Olympic funding

Bananaman

Mod note - split from a thread in Target Shooting because of that forum's ban on political chat and moved to here. The original thread has more data on how Olympic funding is organised, this thread... was less productive.

I think it is obvious by the qualification mechanisms for Olympic events that they are not intended to be available to the great unwashed. I am sure there are major commercial interests in keeping it that way (but may be just cynical). State support is often required but is never likely to be available in this country.

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There is a lot of history in the shooting sports in Ireland - a lot of distrust, much of it deserved - a lot of backstabbing - a lot of fiefdoms.

What that means is that any attempt to coalesce, such as to raise funds to finance the qualification of an Olympic prospect, but on any other front also, which would be equally valid, will be torpedoed by others. It's unfortunate, but true.

While target shooting may be a minority within the Shooting Sports, Olympic disciplines are a very small minority within target shooting. That means that there is very little scope for them to do any major fundraising, although that does not mean they should not try.

Sponsorship is a dead duck in Ireland, in target shooting. I shoot a lot of stuff and often travel abroad to shoot IPSC, Steel Challenge etc and that is where you really see sponsorship. The reason for that is that there are thousands of people at these events and they use a lot of ammo and they buy a lot of equipment and they travel a lot, and they have a lot of disposable income and they do it all again when they go home..
So the ammo companies sponsor the matches and prizes and the firearms manufacturers sponsor the competitors. not necessarily because they are winning (although that helps) but because of the volume of sales involved.

If you were to look at ISSF Air Rifle in Ireland - the prospective sales of ammo is not very high, nor lucrative and prospective firearm sales would also be quite low so it is not likely that there is much scope for sponsorship (from firearms or ammo manufacturers)

Shotgun is a bit different as the Ammo companies and Firearms companies do shift volume here so it is in their interests to be associated with the Olympic prospects.

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Sparks outlined some of the costs involved - ~12,000 for a years training.
So it is not likely that anyone is going to be a full-time amateur shooter in Ireland, no matter how good they are, unless they are independently wealthy.

So, it looks like, and seems to always have been, that the onus is still on the shooter themselves to get good enough

But If you were to simply look at the cost of "qualifying" were you already good enough - as opposed to the cost of "practicing and training to see if you are any good" - it would not be so bad and should be eminently do-able to raise the funds to help someone, who is good enough , but does not have the finances, to qualify.

(If you try to raise the funds to train a squad it's akin to seeking world peace, ... laudable, and fantastic if it happened, but unlikely)

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My own, personal, view is that, should we have an Olympic hopeful in Ireland, that is really shooting competitive scores in one of the target shooting disciplines, that the target shooting community, as a whole, will support that individual. (I could be wrong, but I don't think so)

All they need to do is ask for our help (and the whingers and photo op types stay out of it)

My 2c.

B'Man

It wasn't me!

Problem is that you will never get that good without going on the circuit every year and spending a ridiculous amount of time training. I train some twenty hours a week and I'm making some progress, but the difference between making progress here and being able to reliably turn up to a world cup anywhere in the world and hit 597 in prone is vast, even if I could do it all day everyday here.

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

I think it is obvious by the qualification mechanisms for Olympic events that they are not intended to be available to the great unwashed.

As no doubt you intended, I can't let that hogwash slide

Bananaman wrote: »

I think it is obvious by the qualification mechanisms for the Olympic Games themselves that they are intended to be won by the best shooters

There. Fixed your post. And I agree with it now. The Olympic events themselves are how most target shooters in Ireland (in rifle and pistol anyway) get started (600 shooters a year in the college clubs, can any other club or association beat that every single year?) and the ISSF rules and regulations are therefore obviously designed to provide a level, structured playing ground for all the participants because a junior on her first day and the guy winning the gold in London will all shoot on a firing point with the same dimensions and lighting (if the range is up to spec). We certainly have criticisms of specific rules all the time, but nobody's ever suggested what you were originally suggesting there!

If you were to look at ISSF Air Rifle in Ireland - the prospective sales of ammo is not very high, nor lucrative and prospective firearm sales would also be quite low so it is not likely that there is much scope for sponsorship (from firearms or ammo manufacturers)

This is true... on the other hand when you look at events like the Bundesliga, it's not so true. It's down to popularity of a sport within the country, and that's a catch-22 problem. To be popular, you need money; and to get money, you need to be popular. I think of it as being like golf in the 50's. Mainly because I can compare that to golf today and see that things can change...

