Midlands reloading

Cass

tac foley wrote: »

It was made very plain to us at that time that in order to continue to use the facilities at the Midlands that we would have to drop the 'I' off association title.

We chose not to do that, and were therefore obliged to look elsewhere for range facilities that did not require a name-change.

Really!!!!

I must ask tomorrow and confirm that. Having met some of the lads from the VCRAI on the range at the time the VCRAI began to take up residency i thought i would be seeing a lot more of them. Then there was a split of some sort within the association, people stopped turning up, the VCRAI cabin sat in the yard for years, and never once did anyone return.

I digress. Why would they insist on such a thing? Why would they, to put it bluntly, expel the VCRAI from the range over a seemingly trivial matter? Was it a trivial matter or did the "I" hold more importance than simply to finish off the Acronym of the association?

A point here - I did NOT say that the VCRAI is the 'virtual home' of anything, although by inference from its very title, it focuses principally on older-style rifles and carbines, usually ex-military in nature.

I never said you did. You said, and i quote:

tac foley wrote:

I am unaware that the NRAI has made any claim to be the spiritual 'home' of classic rifle shooting in the Republic of Ireland

To which i replied:

Cass wrote:

To be clear the NRAI have made no such assertion. They, nor any representative from them, have made any such declaration on this forum.

and:

Cass wrote:

If, as you claim, the NRAI are only the "spiritual home" of such shooting (not sure whether to use classic, vintage, etc) then surely they are not represented and a vacancy exists that the VCRAI can fill

So you see i made no such assertion about the VCRAI, but responded to your claim that the NRAI was only the spiritual home of such shooting.

IF the VCRAI were ever to go looking for a base that would allow its members to shoot further than 300 yards, then it would have to be one where there were no strings attached that would require us to change any part of it that currently exists.

Once again i am stunned that what you claim happened, happened. That there is not more of a back story to it than simply the issue of the letter "I" from your acronym. However as said i will makes inquiries tomorrow and find out exactly what happened. So this:

tac foley wrote:

I think that I've answered your questions as much as I'm prepared to do on a public forum............

To me is a cop out to avoid discussing the entire issue. Instead i am getting cherry picked statements from you that i must now verify instead of being told the whole story. However i will do so as i want the allegations you have made towards the Midlands range, my range, answered. Openly and publicly. Warts and all as they say. If it was the sole cause, as you claim, and the "I" did not represent a "legal" issue among NGBs/governing bodies then i'll be embarrassed that such action was taken. IOW in "malice" of sorts. If there is more to it, and you cherry picked the details you wanted to share then i will continue this.

In any case, VCRAI members who want to compete as individuals in classic vintage arms shoots of the kind that we shoot in the VCRAI competitions are able to do so at Bisley, or anywhere else for that matter.

As individuals. Not as a representative of their country. Might be fine for the majority, but for the few that wish to go further it's not an option.

As for why the VCRAI does not apply for NGB status, the answer is linked inextricably to the point detailed above.

• The allegation that the NRAI insisted you drop the "I"?
• That the NRAI or some other NGB actually holds the NGB status?
• Your affiliation to the NRAUK?

Which one?

However, at the time the now-defunct SSAI was the body tasked with bestowing NGB status.

Really?

The SSAI was an association of NGBs, representatives from the DoJ, ISC, and other interested parties. It was formed so the various shooting bodies would represent the interests of the entire shooting community to the DoJ, An Gardaí, etc.. How would these people/NGBs bestow NGB status on another group? The only group able to bestow NGB status on an association is the governing body. So as i said earlier in the thread that would be ICFRA for NRAUK, NRAI, etc. and ISSF for the NTSA. Once NGB status have been granted then the ISC would welcome input from them. However the SSAI at no time had the authority to bestow or take NGB status from any group.

As they disbanded several years ago, it therefore is of little relevancy to bother now, especially in view of the likely price to our organisation's very name. Having 'Ireland' in the name is very important to us, as you can appreciate.

I've pretty much dealt with that issue above, but while it comes up again i'll add this. If it's so important then please tell me this.

• How happy are the members that they would rather compete among themselves than have a chance to represent their country in an official capacity?
• Would they not rather hang their own flag and be a separate entity? Their own entity?
• Why would they not hammer out a deal with whichever governing body runs vintage rifle shooting?
• Does the NRAI actually hold NGB status over this as i assumed?
• If not then what difference would it make to them if there was an "I" in your title? If they were not the NGB then all you are doing is using the range.
• If so the question is still valid. What difference does the "I" make? As an arm of the NRAI it's covered with the "I" in the NRAI.

Anyhow, I've drifted away from your thread long enough.

And raised more questions than answers. However i can remedy that in the coming days.

This is categorically not a trawl for membership.

It's okay. Posts 10, 23 took care of that. However we are always happy to help our "vintage"" brethren.

Dian Cecht

Gosh! This is getting hard to follow ! (but I working on it)

So this NGB stuff is more about wearing an Ireland jersey? While I can understand that some lads may want this I have to ask is why is it such a big deal?

Sparks

Dian Cecht wrote: »

So this NGB stuff is more about wearing an Ireland jersey?

No, it isn't just about that, and you've already read two people telling you all the things it is about.

