Lothian Smallbore Shooting Association

At a committee meeting earlier this year it had been decided that the unshot matches towards the end of the season would be artificially completed based on the teams and their members’ averages as nominated at the start of the season and the results were published on that basis. See the Post dated 5/6/20 below.

However, that decision was challenged by the committee member who had proposed the method of resolving the league saying his proposal had been misinterpreted and the implementation method was incorrect.  A subsequent meeting re-visited the situation and decided that the teams for the remaining matches would be the team members who had shot the most matches to date. The results have been amended accordingly and consequently Watsonians B win the Handicap league, not Prestonpans.

The information I have been receiving from the NSRA has changed again. There had been a rumour going about earlier this year that members of different county teams could shoot their cards concurrently this winter season. In order to get a definitive answer I emailed the Competitions department on 27th August and that came back as a ‘no’. I then amended the advice given in a previous post here.

Yesterday I (as the organiser of the county’s air pistol team) I received an email from Sandra Smith (who is the entire NSRA Competitions department at the moment) saying among a lot of other things about the winter competitions that concurrent shooting in the county leagues WILL be allowed.

I got back to her about this volte face and this is the reply along with an apology:

I was informed that discussions were needed about county concurrent shooting, which was why I told you it wouldn’t happen this winter.

Then I discovered that a discussion had already happened at the Rifle Committee meeting in July. Said discussion was documented in minutes which were published (though I was not directly informed) but the minutes did not specify which competitions could be shot concurrently and hence the rumour mill started.

Further discussion then took place at the next Rifle Committee meeting on 1^st September (with my input about which competitions should be able to shoot concurrently) and then it was agreed that this could go ahead.

Hopefully that’s all straightened out now.

Merger
Our proposed merger with the Scottish Southern Counties Association has been informally approved by the NSRA and will be ratified when they are able to convene a meeting of the Board of Management later this year. Given that position we are going ahead with the mechanics of the merger. The first thing is to arrange AGMs of the two Associations and these will hopefully take place in August (via Zoom or some such online method). The SSCA will formally wind itself up and LSSA will re-constitute itself as the Lothian & Borders Target Shooting Association.  Formal notices will come out in due course.
All the existing LSSA competitions will continue next season under the LBTSA banner and a new website will be created which will more or less be a clone of this one with the name changed.
It’s always dangerous trying to predict the future but that’s the plan.

County Teams
a.  We have been authorised to enter county teams under the LBTSA name next season.
b.  From next season county team members will be able to shoot concurrently in more than one team. ** This is INCORRECT – concurrent shooting will NOT be allowed. Apologies, bad information received. **  Update #2: Change of mind at the NSRA – this now to be allowed. See post above.
c.  From next season the size of the ‘Main’ team will be reduced from 20 to 12 and the ‘Reserves’ team competition will be abolished. Counties may enter as many ‘Main’ teams as they wish.

Treasurer
We still require a volunteer to take this post! The Association’s financial affairs are not complicated so please seriously consider whether you can do this essential task.

The final results of the Team Postal League are now available. Take the link in the ‘Competitions’ drop-down above to see the details. There were some close results. Here’s a summary:

Division 1: Watsonians A
Division 2: Watsonians C (by 5 gun points from Leven & Dist)
Division 3: Redcraig A (by 6 gun points from Prestonpans A)
Division 4: Prestonpans B
Division 5: Fettes College (by 41 gun points from Lanark B)

The highest average award goes to Oliver Barron (Watsonians).

Congratulations to all.

The LSSA Committee had a video meeting today and made some decisions taking the current situation into consideration.

Competitions
Team Postal League: The majority of the scores for round 10 have been received. To complete the competition, the missing scores will be given as the current average of the shooters originally declared in the teams, rounded to the nearer integer. This will allow the final results to be published.

Shoulder-to-Shoulder League: Five matches remain to be shot. To complete the competition, the team members and their averages as given on the entry form will be used to determine the results of those matches.

Individual Postal league: With only three of the ten rounds shot, this competition has been declared null and void.

CYOH: The competition secretary already has all the cards from one of the clubs in the Final and it is known that at least six of the eight cards of the other club have been shot. It is hoped to be able to retrieve those cards without too much further delay but a decision has been deferred on the outcome. If it turns out that all eight have actually been shot then the result will be declared.

Championships: The Final will take place as and when it is possible.

Merger with SSCA
The NSRA will be sent the formal merger justification and request as soon as possible but it will probably not be considered by the Shooting Council for some time.

AGM
We cannot hold the AGM until we have official approval from the NSRA for the merger as one of the main points of the meeting is to wind up the Association and incorporate the new one. Thus a date for it cannot be determined. It will probably be an online meeting.

Treasurer
The Association urgently needs a Treasurer. Any volunteers should contact the Chairman, Robin Thomson.

County Leagues
No information has been received from the NSRA about what’s happening with these competitions and they are just in limbo for the time being.