Shotgun is a bit different as the Ammo companies and Firearms companies do shift volume here so it is in their interests to be associated with the Olympic prospects.

I have to question that analysis because the majority of shotgun target shooters here shoot DTL, not Olympic trap (the last time an ICPSA chap who would have known gave me an estimate, it was that there were a few dozen trap shooters and thousands of DTL shooters, which is a complete inversion of every other shooting country in Europe...)

Sparks outlined some of the costs involved - ~12,000 for a years training.

At least, and probably more... but only if you want to go on the international circuit. Someone who drives down to the shops doesn't usually need an entire professional pit crew, to use an analogy.

So it is not likely that anyone is going to be a full-time amateur shooter in Ireland, no matter how good they are, unless they are independently wealthy.

Or work their guts out and make sacrifices the rest of us don't even contemplate.
I can name several individuals who that would apply to - like Ray Kane, Derek Burnett, Philip Murphy, Dave Malone, and many more before them.

My own, personal, view is that, should we have an Olympic hopeful in Ireland, that is really shooting competitive scores in one of the target shooting disciplines,

You might not have noticed the Intershoot thread B'man, but just in case I ought to let you know that 590 in Mens Air Rifle is competitive, as is 589, especially when their scores are climbing match on match - so that's two in rifle right there with three to five more coming up behind them. The field is thinner in pistol, but still healthy enough considering the circumstances.

that the target shooting community, as a whole, will support that individual. (I could be wrong, but I don't think so)

I wish I could agree. Unfortunately, I've seen people try to swipe other people's grants, badmouth and outright attack other peoples sports both amongst their mates and to the actual Sports Council, and even try to take over NGBs through court cases and even dafter routes, amongst other underhanded things. The backbiting you referred to is something that hasn't gone away
Shooters generally have to just be pragmatic and ignore it as much as they can and just, well, shoot. And frankly, I lay quite a bit of annoyance at the door of the ISC over all of this, because whatever about a group of hobbyists and amateurs squabbling, professional administrators should never have acted in a way that exacerbated this situation (and there's decades of history of them doing exactly that).

Bananaman

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Problem is that you will never get that good without going on the circuit every year and spending a ridiculous amount of time training. I train some twenty hours a week and I'm making some progress, but the difference between making progress here and being able to reliably turn up to a world cup anywhere in the world and hit 597 in prone is vast, even if I could do it all day everyday here.

I get that - but you gotta break the ice somewhere.

It's patently obvious there is no money from the state - so as long as that is a pre-requisite for us getting people qualified, it's not gonna happen.

NTSA/ISSF cannot provide sufficient funding either - so as long as that is a pre-requisite for us getting people qualified, it's not gonna happen.

So you gotta think outside the box - look at larger organisations - talk to NARGC, talk to NASRPC, talk to the ranges, talk to the clubs, talk to the firearms dealers, etc.

If someone is shooting qualification scores in competition here - that is still a qualification score - and they should be proud of it.

If there is a process whereby they can convert that to an actual qualification - then that sounds like something that could be looked at, and the results quantified, and the success or failure of that process measured.

I just think the chances of getting funding to try to produce people who are good enough - as opposed to helping people who are already good enough, to qualify - are slim at best.

But I think that if we have someone who is good enough, there would be an appetite out there to help push them over the line.

B'Man

PS: No point looking for world peace - a short football match in the middle is worth a go though. We've all seen what NASRPC can raise in one weekend when they have something specific worth supporting

It wasn't me!

Sadly, the money is a really big part of it B'Man, and it's always going to be as long as you're dragging a big pile of gear from Europe to the US to Australia to China or Korea a half a dozen times a year and then more around Europe. It costs a fortune. Competition entries are big money, as is the time off to make it work. We have a sports council with as mandate to support athletes, and it's not happening. This year I'm going to get through probably twelve to fifteen thousand rounds of ammo and put in over a thousand hours of training, all at huge personal cost, as a student working part time. Next year it could be even more. Simply saying the money isn't there so either give up or try something else isn't good enough. There's a body there that should be supporting us and isn't. That's the route we should be pursuing. I don't want to deal with other shooting bodies and ranges, because that's not fair, when again, there's already a body that should be doing it. Sparks' assessment of the costs involved is about right for airgun but for smallbore, to do it right, you're looking at a lot more. I don't want the NASRPC or the NARGC to be funding me, because that's not their mandate. It's not right and it's not fair. I want the people who are already supposed to be providing funding to do so.

