CPSA ESK Survey

[woody100]

5k a year - pah.

. Dave I know you registered over 7k last year.And if I wasn't a poor old chimney sweep and was as wealthy as you, I reckon I'd probably get close to that. See you at the wknd bud for another lesson!?

 

[Mac]

. Dave I know you registered over 7k last year.And if I wasn't a poor old chimney sweep and was as wealthy as you, I reckon I'd probably get close to that. See you at the wknd bud for another lesson!?

Shouldn't you have your head up a chimney. Might help pay for those other 2k targets.

 

[chippy]

I have been fortunate in that when I have joined in a round with experienced skeet shooters (some who have in the past shot for country) they have always been very encouraging and welcoming and in the early days patient.  I have only experienced one up his own wotsit who happened I think to be a OSK shooter doing a round of ESK and it was only him and me and he grunted at me all the time but I just ignored him.

I reckon he was playing hard to get.

 

[RobertBeard]

I reckon he was playing hard to get.

Sounds like he didn't have to try too hard!

 

[Danny 82]

I fundamentally disagree with the statement "Skeet shooters seem to have little tolerance for newbies", it goes with out saying that there are some who exhibit this attitude, but it is not, in my experience, the case with all skeet shooters. We often welcome new skeet shooters into our practice shoots and help and advise them. I don't think its fair to tar us all with the same brush. In fact I enjoy helping new shooters to understand and improve at the discipline. Most of us shoot skeet because we have a passion about it and I for one am only to happy to help new shooters.

Couldn't agree more, in fact NedFlanders was the first person to invite me along to shoot with a lovely group of shooters!

They made me the skeet shooter I am , friendly, helpful and made shooting enjoyable for me when I first started! Even now, I would feel comfortable asking any skeet shooter for help and advice and I'm not sure many would refuse

I've been fortunate to shoot with a lot of skeet shooters who are country, county and part time shooters and have always felt that all shooters I have shot with are very tolerant of me and my poor shooting sometimes!!! Haha!

 

[snipey]

Well this has certainly been an interesting topic!

For me it is accessibility (as mentioned elsewhere), here in the southwest there isn't a lot of registered skeet especially through the winter months!
A couple of year ago I only shot skeet with the aim of going for the England team, I was lucky to have a practise ground but I was having to travel a lot to compete and found it was taking its toll. I become tired of travelling sometimes up to 7hrs a day to shoot at mid Wales when nothing else on. I then lost my practise ground, and there wasn't anyway I could shoot enough to get me where I wanted to be; so I sold up and moved over to DTL which is much more popular down here!
So to address a few of the specific point raised:
- speed, it won't make a difference! Decent grounds can make the targets shootable in all but the worst conditions, Nottingham are very good at this! But ultimately ALL disciplines are adversely affected by the weather!
- tolerance, as in all walks of life there are a$$holes! But on the whole most skeet shooters are happy to help; there is always the case that the newbie is an arrogant knowitall, who can make helping and shooting with a nightmare! Having met Joe Kitson on numerous occasions, I can assure you it would be hard to find a more knowledgable and friendly person!
- nssa, if people want to shoot the gauges let them shoot nssa; to me that discipline is less accessible than ESK as its only shot at few clubs up country!


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[low6ahh99]

Well it never fails to amaze me how many shooters are very quick at slagging other skeet shooters off,Its a survey nothing more and all shooters are entitled to their opinion.

Move with the times or get left behind for me speed the up !!!!!!!!!!

 

[NedFlanders]

Accessibility seems to be a common thread, I am luck enough to live and work just 10 minutes from a ground with excellent skeet facilities. So maybe the CPSA committee looking at this should be asking ground owners what their views are on providing skeet facilities. Of course a lot of grounds may only be suitable for sporting but there must be some out there that could provide skeet but don't.

