shooter or of the Honorary Secretary.
This is the plan and like all plans, they can break down immediately they are launched! Since we have failed to find candidates for either, I am fulfilling the role in an acting capacity as a consequence of which I am looking to simplify further the job in the hope of eventually attracting a suitable volunteer. Changes under consideration by your Executive Committee and Council are as follows:
- Cease to be a Home Office-registered club in order to reduce the need to liaise with the police regarding membership
- Simplify the entry to and running of the Club Championship by relying wholly on NRA statistics.
Given the changes above, I ask each of you to consider yourself or another member for nomination for either of the vacant positions of Honorary Secretary and Competitions Secretary. Please write to me with your suggestions.
Nominations: Election of Ordinary Members of Council
The members retiring by rotation are T G Rylands, P Sykes and P R Smith. Tom and Paul are willing to stand again for re-election in at the AGM in 2006 but Peter Smith has decided to stand down. On behalf of the Club, I am requesting nominations for this potential Council vacancy. If you have a nomination, please fill in and return the tear-off part of this Newsletter below.
The Club Yearbook, 2006 and Beyond
The yearbook for 2006 has been produced ahead of time by Peter Jordan as editor with Carol Painting producing the final pdf files and Peter merry undertaking proof reading – thanks you all. The version without members’ names is on the web-site.
This year’s yearbook has a National roll that has been produced from a database listing. We need to know about any errors so that we can correct the database. The other rolls have been produced manually again, but we are planning to create databases for the other matches during the year. We shall use the data from the 2000 archive book and the 2006 yearbook to do that, so it is important that these rolls are also correct.
Would all members please check that their entries in the National, Lawrence, Mackinnon, Kolapore and Australia match rolls in the new yearbook are accurate and send any corrections as soon as possible to yearbook@englishtwenty.org.uk and cpainting@iee.org.
The Clubhouse
Lease update: The lease is now near its final stage after much discussion and negotiation with NSC on behalf of the NRA Trustees. The principles have been agreed and we are approaching the final drafting of terms and conditions and signing.
The Armoury: The Armoury will be available for use this year but under the same restrictions as last year. However, because we no longer have an alarm that can be managed on our behalf by the Surrey, the use of lockers in the armoury for the storage of firearms or ammunition is strictly limited to the periods that the Clubhouse is in use during the shooting season, namely during the Club’s Spring Meeting, the Intercounties weekend and then the Annual Bisley Meeting. At other times, including periods between these meetings, firearms and ammunition must be removed from the lockers. If members wish to have access to their lockers outside of these meeting times, then this must be arranged with the Honorary Secretary beforehand.
Membership Facilities Committee: This committee has now been firmly established at the last AGM as the successor to the previously constituted Hut and Bar Committees. Under an informal arrangement and the chairmanship of Toby Lehmann, feedback from the greatly improved clubhouse facilities during last year’s Bisley meeting have been favourable and this was due to Steve Wilson and his team. For 2006 we plan to be open for the Spring Meeting and the Bisley Meeting starting on evening of Friday 7 July. For the Spring Meeting, we aim to offer a bar and food on both Saturday and Sunday evenings. There are also tentative plans to open for the Saturday evenings of both the Purples Match (22 Apr) and the InterCounties (18 June) subject to availability of staff and demand. It has been hoped to offer the clubhouse for use by organised groups who wish to use it as a base for a weekend of shooting at Bisley. This will be based on a charge of £30 per day over a weekend. Anyone interested should approach the Club through the Acting Honorary Secretary or the Chairman.
F Class Team to Canada, 2006
The England F Class Team to Canada under the captaincy of Peter Medhurst is now well-established and preparing for its tour to Canada in August. We wish this first England touring F Class team all the best and hope that they will provide strong competition for the Canadian and other national F Class teams in Ottawa.
England Team to South Africa, 2009
England and the other Home Countries have each been invited to send teams to South Africa in 2009 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the South African Bisley Union. Needless to say, the Chairman has accepted on behalf of the Club to send an official England team. Once Council has met in May, the processes it will wish to put into play in order to seek nominations for the captaincy will be announced during the early Summer.
Commonwealth Games, Melbourne 2006
The squad have been practicing and acclimatising in South Africa before going on to Melbourne. Glyn Barnett and Parag Patel will represent England at the Games. They will be supported by John Bloomfield as Team Manager and Jeremy Langley as Coach.The reserve is David Luckman.
We wish them every success.
Spring Meeting 2006
This year the Spring Meeting will be held at its usual time, 27th, 28thand 29th May 2005. Paul Sykes will once again lead the team who will organise this. Since the Club has formally formed its new F Class Division, the Club hopes that a significant number of F Class shooters will wish to enter. Entry forms will be available on the web site and in the Bisley Clubs soon.
Dick Horrocks, President and Acting Hon Secretary
Tom Rylands, Chairman of Council