Bananaman

It wasn't me! wrote: »

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I don't want to deal with other shooting bodies and ranges, because that's not fair, when again, there's already a body that should be doing it.

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I don't want the NASRPC or the NARGC to be funding me, because that's not their mandate.

It's not right and it's not fair. I want the people who are already supposed to be providing funding to do so.

And I again, get it. - Everyone to their own.

If its money ye need - then go out and get it - you'll be old and gray before the state coughs up anything - especially now. Whatever they may have had will all have been blown on GAA, FAI, IRFU, Boxing, Swimming and Tug of War. John Treacy just joined FG so they are quite happy with what the ISC has been at to date.

I simply suggested NARGC , as they would have tens of thousands of members. If 10% of their members donated €10 that is 10s of thousands of euros. I'm not saying they would, but it's a very large group and hence potential.

I simply suggested NASRPC, who member clubs would have thousands of members between them, as they have a recent track record of successful fund raising - having raised over €16,000 in one weekend, once focused on a topic.

Sparks has highlighted that 600 people a year join NTSA clubs - a €5/month levy on those 600 alone would raise €36,000 a year (and that's just the ones that joined in one year)

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If you had a specific person - who would, all things being equal qualify for the Olympics, had they a specific amount of funding to cover specific costs to complete the qualification - I think it would be fair to ask the shooting community to help them do it.

If they did qualify - then the shooting sports, as a whole, could rip the ISC a new one, for ignoring us all these years, when they tried to claim glory.

If they did not qualify, well it was worth a shot, and they get the piss taken out of them on the range for while.

B'Man

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

If they did not qualify, well it was worth a shot, and they get the piss taken out of them on the range for while.

I wouldn't know where to start in telling you how utterly messed up and self-destructive that particular trait of Irish shooting is, but I will say this - it's quite probably the cause of the 2% rule along with around about 110% of the internecine bitchiness in our sports' histories. This whole thing of "look at gob****e over there, thought he was better than us and what happens? Only shot 599 in the Olympics. Pffft. Fecking eejit" kills our sport, one small snide snigger at a time.

Bananaman

Sparks wrote: »

I wouldn't know where to start in telling you how utterly messed up and self-destructive that particular trait of Irish shooting is, but I will say this - it's quite probably the cause of the 2% rule along with around about 110% of the internecine bitchiness in our sports' histories. This whole thing of "look at gob****e over there, thought he was better than us and what happens? Only shot 599 in the Olympics. Pffft. Fecking eejit" kills our sport, one small snide snigger at a time.

That is not what I intended.

I understand the goal of us having structured training and coaching programmes and having full time shooting athletes working hard towards their own goals and travelling around the world to all these meets and flying the flag.

It's a laudable goal ... but it seems to be a ways off yet.

No reason to not strive for it - but if you have someone who is good enough now but is not qualifying simply because of a lack of personal finances, then should they, individually, have to wait for all of that to be put in place?

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There seems to be a belief with some (well, it looks to me as if there is anyway) that until it is all formal and official and club tie and blazer, it is not sport .. or at least not good enough. That is simpoly not true.

We have loads of world class shooters on ranges all over the country having the craic and taking the piss out of each other day in and day out. If someone has a great days shooting, they get congratulated on it. If they have a bad day they get the piss taken out of them. Its sport - it's meant to be fun.
That's life. They don't slink off into a corner and never do it again. They go back out the next day and do better. Sure, some are extremely focused and do not interact with others, but everyone to their own.

"I" think that there may be a degree of snobbery involved too - not by the competitors themselves, but by those that put up the walls - that they will not seek, nor accept, support from others in the shooting community.
The mantra that it is state funding or nothing, when it is obvioulsy not going to happen, gives me that impression. Perhaps I am reading too much into it.

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Today we have ISSF people who are self funded or nothing. I could be wrong but believe this has always been the case. As you pointed out in the Intershoot thread they do quite well, all things considered.

It is the same in all the shooting sports - e.g. just a few of the sports where Irish Competitors have competed in World Cups in the last year or two; DTL, ABT, WA1500, Silhouettes, IPSC, Rimfire Benchrest, F-Class, Gallery Rifle .... the list goes on.

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if we have a candidate - where's the harm in seeing if the shooting community will help them. If they won't you're no worse off.

