orston sold under new management

As a not for profit club secretary for many years the cost of the clay is just one factor in determining what the venue must charge.
As I say we are a not for profit club, but the list of items that need paying never go away and never go down; ground rent, insurance, trap maintenance or replacement, trap batteries, mower maintenance, mower fuel, CPSA affiliation, building maintenance, car park maintenance, etc, etc And we have no staff to pay.

Commercial grounds will also want to make a profit.

So what each venue charges per clay will always have to factor in these cost. Then the expectation of the person shooting, do you want a nice gun shop on site, nice canteen and food, etc.

Sadly in reality the cost of the actual clay for the venue is insignificant compared to the other costs.

However my view has been its always better to keep the cost to the customer per clay as low as possible to encourage as many customers, members to shoot regular as it brings in maximum cash flow that way.

20pence per clay is very good, we can only manage 28p for members.

FESkent said:

So what each venue charges per clay will always have to factor in these cost. Then the expectation of the person shooting, do you want a nice gun shop on site, nice canteen and food, etc.

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I totally disagree with this part of your post. Gun shops and food outlets etc on clay grounds should be self funding and able to sustain themselves on a sound financial footing. Independent Gun shops in particular seem able to survive without clay ground subsidies, so I don't see why I should be charged extra to shoot just to support a vanity project that is financially unsustainable.

TRINITY said:

I totally disagree with this part of your post. Gun shops and food outlets etc on clay grounds should be self funding and able to sustain themselves on a sound financial footing. Independent Gun shops in particular seem able to survive without clay ground subsidies, so I don't see why I should be charged extra to shoot just to support a vanity project that is financially unsustainable.

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Agree the food side can be a good source of extra income for a clay ground. However the cost of operating them will have gone up, with energy costs, minimum wage, insurance, etc how often on the news do you see small food outlets complain about how much their costs have risen. Then not everybody who shoots want or use such facilities

Think that was the point I was trying to make all be it not very well.

As for gun shops surviving I can tell you as an RFD it’s not a bed of roses, I bet a lot are just surviving, first Covid, and now the ukraine war is having an impact on stock costs and stock availability. Pushing up prices to the customers.
In Kent we have seen gun shops close and clay grounds close like Greenfields of Canterbury clay ground.

Orston by reducing the price of clays are obviously hoping to encourage more to use the ground, which is to be commended.

Orston is now owned by Heckler & Koch , if they cannot afford subsadised clay prices I don't know who can ?

Yorkshire Clay Shooting said:

We pay 20p at our local and for that money it cannot be beaten at all. Having said that I don’t think 40p is out of the way as long as the ground and targets reflect so. My favourite ground Grimsthorpe is 40p and I can see why. I think the issue is when you know someone is charging what they can get away with as opposed to what the amount of effort they put in reflects.

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grimsthorpe is fabulous the topography cant be beaten but 100 clays with a buggy plus cartridges is to me quite expensive considering its button yourself you can shoot a registered competition cheaper !!!

Doctor Lecter said:

grimsthorpe is fabulous the topography cant be beaten but 100 clays with a buggy plus cartridges is to me quite expensive considering its button yourself you can shoot a registered competition cheaper !!!

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It’s by no means cheap but I would firmly throw my hat into the ring of saying it’s one of the best in the country (that I have visited) and we don’t go very often it’s more a treat to shoot so the cost doesn’t really come into it. We go with a group from our local cheaper every Sunday ground and it’s like going on the club trip from yesteryear .

Yorkshire Clay Shooting said:

It’s by no means cheap but I would firmly throw my hat into the ring of saying it’s one of the best in the country (that I have visited) and we don’t go very often it’s more a treat to shoot so the cost doesn’t really come into it. We go with a group from our local cheaper every Sunday ground and it’s like going on the club trip from yesteryear .

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Do you get sweets a bottle of pop and a couple of quid if so sign me up

Rding said:

Do you get sweets a bottle of pop and a couple of quid if so sign me up

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Erm…….. no. Do you want to sign up ?

Hello guys, Orston staff here. I just thought I'd jump on and let you know that we appreciate the supportive comments.
I wanted to address the clay prices. I'll start off by saying that whilst we do now have a lot of funding behind us, the powers that be have costed for Orston (clay shooting) as it's own entity, we will not be relying on H&K to float us going forward. We require initial cash injection from them to get the grounds back up to scratch, but the idea is that we pay for ourselves eventually. We deserve fair wages, as do our trappers, shooting instructors, referees and any future staff.
As mentioned already in this thread, the grounds requires a huge amount of money spending on it continually in order to keep it looking as pristine as a premier plus facility should.
Clays have been costed at a fair price for a commercial ground. We cannot run on 20p to 28p if we wish to continue increasing the quality of the grounds, traps and targets. There are a lot of grounds who run as not for profit, and that includes cartridge prices. But we're not one of them. We employ quite a few local people (plan to employ more) and we feel that's important for our rural and semi rural communities, especially right now.

We're open to feedback. You can always email or call us. Our changes are rolling out gradually on a planned schedule. As a little teaser though, our next change will be membership! Which we're really excited about.

I went to our local cheap club shoot once, never again, like the wild West. I would definitely pay more for quality and overall experience but it's good there's something for everyone.

ScotMac said:

I dream of 24p a clay. I recently checked half a dozen places in the South West and it ranges between 35p and 45p a clay. If anyone knows of anywhere decent that costs less, I’d be keen to know.

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Gloucester is cheap for practice.

The regular hay baler type shoots like cannington or stawell are that cheap too.

Charliedog said:

I went to our local cheap club shoot once, never again, like the wild West. I would definitely pay more for quality and overall experience but it's good there's something for everyone.

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Nonsense

jonnye said:

Nonsense

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In what way?