Written by Carrie Paulsen
Hi Shooters,
I wanted to start this edition firstly to thank the members (Neil Joslin & Penny Dodd in particular) who have taken the time to dig through their archives and locate some very old WAFGA newsletters and memorabilia for me to read. I was able to read newsletters from as early as September 1985 (to put it into perspective, September 1985 is a few months before I was born). This allowed me to gain me an understanding of what the shooting world was like “back then”.
I was reading some very professional and well written newsletters that was an incredibly large task for a team of people. It gave me an insight of the huge amount of effort and dedication that our members put into this Association, remembering that it was not as easy to distribute a newsletter back then (they had to be typed, prepped and then mailed individually to members!). A very expensive and time consuming job and done incredibly well! I was very impressed. ☺
Anyway, after multiple cups of tea (“glasses of wine”) and spending hours reading numerous editions of Shooters of Tomorrow (the old newsletter), I realised that our new newsletter was lacking something extremely important… a name! So, given the old newsletter was called Shooters of Tomorrow, what better name for this version than Shooters of Today.
Reading through these newsletters certainly gives you a sense of what it was like in the sport “back then”. The major theme portrayed through most of the newsletters was always the absolute love of the sport. It was nice to read how everybody chipped in to help each other out. There was a lot of friendly banter between the clubs and members which was both hilarious and a recurring factor in all of the newsletters. Even though there was a lot of competition, everybody seemed to be out there having fun with their friends.
Also a very interesting point to read, was the average number of shooters attending an event would be around the 100 shooters mark! I urge everybody to speak with some of our veterans about what the sport was like back then… I guarantee you will see them instantly light up about the memories they shared.
If you are interested in reading any of the old newsletters, I will have them on display at the Wannamal Closing Day Shoot on the 8th October 2017. Otherwise if you cannot make the closing day shoot, send me an email and I’ll happily send you some copies. They’re a fantastic read! ☺
Happy shooting!