How many shooting grounds do you know of which have stopped doing Reg Comp's?

[EdSolomons]

Time and effort; few people have both. Thats what the full time ground are there for, it is a service industry and the ones that provide a good service flourish, as with any otr business. Im sure its great if you get a group of mates together, find a bit of land, get a couple of traps, se up a 25 bird shoot and pack up after a few hours. Personally, I wouldnt be able to find one afternoon a month where me and 5 mates would have free to do the above. Factor in the time/expense for paying for traps, clearing up, maintaining etc etc and you can see why people shoot established grounds.

If I wanted to do a 50 birder one evening after work in the summer I an drop in from work, shoot and be home for tea/emails an hour after starting. Sadly time is too precious to waste in such a way.

A1 stopped doing registreds as they were clearly losing money. I dont blame them, I would do the same. They are a great ground and lovely people, they have popular trap/skeet layouts and wisely chose to focus on that. Sporting is not something you can play at; if you have limited knowledge of setting shoots then the punters will soon stop coming. When people shot less they will go to the best value shoots as oposed to just going to the closest one. Targets entry price, flexibility and payback will all be part of that..

If it is something they were to look at in the future it may pay to et a specialist target setter in who knows the ropes and what people want from a shoot. That would be the way I would do it if I was in their shoes.

 

[Les53]

Quite!

Read my posts, their ground is increasingly trap based. They do it well, I wish them well. ESP just isn't their thing, as they have found out, so they pulled it. I hope they have a great future!

I reckon they are just going back to what they do best, and that is trap of course. I first shot there back in the 80's, before Claudio had the place and it really was just a single ABT layout and it was not what it is today. It always was a trappies ground and I was quite surprised when  heard that they were going to do sporting. I hope they have a great future too, in the current times it is not easy for any shooting ground unfortunately. 

 

[Robo]

The first one - EVERY SINGLE TIME

The second one - 9 times out of 10 - if I know the owner/setter - I will always say thanks and give any feedback there and then/

Same here ... Thank you.

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Ed and Will and everyone....I have no idea and no one else on here knows why they have made this decision. It could easily be because practice and corporate pay more money and as you say a business these days has to look at the best way forward. But I think it is wrong to paint the ground in the way it has been on here.

As I have said before....the car park is full on weekends with people coming out to play......at several disciplines.

It has never tried to be a top sporting ground...! It has offered registered shoots for many years. We all know that the amount of members who shoot registered competition has fallen over the years. Out of 26000 we are lucky if 10000 shoot competition at all...and that includes ALL the disciplines...trap, skeet and sporting.

So what is a ground to do......if the money in registered sporting is not worth it.....and the money in practice and corporate shooting and lessons is.....then why not change......that ground is doing a great service to the sport....!!

Many grounds have given up registered shoots...that is the point of this thread.

A1 is a great ground and as I have said before current GBR team members in several disciplines train there.....in trap it is a specialists ground where you have guaranteed international quality targets.....and I would hate for newbies or foreigners on here reading this...to be put off from going there by 'sporters' views.

This is an important ground and was one of the few official training grounds in the UK for the Olympics. It regularly has shooters from national teams in overseas countries train there.

 

[Fuzrat]

We shan't be shooting as much this year, house to save for. Therefore when we do we want as much value for money as we can, good targets, good facilities. The likes of the lovatts, wylye, grange, 4C's will always get my patronage as they do everything very well every time. For practice its owls lodge or coleys.

The grounds above may be more expensive, they may not but in these austere times I want value for money every time I go out.

Ps anyone heard if Newbold is coming back in the spring as that would be added to my list above

Edit, forgot longridge

 

[EdSolomons]

We arent knocking A1 Nic, nor putting anyone off; as said its a great round run by great people. Sporting wasnt their thing so they stopped the reg shoots, simple. No one is saying its a bad place, just that sporting isnt their strong suit. All agree the rest of the set up is spot on.

 

[teepee1234]

I generally say thanks to the ref and the owner, but do sometimes forget, usually when I've shot the stand like a one-armed blind man!  Must try harder.

Anyone know if Upavon and Gunsite are going to continue with registered ESP this year?  :hi:

 

[blaser f3]

Skeet comp's are about £27 - £32 / 100 bird's only , but never understand why it cost's more to shoot a 100 target comp than 100 practice when no ref's are provided for the comp

Without checking out cpsa rules ,if its a registered comp.i would assume you would have to have a ref .otherwise a squad especially if ther're friends could put in any score , but if its not registered then its up to the ground or whoever ,the obvious downside of not having a  ref is 'major' arguments. The normal cost of comp (registered) over practice is normally £4.00 per 100 targets for the ref and £ 2.00 to register the scores with the CPSA

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Thanks Ed I know you are not. This thread crossed with another one where Will commented that he wrote to Claudio advising how to improve his set up .... I can see how some might not connect the two threads...

Point remains that shooters especially new ones. need to be educated and old ones reminded of etiquette. Business or not we have all seen behaviour at grounds that show clearly that grounds are not valued as they should be. Gone are the old days when we had lots to choose from. As sure as eggs are eggs without ALL of these grounds we have not got a sport.

And as I also tried to say....a ground is viewed differently by all those who shoot it and they might have specialisms that others do not know about or recognise.

That is all.

Back to grounds that do not do registered anymore.... :smile:

Garlands....used to have 4 great trap layouts.

