The English, Scottish and Welsh Spring Meeting took place over a sunny but windy weekend on 12/13 May. Turnout was 77 including 4 target riflemen and 3 F Class. Scores were lower as compared with previous meetings, with competitors finding conditions at 1200 yards on Sunday particularly challenging. The wind was varied, fish tailing on Saturday and blowing fair from the west on Sunday.
Andy Gent was the Saturday winner with 217.20. The day was memorable on account of a helicopter landing a few hundred yards behind the stop butt during the final detail at 1200 yards. Shooting was brought to an abrupt halt as Michael Hissey saw the machine coming into his sight picture whilst taking aim. A second helicopter arrived a short time later. Alas, shooting had to be abandoned for the day but by Sunday morning they were gone and we continued as normal.
Sunday saw only 22 competitors scoring over 200. Nick Tremlett won with 213.20 which was sufficient to pip Andy Gent by 1 point for the meeting with a total score of 426.43. Jim McAllister won the Scottish Cup with 350.34 (an equivalent score of 422.37) and Gareth James won the Welsh Cup with 421.34. The Scots decided to award their trophies disregarding scores at 1200 yards on Saturday since a third of competitors had been unable to complete their shoot. Other competitors scored any incomplete cards with corresponding shots from their 1200 yard Sunday shoot.
The Ranken 1200 yard aggregate trophy was won by Colin Hayes, the only competitor to break 70 on Sunday. Kate Fitton won the Powell trophy for Ladies and Nick Hall of CURA won the OCRA U25 trophy.
After warm rounds of applause for John and Michael Hissey for excellent statistics, Tim Elliott our Chief Range Officer and Jim Stevens and his colleagues for their marking, we all departed. The English Eight Club would also like to thank Rob Lygoe for dealing with finance, Chris Law our Safety Officer, Will Mott for arranging an excellent Saturday evening reception and CURA for tidying up the clubhouse afterwards.