Minutes of the GBFCA Committee Meeting,
Thursday 7TH January 2021 via MS Teams
Present: Les Holgate, Gary Costello, Tony Marsh,
Richie Jones, Peter Dommett, Paul Sandie, Des Parr.
Apologies; None
After the recent online vote Peter Dommett and Paul Sandie had been voted onto the GBFCA committee.
- NRA Affiliation. Les confirmed that he had now made provision for Non-NRA members within the GBFCA to be included within our affiliation return to the NRA.
- Trophies. It was agreed that because we had around £4k invested in glass trophies which were originally for the abandoned 2020 season, it would be wasteful to fail to use them. It was agreed that adhesive plates for the medal boxes be obtained with the correct date. It was agreed that we should strive to provide better quality trophies for the European Championships, a decision to be made on that at a later date. The committee gave their thanks to Richie for progressing the task of looking after the trophies.
- Calendar. It was confirmed that we had made range bookings for the 2021 season. The NRA booking system was felt to be fairly straightforward and although not finalised as yet, no problems were anticipated. Other bookings were made for Diggle & Blair, with the Blair ones needing to be confirmed though no difficulty was expected. We could proceed to plan for the first League match, the Short Range Championships at Bisley in mid April, subject to any Covid-related restrictions in force at that time.
- Bank. Gary confirmed that he was in the final stages of getting full control of the GBFCA account, it had been a very protracted and tedious procedure, but the end was in sight, hopefully by the end of the month. Currently he had the bank statements and the Stripe payment registration. The Committee gave GC their thanks for all his work on this.
- Bisley. There was considerable discussion on the subject of how to go about organising the Bisley League Matches previously undertaken by Mik. It was felt that it was too much work for one person, so the discussion ranged over various options.
The discussion focussed on three themes; should we continue to run the matches ourselves? Give them entirely to the NRA? Or find a balance between us and the NRA.
Tony raised a pertinent question regarding our insurance arrangements; in particular what was the extent of our liability in employing paid markers. He felt that in the event of an incident, we might be left without cover and therefore personally liable. Tony and Les agreed to make enquiries with a view to establishing what cover we had and the extent of our liability.
With that question of insurance unresolved, Tony advocated making use of the NRA’s resources and expertise to run the Bisley matches, thereby absolving us of any liability and taking much of the burden off of us.
Countering that, several members expressed confidence and willingness to organise the three smaller League matches; the Short Range Championships, The Long Range Challenge and the British Championships. The European Championships was widely acknowledged as being a different matter, needing separate consideration.
There was a need for more information as to what charges the NRA might apply if we used their services either in full or in part. The costs would to a great extent influence our choices of options. Tony agreed to look into obtaining further information on this.
The matter of how to arrange our matches was left undecided as we had insufficient information to proceed, it was agreed that when Les and Tony obtained further details we could then revisit the question of how we should organise the Bisley matches. It was felt that two weeks would be sufficient time to re-arrange another meeting and that in the meantime, the members would be kept informed of progress by email.
Mention was made of the paid markers and there was general agreement and satisfaction on their standard of marking at the British Championships. It was hoped that we could recruit more of the same standard.
- AOB.
Les passed on a number of suggestions from members. The first was for a scoreboard to be positioned at each League Match to be completed by the competitor’s themselves. The idea was well received and Les indicated that he would obtain suitable board for the purpose.
Peter mentioned that the Dorset Riflemen use a system for providing real-time updated scores to all members via the web. There was interest and support for this idea and Peter was asked to look into the technicalities of how it worked.
Another suggestion from a member cautioned against allowing string-shooting by singletons especially those regarded as “contenders”.
Tony suggested a novel approach in squadding which might help with that, but had wider merits; squadding the top shooters from day one together from 1st and 2nd together, then 3rd and 4th together and so on, thereby increasing the spectator value and putting more pressure on the shooters to perform to the highest standard. This suggestion was approved and will be implemented.
It was suggested and agreed on, that there should be a designated and easily identified “Match Director” for each League match, for the purpose of adjudicating disputes.
A suggestion to vary the equally balanced funding presently given to the GB teams was met with derision and rejected unanimously.
A call for more team shooting opportunities was well-received, building on the enthusiasm of the 2019 season in which Rutland teams took off in popularity. It was acknowledged that this would have to be conducted at Bisley as range space didn’t permit this at Blair or Diggle. It was suggested that much more emphasis should be given to the Team shooting aspect of the European Championships. It was agreed that further discussion on this would be called.
Match Reports; Les and Des indicated that they would in future only do match reports for Diggle and Blair respectively, an author for the Bisley reports was not identified.
- The meeting ended with an agreement to reconvene in around two weeks.