(edited because iPhone tends to spell words for me...!!)

 

[EdSolomons]

Garlands....used to have 4 great trap layouts.

Got a nice reg sporting now... ;-)

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Got a nice reg sporting now... ;-)

I know :wink: (hope the wink works on iPhone )

All thanks to the marrrrvvveeellliiiioouuus Steve and Ali.

I hope it does fantastically well in an area that needs more grounds.

 

[Les53]

Thanks Ed I know you are not. This thread crossed with another one where Will commented that he wrote to Claudio advising how to improve his set up .... I can see how some might not connect the two threads...

Point remains that shooters especially new ones. need to be educated and old ones reminded of etiquette. Business or not we have all seen behaviour at grounds that show clearly that grounds are not valued as they should be. Gone are the old days when we had lots to choose from. As sure as eggs are eggs without ALL of these grounds we have not got a sport.

And as I also tried to say....a ground is viewed differently by all those who shoot it and they might have specialisms that others do not know about or recognise.

That is all.

Back to grounds that do not do registered anymore.... :smile:

Garlands....used to have 4 great trap layouts.

(edited because iPhone tends to spell words for me...!!)

I shot OT at Garlands decades ago! I also had lessons from Peter Croft at Garlands too, what a great coach!!!

 

[Salopian]

Yes Garlands does have registered sporting once a month thanks to the Lovatts but the skeet & Trap is in decline because of basically lack of interest in managing these sports. Trap seems to be generally in decline around these parts and skeet is taken care of very well by Doveridge and Nottingham.

As previously mentioned Shropshire suffers badly as a CPSA representative county as so many of our shooters are in the Welsh association and shoot at Fauxdegla and Mid Wales.

As Ed so rightly mentioned many like himself value their time and just do not have enough available to be bothered with social shooting at grass roots level.

The expenditure and time involved in just having an occasional shot can often not be justified.

Cross Gun at Kinver stopped registered Sporting a few years ago because he couldn't be bothered with the hassle of employing referees, the constant bickering over prize money so he stopped. But he is stacked out every Sunday regularly getting 150 -200 entries at something like £10 -£15 cheaper per hundred clays.

But it's a funny place, nearly all the customers walk round with smiles on their faces.

Peter Croft a great coach???? I'll tell him what you said in a minute or two, I am sure we will disagree, I think he is only okay, his dogs normally think he's a bit special though. ha ha ha

 

[Hawkeye]

Without checking out cpsa rules ,if its a registered comp.i would assume you would have to have a ref .otherwise a squad especially if ther're friends could put in any score , but if its not registered then its up to the ground or whoever ,the obvious downside of not having a  ref is 'major' arguments. The normal cost of comp (registered) over practice is normally £4.00 per 100 targets for the ref and £ 2.00 to register the scores with the CPSA

In Wales the ground's do not supply ref's for skeet , shooter's ref the following squad but entry fee's are the same as elsewhere. I thought the CPSA didn't charge for registering scores.

 

[Westward]

I generally say thanks to the ref and the owner, but do sometimes forget, usually when I've shot the stand like a one-armed blind man!  Must try harder.

Anyone know if Upavon and Gunsite are going to continue with registered ESP this year?  :hi:

There's a fixture at Gunsite for 3rd Feb but nothing listed thereafter. Matt probably knows.

 

[ExSCA]

I generally say thanks to the ref and the owner, but do sometimes forget, usually when I've shot the stand like a one-armed blind man!  Must try harder.

Anyone know if Upavon and Gunsite are going to continue with registered ESP this year?  :hi:

Gunsite yes for sure.

 

[Julesy]

We charge £6 per round of 25 for non members and our registered comps in anything but sporting cost £25 birds only. We add on an extra £1 per entrant. This goes toward the extra staffing cost of running a registered. We have extra kitchen staff, extra office staff and more ground staff when running a comp. The £1 extra per person does not cover this. On top of that, you have to keep your competition layouts free and not allow any practice until entries close regardless of how many you have shooting the comp.

It can be a real risk for ground owners and I can't blame any that decide not to do registered shoots.

Personally for me, it is my favourite part of the job. I love comps and everything about them and if Carl took the decision to no longer do registered, that would be the time forme to leave NDGC

 

[Hawkeye]

Good on ya Julesy

 

[Guerini Guy]

I have witnessed many shooters that don't, but both my wife and I have always made a point of thanking refs, whether it be at practice or competition, at every sporting stand or round of skeet.  :goodjob:

As for the owners, I have always tried to be encouraging, providing I know who they are and whether I happen to bump into them, but I don't hunt them down to do so.

This thread is disappointing for somebody recently having moved to the Sporting disciplines, since I like to try and shoot registered comps every weekend if possible, but the options to shoot registered Sporting are now extremely limited for us unless you factor in excessive travel times and distances.

In consideration of the costs, maybe we will see an upsurge of interest in Sportrap, since 4 x layouts of that can still provide pretty much a similar variation of targets, but only requires 4 x refs the same as Skeet etc ?

Still not the same though  :resent:

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Great post Jules. It helps for shooters to understand instead of all the guess and bluster.

The £2 (or more depending on the ground) levy is only charged on a county championship (and that money goes to the county whose championships are running) or if it is an inter-county it goes to the region. The only time a £2 levy goes to Cpsa is if it is an 'English Championship'.