B'Man

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

If they have a bad day they get the piss taken out of them. Its sport - it's meant to be fun.

Yeah. Somehow to me, taking the piss out of someone for working towards a goal for literally years (it's generally six years of training to compete at your first Olympics if you're a full-time shooter) and not getting a gold medal.... well, it's not falling into my mental category of "funny". It's more landing in the category of "stupid behaviour by ignorant people who don't comprehend the level of effort, dedication and sacrifice involved". And it kills off our sport fairly rapidly. Taking the piss over small things, that's one thing, it's a team bonding and character-building exercise. Taking the piss out of someone because they didn't win an olympics after years of effort is kindof up there with taking the piss out of someone because their kid's in hospital or their house burned down with all their possessions or because they were in a bad car crash. It's just a ****ty thing to do.

"I" think that there may be a degree of snobbery involved too - not by the competitors themselves, but by those that put up the walls - that they will not seek, nor accept, support from others in the shooting community.
The mantra that it is state funding or nothing, when it is obvioulsy not going to happen, gives me that impression. Perhaps I am reading too much into it.

It's more that there's a level of distrust between sports because of past incidents. When someone goes to the Sports Council and badmouths your sport, or tries to fake application forms to get your sports grant, you tend to not trust their motives afterwards, and frankly, you'd be stupid to behave differently.

Today we have ISSF people who are self funded or nothing. I could be wrong but believe this has always been the case.

That's not always been the case, but we've never had proper levels of funding. Issues within the NRPAI back in the day prevented reform of the carding scheme, thus denying moderate levels of funding to a lot of athletes for almost a decade and caused other problems that affected support for the sport; and at the moment they're dragging their heels on recognising the NTSA despite the NTSA being recognised by everyone else in the administration line from the clubs to the International Olympic Council on the sport side and including all of the PTB on the legal side.

if we have a candidate - where's the harm in seeing if the shooting community will help them. If they won't you're no worse off.

Because ultimately, if it was the grass root members that'd be fine; but the NGBs would insist on being involved and at that point, everyone looks to past histories of fairly underhanded and nasty things being done and bluntly put, they then feel they have a duty to prevent future underhanded and nasty things being done to their own members.
So the effort, should any organisation get involved in it, has already been torpedoed by past actions. And no, that's not a case of not being able to let bygones be bygones, it's a case of seeing a dog kill sheep and then not trusting it round sheep again.

Bananaman

I never said anything about NGBs getting involved.

If Bob is good enough to qualify for the Olympics in Free Pistol - and he asks the NARGC, NASRPC, NTSA to raise funds for him to go through the qualification process, which will include e.g. Flights, Accom, entry fees for X, Y & Z amounting to 7K.

If they each raise funds for this purpose, give it all to him and let him off.

What involvement have any of them in it? (Bar obviously getting a report on how it was spent and how he did)

If they raise funds for Temple Street Childrens Hospital - they don't get any involvement, why would this be different?

B'Man

Sparks

B'man, if you ask the NGBs to raise money, they are by definition, involved. Because they're raising money. I'm not seeing how it's in any way possible for the NGB to not be involved if they're the ones doing the fundraising...

Bananaman

Sparks wrote: »

B'man, if you ask the NGBs to raise money, they are by definition, involved. Because they're raising money. I'm not seeing how it's in any way possible for the NGB to not be involved if they're the ones doing the fundraising...

And we are back at square one. .....

B'Man

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

And we are back at square one. .....

Well, you might be, but I think you've left the rest of us at this stage.
If you ask the NARGC or NASRPC to fundraise for NTSA athletes;

1. You're asking the wrong groups; they're NTSA athletes in an NTSA event, it makes no sense to raise money from an NGB's members for another NGB's benefit.
2. You're having one NGB in effect control the pursestrings for another NGB's sport. We've seen more evidence in the last few decades that this is a recipe for little hitler moments and utter disasters than I want to remember.
3. You're doing the barking while paying to have a dog. We pay taxes to the exchequer, the exchequer funds the Department of Sport, which funds the Irish Sports Council, who are supposed to fund us, but who have no conception of the level of costs involved and no apparent motivation to help develop our sports, whether because of past negative experiences or because of apathy.

Because of all of that (and more that would be annoyingly depressing to go into), I have to conclude that getting other NGBs to raise funds for the NTSA would be risking going through yet more unpleasant experiences in the pursuit of a solution to the wrong problem.

Bananaman

Bananaman wrote: »

I never said anything about NGBs getting involved.