While I can understand that some lads may want this I have to ask is why is it such a big deal?

As with many things, if you have to ask...

Dian Cecht

Sparks wrote: »

No, it isn't just about that, and you've already read two people telling you all the things it is about....

Well apparently the money is not worth the hassle. So what have I missed?

Sparks

Dian Cecht wrote: »

Well apparently the money is not worth the hassle. So what have I missed?

Official recognition of your sport, the ability for your clubs to apply for capital grants (where the money very much is worth the hassle), greater local support for those clubs, recognition within the DoJ (which on an official level depends on things like this), autonomy over your sport's rulebook to whatever degree your international body allows, national records and national championships that actually *are* the national records and national championships, and on a personal level, winning a medal for your country in international competition, which even for jaded cynics who think this country has more flaws than virtues by several orders of magnitude, is a pretty nice thing.

So you're missing a lot, really.

Dian Cecht

Thanks for that Sparks. So money is/could actually be a major consideration.

I suppose a medal in an Irish Jersey would be nice alright

TriggerPL

Dian Cecht wrote: »

Thanks for that Sparks. So money is/could actually be a major consideration.

I suppose a medal in an Irish Jersey would be nice alright

Already got 2 Irish jerseys in 2 different sports ! Ya get bored of the politic involved after a while !!

Dian Cecht

TriggerPL wrote: »

Already got 2 Irish jerseys in 2 different sports ! Ya get bored of the politic involved after a while !!

Fair dues to ya

Yep, I'm beginning to realise politics & the need for money is inherent in every sport if you want to get on in it

Sparks

Dian Cecht wrote: »

Thanks for that Sparks. So money is/could actually be a major consideration.

For the individual clubs and ranges, it can be downright useful (damn near everything other than bullets and targets on a range counts as capital equipment in that grant and ranges like Courtlough have gotten decent levels of funding in the past both from the national grant and local grants. Individual athletes can also go for carding grants, but that's less of a concern for the average plinker you're talking about, who wouldn't be interested in chasing after the Olympics. For the NGB itself, no, the amount of money in the core funding from the ISC isn't worth the effort normally, not until the NGB gets above a certain size (there are auditing costs and effort required that pretty much negates the point of the grant until you get above a set amount - at one point I remember doing the maths on the NTSA's grant and realising that between the audit fees eating half of it and the manhours required to apply for it and maintain the paperwork, we were effectively earning less than minimum wage for those manhours in terms of how much net money was being taken home -- literally, If we'd walked into McDonalds and flipped burgers for as many hours a week as the ISC was costing us, we'd have had more cash to put in the NTSA coffers (well, okay, our taxes would have screwed that up because we had day jobs, but if we hadn't had day jobs, then the math worked out).

I suppose a medal in an Irish Jersey would be nice alright

It has its charms

Nightforce 65X55

Lads , I started looking at a thread about reloading in the Midlands and after a head spinning post by cass have almost lost the will to go on. Politics is killing this sport , have we all forgotton why we are involved in the sport ?

Well I for one enjoy it, but all this bickering amongst ourselves is really making it hard to enjoy.

Mods , this thread has gone way off topic , Can you split it and start another about all the Political B*** S*** past , present and Future so that the real shooters , that enjoy the sport and not the arguments can get on with this forum and can ignore all the BS.

Thanks

Sparks

The problem with all that is that the shooters who want nothing to do with the politics keep reelecting the same eejits every year who cause all the politics. Maybe if the people who are fed up to the back teeth with all the ****e just showed up at an AGM and voted out the people causing the ****e and voted in some people with no interest in ****e, there'd be less ****e around to spoil things for everyone (and I happily count myself amongst "everyone" there).

Just a thought.

Nightforce 65X55

Sparks wrote: »

The problem with all that is that the shooters who want nothing to do with the politics keep reelecting the same eejits every year who cause all the politics. Maybe if the people who are fed up to the back teeth with all the ****e just showed up at an AGM and voted out the people causing the ****e and voted in some people with no interest in ****e, there'd be less ****e around to spoil things for everyone (and I happily count myself amongst "everyone" there).

Just a thought.

Sparks ,

Ive been there and Done that !

Thats why I have moved away completely from the main stream organisations and clubs , I got tired of banging my head against the brick wall of stupidity in the sport. I have now got back to the point where I Enjoy the sport once again.

That is why I ask you or another mod to split this thread

Put the politics BS in a place of its own , then if people want to be involved , its their choice, and the rest of us can get on with actually enjoying our sport the way we want to.

Cass

Nightforce 65X55 wrote:

Mods , this thread has gone way off topic , Can you split it and start another

Nightforce 65X55 wrote: »

That is why I ask you or another mod to split this thread

If it need splitting it'll be done. Stop back seat Modding.

Put the politics BS in a place of its own , then if people want to be involved , its their choice, and the rest of us can get on with actually enjoying our sport the way we want to.

This thread will have no effect on your ability to enjoy your sport. Turn off your computer and it's like it never happened.

From posts, questions, and answers the thread has diverged from it's original topic. It happens them all. However it's other members of this forum that asked the questions so just because you don't want to talk or read about it, does not mean others do not.

Unlike other places we do not hide away from or prohibit the discussion of politics.