Carl’s funeral will take place on Friday 27th March.  It will be family-only but it will also be live-streamed. Here are the details:

Website: www.obitus.com
Username:  warriston9589 (Note: case sensitive)
Password: 437126
Service date: 27/3/20
Service time: 4 pm
Service viewing time: 3:50 pm- 4:50 pm.

It is recommended that you log in to the website in plenty of time before the service: during the service window you will automatically be redirected to the Live Webcast of the service. You can test logging in at any time from now.

If you want to make a charitable donation in Carl’s name, there are two options: to support Bloodwise, the blood cancer research charity, and the Intensive Care Society, who need our help at this dreadful time.  Please follow this link to his JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/remember/775497/Carl-Broughton.

It is expected that a memorial service will be arranged after Covid-19 is under control.

As clubs’ ranges have been closed due to the Covid-19 virus situation, the remaining matches in the Shoulder-to-Shoulder league can not take place before the usual deadline of the end of March.

The situation is still under review, but if you want more information please contact the S/S League Secretary.

George Lawson passed away yesterday morning.  He went into hospital on Wednesday for a routine operation (similar to ones that he had undergone before to ease his mobility problems) but serious and multiple complications arose and he did not wake up.

Although not connected directly to LSSA’s affairs, many local shooters will have known George as the Chief Range Officer at  the NSRA’s Scottish and Bisley meetings for many years. Some said he didn’t need the PA system as his ex-policeman’s voice could carry to the far ends of the firing point on its own. Prior to taking on those RCO duties he had been a scorer at national meetings for many years and in fact helped present a scorers’ course in Carlisle only last weekend.

He also had a distinguished shooting and administrative career. He was the Chairman of the Cumbria & Northumbria Target Shooting Association and he was also that County’s NSRA representative. He was Chairman of the NSRA’s Distinguished Service Committee.

He won one cap for Scotland, at Bisley in 1970 and was the team captain there in 2010. Although a proud Scotsman (his kilt was always on display when officiating at the Final of the Earl Haig) he shot most of his career with the Berwick club and was latterly a member at Hawick after Berwick folded.  He was also a stalwart of Police shooting for most of his career.

He was one of life’s gentlemen and will be sorely missed. His legs might have been failing him but his mind was still as sharp as a tack. We offer our condolences to Jeannie and all their family.

Lothian ran an NSRA Scorer’s Course in 2014, but if anyone who missed out on that wants to go on one now to gain the qualification then the Cumbria Association is running one at Cumberland News’ range in Carlisle on 7th March. Spaces are still available.

If you’re interested, please contact the organiser David Erskine at erskinedm@btinternet.com as soon as possible.

The results for these two annual matches for the County and City of Edinburgh respectively are now available. Take the County Teams link above to see the details, but in summary Lothian was 12th in the BSA Cup (a bit of a come-down seeing we won this in 2017) and we won the Cities & Boroughs.

The result of the third of the NSRA’s annual matches (the Commonwealth Cities) has not yet been received.

All the results are now up to date in the S/S League page.  Apologies for the hiatus.

The Calendar of Matches has also been revised.

As regular readers will be aware, the Lothian Smallbore Shooting Association and the Scottish Southern Counties Association have committed themselves to a merger, to take place officially at our AGM next May. The name of the new organisation has not yet been decided, but it’s certain that it will need a new logo/emblem/symbol to represent it on this (re-branded) website and on document and report headings etc.

If anyone reading this has the requisite skills and facilities to devise and/or create such a new design and is prepared to take the task on, then please use the Contact us link above to get in touch with the site administrator in the first instance, and your interest will be passed to the committee. It would be kind of any professional designers who might wish to contribute if they could donate their time and expertise pro bono, but a small award might well be made to the winning designer.

FYI the SSCA currently does not have a logo. The committee has not issued a design brief, so you’ll just have to use your imagination on how to represent visually this large part of southern Scotland in a smallbore shooting context. I imagine the yet-to-be-decided name could be tacked on round the edge. If you have an idea for a design but don’t have the computer skills or the graphical applications on your computer to translate it into an electronic form, then sketch it out and send it in anyway as someone else could do that bit.

However, please note that any design should not contain any traditional heraldic symbols (I think they’re called ‘devices’). Unless we are prepared to go through a lengthy and no doubt expensive approval process (which we’re not) then ‘amateur’ designs like ours that do so are definitely frowned upon by the Lord Lyon King of Arms. Over the years I have been half-expecting a call from him telling us to cease and desist using the current logo immediately as it certainly contains items of that nature.

The Fixture Meeting for the 2019-2020 season’s Shoulder-to-Shoulder league will be held at the Prestonpans RC range on Thursday 26th September 2019 at 7:30pm. A representative (or two if you wish) from each club entering the league MUST attend this meeting.

Club Reps should bring with them their likely shooters’ names, plus any reserves, along with their current averages. This will save the League Secretary some time when putting the season’s programme together.

Note that the closing date for entries is Monday 9th September.