If Bob is good enough to qualify for the Olympics in Free Pistol - and he asks the NARGC, NASRPC, NTSA to raise funds for him to go through the qualification process, which will include e.g. Flights, Accom, entry fees for X, Y & Z amounting to 7K.

If they each raise funds for this purpose, give it all to him and let him off.

What involvement have any of them in it? (Bar obviously getting a report on how it was spent and how he did)

If they raise funds for Temple Street Childrens Hospital - they don't get any involvement, why would this be different?

B'Man

Now who is bringing NGBs into it.

I said to help fund a person to qualify for the Olympics - not to help fund a group to lay claim to that person achievements.

B'Man

Sparks

B'man, you are bringing NGBs into it. And it's distracting from the real problem, so please stop it, I've already explained why it's a bad idea.

SARZY

The penny has just dropped with me, divisions within divisions.

I honestly know nothing whatsoever about Rifle and Pistol shooting but have some knowledge of Shotgun as a participant only at a modest level.

Now, call me naive Sparks, for you will surely take me apart sentence by sentence, But dont we all use guns for sport.

All the target, Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun and their governing bodies And all the hunters with Rifle and Shotgun.

Divided, with each trying to maximise its own position, its going to be hard to support our best Olympic prospects. But if we somehow could get together and set our own standards as to who is worth supporting, we might have a chance.

Nargc have been in the courts fighting for licences for pistols. They are not for pheasant shooting.

Sparks

We've argued this point so often in the past Sarzy, that I'm seriously thinking it should be a sticky. It is just not possible to do what you're talking about. It was tried; it was in fact imposed by the Sports Council (well, by their predecessor at any rate) against all precedent at the time (thus creating the NRPAI in it's umbrella group form), and it led to division, strife and two decades of internecine politics that would leave a foul taste in your mouth.

And no other country on earth has ever solved this problem by the way. Everyone has multiple governing bodies for shooting in their countries because we might all use guns for sport, but that doesn't mean we're all the same sport, any more than Tennis Ireland, Rugby Ireland and the GAA are all the one sport just because they all use balls for sport.

And trying to get us to all come together to sing in harmony and support our best shooters (be they F-class, ISSF, IPSC or whatever) is solving the wrong problem. We give tens of millions of euro to the exchequer in licence fees alone every year, to say nothing of the VAT on ammunition, targets, clays, and so on; I'm not saying we should be paying our elite shooters six-figure salaries, but we can at least have recognition; and support with criteria that are actually possible to achieve (the criteria at the moment are literally impossible to achieve) wouldn't cost more than we contribute either.

I'd much rather sort out the criteria so we get funded by a fraction of the money we already pay in; than try to cure human nature and make us all achieve something nobody else in the world ever has...

Bananaman

I'd like to see a show of unity.

It's more of the same sh1t - we cant do it because we tried before.

Get different people to try a fresh approach

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I think its folly to presume you will get any comeback from your taxes and licenses.

Obviously people have been fighting and.jostling for position over non existent scraps for years - feck the scraps - go find it somewhere else - but for the individuals - not for the groups which have been fighting.

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I do think an umbrella body for shooting is possible. I think that continuously trying to plamass the same old whingers and the same old structures will never work.

Try something different, to solve the problems of the people with the guns, not the problems of the people who could not make it work.

And let the rest setup a national whinging forum and complain about how they could never whinge about the same thing because of the guy who,didn't whing back in the day.

B'Man

It wasn't me!

Also, I want to make a point about the wording being used here. The people we need to support are not alone those who "Are good enough to qualify for the Olympics." The whole point is to support those who are working conspicuously towards that goal. To get to the point where qualification is a realistic prospect (winning a quota place is going to be our basic metric here) is something no Irish shooting athlete has ever done to date. Best of luck to Ray in Helsinki of course, but we've not had anyone shoot internationally at the level required. Realistically, for 50m prone, that means going out to every world cup and posting about 596 or better for a couple of years in order to maximise your chances of being in the right place. Being able to shoot 596 on demand in world level competition is a staggering prospect, and currently, that'll only be good enough in the run-up to the games, as everyone else has already won places and the quotas drift down the results lists. 597+ might be more appropriate. To get to that point means several years of competing intensively internationally just to get familiar with the pressure and the experience, which costs a fortune. Last year for instance, with world cups in the USA, Korea, Australia and Germany, and a World Cup Final in Poland, travelling to those events alone would have cost about €15k, plus training costs for the year if one were doing it seriously of say €5k for ammo, fuel costs to and from the range, plus probably another few thousand for international matches in Europe, training camps, ammo testing abroad and so on, and you've quickly eaten the guts of thirty grand a year for a few years before you're in the position you suggest we start raising grassroots funds for someone. So after someone's spent thirty grand a year of their own money for a couple of years, as well as finding the time to do it (Our guys all have to hold down fulltime jobs, remember? This isn't a problem for our international contemporaries), paying their mortgages, feeding their families and so on, we should start looking to other organisations with no vested interest in their success in order to give them a few quid in order to put them in a position to qualify? Come on, that has to sound cartoonish to everyone else.

