We started the year off to a great start seeing how the devasting bush fires on the east coast can bring out the best in people. Thanks to one of our members Todd Barrett who gathered together a small group of people to put on a fund raiser to assist our local volunteer fire brigade. The event was held at the Wanneroo club and a huge thank you to the club and other helpers for making this event happen. Todd designed and carved the wooden fire flame trophy himself and it was won by Merv Holben. We raised over $3,000 and the shoot was extremely well supported. All monies raised went directly to the Wanneroo Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade.
With the bulk of the fire bans in WA over and the autumnweather a lot cooler, our 2020 shooting season started with our 1st State Qualifier at the Harvey Clay Target club Sunday 15th March.
Great turnout with 74 shooters attending. Plus, we have a lot of new shooters come along which was great to see and it really was a brilliant day for shooting sporting clays. Apparently every day is a good day for shooting! We put our risk management in place and prepared for being responsible citizens due to the COVID-19. Plenty of hand sanitizer and even a raffle for some of that rare Aussie gold, 4 rolls of toilet paper!
Our State Qualifiers are 100 targets and shooters travel 6 hours from Geraldton to take part and thanks to these shooters and their families who make such a huge trek and especially one of our awesome mums’ who drives her son from Geraldton to attend. Thank you Tania for bringing Tristan to Harvey. Tristan is another talented junior from Echidna Park and we all wonder what they put in the water up North because they have produced some good juniors! Thanks to everyone who also spent some long hours on the road who travelled from Moora, Lancelin, Perth and Augusta and it was great to see so many families as well.
We got started by 9am with 13 squads and our first group of shooters were all done and dusted by 1.30pm, which is really excellent for those who travelled so far away and needed to hit the road.
This was our first shoot with our new logo for the medals and HG sash which looked impressive. It is with great please our first State Qualifier High Gun winner was the peoples champion, none other than Rhys Howard aka Boodg or as he is affectionately known as Boodgweed! Check his cap out in the picture looking rather dapper.
Boodg was the outright winner with a score of 92/100 runner up was Ben Sgro 89/100. Only one 25 break badge and that was won by Pat Taylor who came 3rd AA Grade.
We used the SCA Live Scores program and everything ran smoothly plus we got to teach and show off some of the great features that make setting up a club shoot so easy these days. People were very impressed when books were lost or left at home how we could view their shooting history and even check on what grade they are. The SCA Live Scores program is a credit to John MacKenzie and over here in the West we are doing everything we can to encourage all clubs to use it. You can check out the full list of scores on the SCA live score web site as well.
With the presentations completed our State President Vern Godfrey had the pleasure of presenting the 2019 Member of the Year award to Sue Green and he sincerely thanked Sue for her commitment and dedication to our sport as a volunteerover many years.
Thank you to our new State Target Director Clayton Dennis and to Ryan McPherson and others for all the work that goes into setting targets hugely appreciated. The feedback was so positive and it was great to so many happy shooters especially the newbies looking forward to doing this all again. The amazing ladies in the kitchen and also my favorite Barista Craig Ellis who really does make the best coffees, complete with my love heart on the top and Jo and Michelle for giving me a hand to get the shoot ready to go. The help from so many people is what makes the event and a huge thank you to every one of the 74 shooters for coming along because without you there is no shoot. Sure, hope you were all entertained and shall see you at the next State shoot.
WA members especially, remember that Wanneroo is hosting the SCA English Sporting Nationals in May, and you need to register via the SCA web site asap, so please take advantage of having a Nationals in our home State and hopefully one of our WA members will take the title for 2020.
Sue Green
State Secretary Sporting Clays WA