Maybe one of the things they could do is on the CPSA web site under "Find a ground" maybe you could search by type of facility as well e.g skeet, dtl, abt instead of just by name or county

 

[Skeetfreak]

Accessibility seems to be a common thread, I am luck enough to live and work just 10 minutes from a ground with excellent skeet facilities. So maybe the CPSA committee looking at this should be asking ground owners what their views are on providing skeet facilities. Of course a lot of grounds may only be suitable for sporting but there must be some out there that could provide skeet but don't.

Maybe one of the things they could do is on the CPSA web site under "Find a ground" maybe you could search by type of facility as well e.g skeet, dtl, abt instead of just by name or county

Accessibility.....

I can give an example of this and the benefit for the ground and shooters since. (Now before you all moan its a NSSA example and then a suggestion)

Back over the winter of 2013/2014 i approached a local ground to me with a SINGLE skeet layout about if they would throw some registered targets for me and a few mates once a month. The ground owner agreed as long as it did not cost him any money.

So we struck a deal that i would personally pay the grounds FIRST yearly registration fee ($50 / £33) and any shooter fees needing to be pad to the association were simply added onto the practice rates. One of the UK NSSA directors came out and measured the layout and checked its conformity for throwing proper targets etc - FOR FREE.

So in Feb 2014 the ground threw its FIRST ever registered targets (now this ground has existed since around 1980). In the first month it threw 1600 registered targets. By the end of October 2014 it had thrown over 26,000 registered NSSA targets. It had also signed up several new members to the association as well as secured renewals for others.

This was a huge leap forward for a SINGLE SKEET LAYOUT - The ground owner put this back into the layout by working hard on the looks and also invested in new traps for the layout. It also now has radio release. Currently the owner is putting in all weather gridding under the grass to prevent the layout getting too muddy / cut up over winter.

For the 2015 season the ground has now gone "Monthly targets" and skeet shooters are able to shoot registered targets any day the ground is open with a fully qualified NSSA referee as the ground has run training courses for $5 to qualify 6 new referee's. As well as the monthly targets options they are also holding certain special events such as:- 

4 x 50 

Mini Ironman's

This means the ground has shoots that are taking bookings into July so that people can get slots to shoot these events. Again the payback for the shooters for their support is again on the way for 2015 - two more skeet traps have been sourced and a second layout has gained planning permission to be built. All being well this will be done over this year and will be ready for autumn / winter 2015. The ground is gaining a reputation that means it gets shooters from all over the UK turning up to shoots its registered targets on various days of the week.

Bear in mind this was all achieved on a SINGLE SKEET LAYOUT at a small club!!

(There is also another single layout skeet club down south that is operating NSSA registered that threw over 60,000 registered targets between 1st Nov 2013 and 31st Oct 2014. So the example above is not a one off.......)

Now for the suggestion......

Currently according to the CPSA's very own website - https://www.cpsa.co.uk/userfiles/file/REGISTEREDCLUBSTATUS2014.pdf 

It costs £155 a year to register the ground and then the layouts need checking etc. This is far TOO MUCH for a small club to risk and is beyond the average shooter putting their hand in their pocket to help out on a whim.

If the CPSA offered discount incentives to single ESK layout clubs with a DRASTICALLY reduced fees to register the ground and inspect the layout it might encourage these smaller clubs to dabble with ESK registered and that in turn  might encourage new members and new registered shooters. These shooters might then venture out onto the full registered circuit and enter championships etc.

Someone mentioned somewhere that encouraging sporting shooters across might be a good idea..... Trouble is they are already hooked by ESP by time they come across registered ESK because so few single layout clubs offer registered. A lot of shooters take their first shots on a skeet field but them move over to sporting - wonder if they would if they could shoot "club registered" on their single layout beginning club and th element of competition in ESK got them hooked first?

Just use the example above from never held a registered to over 26,000 targets in 8 months!! All because the association made getting the discipline up and running accessible and cheap!

Plus as a side note:- In NSSA it is OFTEN VOLUNTEERS helping out by taking bookings and running the registered shoots within a club. So its often enthusiastic and this is reflected at the shoot in the targets and atmosphere.

So my advice to skeet shooters who want registered ESK near them - look at the option above and get out there and make it happen. It can be done as the initial example shows.