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

I'd like to see a show of unity.

And I'd like to see a unicorn.

Given that it was only a few months ago we had the officers of one NGB get caught trying to obtain the SSAI's grant by claiming to be in charge of the SSAI, only to have their hands slapped by the Sports Council; I think I'll get my wish before you get yours, B'man. Which is a sorry state of affairs, but here's the thing:

Ray, Paul, Aisling and Peter are going to Helsinki next week.
We won't get the NGBs to behave sanely for years.
They can't (and shouldn't) wait for your show of unity.

The Sports Council is meant to support them; it has repeatedly said it will support athletes regardless of issues with NGBs; and it's high time it got the finger out and started doing its job.
That is the problem to solve.
And it's solvable.
And people are working on it.

It's just that the Council are dragging their feet. There's a review of the Carding system underway now; this is the time to be fixing those insane criteria of theirs, and this review is how it should be done. This is the point where Tracy should be saying "FFS, sort it out, they're the only Olympic NGB we don't recognise and we've worked with them for years, so skip the red tape and support the athletes for the London Games, and we'll let the paperwork get sorted in its own timeframe"
And he's not doing that, which is infuriating, because you know if he'd had red tape put in his way for his medal, he would have been looking for exactly what we're now looking for. :mad:

Bananaman

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Also, I want to make a point about the wording being used here. The people we need to support are not alone those who "Are good enough to qualify for the Olympics." The whole point is to support those who are working conspicuously towards that goal. To get to the point where qualification is a realistic prospect (winning a quota place is going to be our basic metric here) is something no Irish shooting athlete has ever done to date. Best of luck to Ray in Helsinki of course, but we've not had anyone shoot internationally at the level required. Realistically, for 50m prone, that means going out to every world cup and posting about 596 or better for a couple of years in order to maximise your chances of being in the right place. Being able to shoot 596 on demand in world level competition is a staggering prospect, and currently, that'll only be good enough in the run-up to the games, as everyone else has already won places and the quotas drift down the results lists. 597+ might be more appropriate. To get to that point means several years of competing intensively internationally just to get familiar with the pressure and the experience, which costs a fortune. Last year for instance, with world cups in the USA, Korea, Australia and Germany, and a World Cup Final in Poland, travelling to those events alone would have cost about €15k, plus training costs for the year if one were doing it seriously of say €5k for ammo, fuel costs to and from the range, plus probably another few thousand for international matches in Europe, training camps, ammo testing abroad and so on, and you've quickly eaten the guts of thirty grand a year for a few years before you're in the position you suggest we start raising grassroots funds for someone. So after someone's spent thirty grand a year of their own money for a couple of years, as well as finding the time to do it (Our guys all have to hold down fulltime jobs, remember? This isn't a problem for our international contemporaries), paying their mortgages, feeding their families and so on, we should start looking to other organisations with no vested interest in their success in order to give them a few quid in order to put them in a position to qualify? Come on, that has to sound cartoonish to everyone else.

I get that and I understand the distinction.

I was just saying that if there were Olympic prospects (as opposed to olympic hopefuls) that the shooting community may be able to support them.

If there aren't then it's a moot point.

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State funding is a different thing - the amounts your are talking about equate to a professional graduate salary per head - i.e. sports welfare.

Whatever about at the top of the boom - when CharlieMcC was bumping up welfare all the time - I cannot see it in this day and age.

But even if I am wrong...

(From the outside looking in..... I have only a passing interest, no involvement and am only offering a commentary)

For as long as i can remember people have been fighting over the nothing that is given out by the Sports Council.

Seems to be a lot of cutting off noses to spite faces.

