Four decades of rubbish!

The rifle club moved to its current premises in 1975.  Over that time it has seen over 350 members call the current range their shooting home.  And that number of people requires lots of kit and equipment.  Unfortunately, the club has not been particularly good at adhering to that old 'one in, one out' rule when it comes to replacing old furniture or equipment, and thus we've slowly been amassing 40-years-worth of junk.

So it was time for a clear out!  With the kind help of club members volunteering their Sunday morning (and afternoon if we're honest), we got through a lot of stuff and uncovered a little bit more club history in the process.

Tom, David, Shaun and Dave clearing out the second club room.

Some of us were surprised to learn that there is in fact... drum roll please... a second club room!  We've spoken to veteran shooters in other clubs and they remember this room very well - apparently when shoulder-to-shoulder matches took place at Portsmouth City, the guest team were given their own club room and no interaction between teams was allowed!  (How bizarre!)  However, for some time now it has been used as a storeroom for everything whenever we had to tidy up.  No longer!

Many thanks to the clear-out crew!  (Adam, Dave, David, George, Gordon, Shaun and Tom)

CSI Tom stands proudly alongside George and Adam in the now empty second range.

And also a shout out to Rubbish Clearance Portsmouth who, despite being a little surprised (they weren't the only ones) at the volume of rubbish we had to dispose of, dealt with it quickly and with smiles on their faces.  We've got your number for next time! :-)

Is that a grin or a grimace at how much more there is still to clear out?

And more...

And yet more!

Getting it all into the trucks was fun.  Sorry to the neighbours for any noise.

But it all went and the alleyway was left as tidy as we found it.

And parts of the range were left considerably tidier than we found them!

The 2016 Summer Report, pt 3: Indoor Shooting Postal Leagues

Hampshire Indoor Summer Postal League

Last year, Portsmouth City’s A Team was very pleased to win Division 1 of the summer postal league. We would have been similarly pleased to defend our title this summer but had to settle for 3rd place this year – well done to Windsor Rifle Club and Fareham Rifle Club’s A teams for coming 1st and 2nd respectively. The upside of this competition was that we still beat Sarisbury (which doesn’t happen very often)!

Unfortunately, the summer postal leagues are never as well subscribed as the winter leagues, leaving fewer divisions and therefore meaning that teams of a wide range of ability are forced to compete against each other. This was the case for Portsmouth City’s B team - M. McCormick, D. Reeves, T. Rowe and D. Herron (with T. Sommerville very kindly subbing in for one round) - but these shooters should hold their heads up high that they competed, got all their cards shot, and all improved their shooting as is reflected by their improved averages of the second half of the season, compared with the first.

In the individual postal competition, G. Scruton won Div 2.

Dave Reeves was also very pleased to win a Moore Memorial Trophy for his performance in Class D!

Portsmouth & District Indoor Summer Postal League

The individual postal summer league finished only a few weeks ago with some of our shooters achieving very respectable places:

Ian Cooper (Runner Up, Div 1)

Jonathan Rowe (Runner Up, Div 3)

Tamsin Rowe (Runner Up, Div 9)

David Owen (3rd place, Div 10)

Eastern Region Summer League

A number of Portsmouth City shooters managed to achieve respectable scores despite not necessarily achieving a particularly high place in the division.  One notable exception to this was Tom Sommerville and Matt Simmons, who came 1st and 3rd respectively in Division 12.

Newmarket & District Short Range Open Postal

The Newmarket shoot is a short 4-card competition that happens between February and May (yes,  a little bit before summer technically, sorry) and this year Portsmouth City had 11 people competing.  The club was very proud to have a number of their shooters placed in this competition.  Gordon Scruton won the B Class and there was success further down the classifications as well.

Tom Sommerville & Tamsin Rowe both newcomers to the sport and with less than a year of experience under their belts, showed that there is certainly some raw talent that the Portsmouth City team will be looking to develop and capitalise on over the next few years.  Tamsin won the E Class with a very respectable score of 369 (out of 400), beating Tom, who came runner up, by only one point!

Tom Sommerville & Tamsin Rowe (or Mr Somerville and Tasmin as their certificates would have you believe!)

Tamsin also came Runner Up in the C/D/E class ladies' competition, meanwhile Gordon and Jonny came Runners Up in the A/B pairs competition.

One last thing that happened over the summer was a personal achievement and one that a shooter never really forgets - Lauren Haskett, now using a new jacket equal to her abilities, got her first ton!  Well done, Lauren, may it be the first of many.