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As Sparks said the other shooting bodies, even though they may be larger and have the capacity - cannot support, or be asked to support, Olympic Athletes as they are "NTSA Athletes". (No Muddying of the water or generic
"shooting sports" type discussions will be tolerated).

That sort of discussion always get polarised around a document, an email, a slight to an individual or some old history none of us gives a toss about, not least the guys with the guns.

That is just good old Irish politics 101 - and who suffers ... the guys with the guns - while the stuffed shirts will be damned if they will talk to the other stuffed shirts.

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NTSA cannot seek funding because it cannot be in FISA because ITS is in it

Sounds like a load of old cock to me.

Have NTSA asked the ISSF, specifically, whether their joining FISA, in order to avail of state funding, would be a problem seeing as ITS is also a member.

I seriously doubt it, because if they had it would have been poisted up here for all to see.

It looks like they don't want to, and will build walls all day long .... until they get recognised as "special" and not a part of the generic "Shooting sports" and funded separately. (Remember my point about old and gray)

And while that recognition is not happening - who suffers .... the guys with the guns.

--

If it sounds like the same old guff ... that is because it is the same old guff.

IMHO If ye want something to change then ye need to change who is looking for it.

Because it really looks like they are not looking for what the guys with the guns want. They are not looking for state funding ... they are looking for separate state funding.

How much "separate" state funding as opposed to "generic" state funding would it take to train an shooter for the olympics?

Which is the shorter route?

Why is it not being exploited?

What is wrong wit the picture?

B'Man

PS: Like I say - just commentary - but from the cheap seats that is what it looks like is going on ... Raising Chicken Wire now

lickarse2

Bananaman wrote: »

NTSA cannot seek funding because it cannot be in FISA because ITS is in it

Sounds like a load of old cock to me.

Have NTSA asked the ISSF, specifically, whether their joining FISA, in order to avail of state funding, would be a problem seeing as ITS is also a member.

Can I just ask who FISA and ITS are?

I can figure out NTSA and ISSF because Google found their websites for me, but not the other two.

Edit: Well, Google found lots of FISAs and ITSs, but none seemd to have anything to do with shooting

Sparks

And this is a good example of why we'll never see unity. Between dickish comments:

Bananaman wrote: »

Olympic prospects (as opposed to olympic hopefuls)

sports welfare

No Muddying of the water or generic
"shooting sports" type discussions will be tolerated

Brushing over events that walked a fine line between ****ty behaviour and criminal behaviour as being water under the bridge:

That sort of discussion always get polarised around a document, an email, a slight to an individual or some old history none of us gives a toss about

And claiming not to be involved in politics while sitting on an NGB committee that was at the heart of the majority of the strife over the last five or six years:

That is just good old Irish politics 101 - and who suffers ... the guys with the guns - while the stuffed shirts will be damned if they will talk to the other stuffed shirts.

And then, outright lies and affected amnesia (ie. saying you don't know the answer to a question when you've been expressly given the answer many times over many years verbally in person and in writing):

NTSA cannot seek funding because it cannot be in FISA because ITS is in it
Sounds like a load of old cock to me.
Have NTSA asked the ISSF, specifically, whether their joining FISA, in order to avail of state funding, would be a problem seeing as ITS is also a member.
I seriously doubt it, because if they had it would have been poisted up here for all to see.

And then accusations that blame innocent parties for problems whose cause are both well-known and closer to home for the poster than they're letting on:

It looks like they don't want to, and will build walls all day long .... until they get recognised as "special" and not a part of the generic "Shooting sports" and funded separately. (Remember my point about old and gray)
And while that recognition is not happening - who suffers .... the guys with the guns.

And then the subtle threat (and even that's recycled, I first heard this from an NASRPC committee member something like ten years ago and it's not changed since:

IMHO If ye want something to change then ye need to change who is looking for it.

In other words, B'man's doing it again and I'm sick of the prancing about, so to answer a direct question bluntly:

What is wrong wit the picture?

What's wrong Nigel is that people like you come into NGBs because you want to be in charge, but shirk the work. You pull scams and chance your arm and do it so incompetently that you get caught by everyone including the state bodies that control everyone's funding and the legislation everyone has to follow; and in the process you burn everyone. The people sitting round the NASRPC committee table over the past two years have collectively managed to cause more problems for actual sportspeople in the shooting sports than just about any other group of people. Those people's records include trying to take grants that weren't theirs, lying about who they represent, attacking other sports directly both by lying about them to shooters and lying about them to state bodies, ripping shooters off by charging them for courses they weren't qualified to run, refusing to stand in a united front with other shooting bodies while talking to the DoJ and undermining efforts to improve the laws we're constrained by while publicly badmouthing the lack of progress of those other bodies despite being the cause for the problem - and the list would go on all day if we sat down to it.

Personally, I'm sick of it. Decades of time, you people have wasted, all to feed your own egos and you have nothing to show for it - though you'll happily take credit for the work of others at the drop of a hat. It's why I don't do committee work anymore - I just couldn't face putting in months of work only to have one of your lot wade in years after a problem shows up, stick both feet in it up to his hips, make a complete unrecoverable mess out of something that was almost fixed, and then flounce off to the pub to boast to his mates how he stuck it to the man, and leave the rest of the 200,000 people in the shooting community to cope with the result, which he'll happily blame on those who were trying to fix it in the first place. And the worst thing is that that's not one incident - that's the pattern, that we saw and see repeated time and again, usually by the same people, for the past decade.

Enough already. Feck off somewhere else and feck up some other sport please.

Sparks

lickarse2 wrote: »

Can I just ask who FISA and ITS are?
I can figure out NTSA and ISSF because Google found their websites for me, but not the other two.
Edit: Well, Google found lots of FISAs and ITSs, but none seemd to have anything to do with shooting

Quick answer, FISA is the umbrella group of governing bodies of some of the non-olympic shooting sports in Ireland; ITS is the IPSC governing body in Ireland and a member of FISA.

Longer answer, a decade or two ago, the Irish Sports Council's predecessor decided that it wanted to deal with only one body when dealing with shooting sports; it forced the creation of an umbrella body called the NRPAI (there was an NRPAI before that - there never really has been a time when shooting in Ireland had a simple organisation chart - but this saw it changed into a federation of sorts rather than an independent body). The NRPAI existed until around 2004, when its name and constitution were changed to form the SSAI (Shooting Sports Association of Ireland). In an effort to eliminate internal politics (and because people were so sick of those politics), it was wound down and replaced by another body called FISA (Federation of Irish Shooting Associations) last year. Thoughout that history, the number and names of the member groups has changed up and down, and the one real constant has been an amount of internecine politics that would make Tallaghfornia look like a sober documentary into the procurement policies of the stationary section in the Kildare County Council offices.


Best answer, just don't ask. The answer will only make you sad and despair for our sports.

It wasn't me!

Bananaman wrote: »

I get that and I understand the distinction.

I was just saying that if there were Olympic prospects (as opposed to olympic hopefuls) that the shooting community may be able to support them.

If there aren't then it's a moot point.

This is the entire point. There are no prospects because the hopefuls can't get support. It is realistically not doable for someone to put in the cash and time required unless they're so independently wealthy they don't have to have a job, especially when they have families to raise, mortgages to pay and so on. Like I said, without serious state investment, who's going to be able to train at least thirty-five hours a week and pay out up around thirty grand a year, minimum? Without that, they're not going to be in a position where medalling at the Olympics is a serious, realistic prospect, whatever about going in the first place. I want to go, and I want to be competitive there, but I don't expect you to pay for that for the next four years. I don't expect whip-rounds at sporting clay shoots and the like to support a rifle shooter they've never heard of just because he works hard. We have a state body with a mandate to fund and support athletes to reach these goals and they're not doing it, and that is wrong.

lickarse2

Sparks wrote: »

Quick answer, FISA is the umbrella group of governing bodies of some of the non-olympic shooting sports in Ireland; ITS is the IPSC governing body in Ireland and a member of FISA.

Thanks for the info. That helped Mr. Google and I was able to find their websites.

I'm now sorry I did

Unbelievably poor. I haven't seen anything that bad since the early days of the web. This is a professional view btw. I work for a SEO company.

The ITS one is marginally better in that it tells you something, but a couple of clicks in and it's just plain awful. I got a headache tryinig to read blue hyperlinks on a purple background. :eek:

As for FISA, you have to change more than your name if you're trying to reinvent yourself. Try starting with your website...

It's funny, but viewing the different websites tells me all I need to know about the organisations. It might not be accurate, but that's the impression. The NTSA website is extremely professional looking and I particularly liked the twitter feed and especially that it was up to date.

If I was being a bit critical I'd say a few more articles about the sport itself from the main menus would be a great help, but kudos to the webmaster for a really good looking and informative site.