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I use the words “gun repairer” and not gun smith as you can see this was rather an urgent matter and things had to be taken in hand with alacrity. Be assured it worked!!! The gun was constantly altered during the day with cardboard and insulating tape to ensure the perfect fit!!!

Dartford Gun Club have installed a new system to manage the targets – and, sadly, keep the shooters honest. What happens is that you go into the office and see the lovely Gail, pay her some money and she “charges” up a “key” with x number of targets. When you go to the range, you insert it in the control box – pictured – and the targets are then deducted from your allocated total. We used it for two days recently and it worked well. Gordon said that it was cheaper to install than the trusty Claymate system. Who knows, it may catch on.

George and Iain (not me) in the High House. The big smiles are because it was very windy and very cold outside.

In this section I have some photos of East Yorkshire Gun Club, Bisley and Dartford where I ran a series of coaching sessions last week. As you will see we enjoyed reasonable weather throughout although, as usual, I played safe with as many layers of clothing as possible!

A sunny day at East Yorkshire

The club house at Bisley

Group work on one of the Bisley skeet ranges

A most unusual photgraph of a Borders farmer actually smiling! Another sunny day at Dartford.

I’ve got some great photos here from a number of days I have been involved in. Have a look at them and come back to me with your comments.

THE GUN IS EMPTY!!
This is a great photo demonstrating a Left Master Eye and the effect it could have on a right handed shooter. Thanks to Jill for demonstrating.

Another good photo showing an excellent OS ready position on a sunny day! at North Ayrshire Shooting Ground. Look at,and admire, Martin’s determination.

A snowy day at Auchterhouse and Sandy demonstrating his ready position for a bird off the High Tower.

This week I will be at Cluny Clays, Auchterhouse, East Yorkshire, Bisley and Dartford so getting about quite a bit with the Olympic Skeet shooters. I will be taking a trip to Italy next month, with a small group, to conduct OS training at some of the top grounds over there including Lonato and Montecatini. Hopefully this will be the first of many such trips so watch this space for more information.

Good shooting.

I know it’s a long time since I last wrote. I should actually resolve to attend to this blog much more regularly. I got the idea to do it from a rock climber who came in every night a blogged his all to his fans. I can’t imagine that I have fans but at least I can keep you up to date with what goes on in my small world.
I’ve done a lot of coaching since last time which is good, but what is even better is that we held the STSF winter camp at Kippen Gun Club near Stirling and had Katie Sinnott, an excellent sports psychologist, with us for the three days.
Kate started us with sports psych could do for us all, in shooting and life, and then progressed over the time to subjects in depth. It’s quite amazing what writing down your pre shot routine can throw up! Hopefully there will be more funding for the STSF group to continue with the good work. Congrats to Alison Nicol for trailing up from London to participate. Well done her.
How and ever, I am trying to put a group together to start working with Katie on a regular basis. It’s not free as she has to make a living – despite her undoubted passion for what she does. If you are interested you could e mail me.
I was coaching at Cluny Clays one day with a client for OS. the good news is that they are building – possibly have finished – a second skeet layout. This is good for shooting in general but tit’s very good for the OS shooters as it will give us somewhere else we can shoot on a Sunday. Keep your eyes open for the fixtures lists when they come out.
To the Scottish shooters – GET YOUR SUBS PAID!!!!!!. They are due now so don’t leave it until the last minute.
Down at East Yorkshire Gun Club this week. Cold but OK for shooting. Lots of time spent on station four with the shooters but I believe that it paid off. The rythym is getting better and the whole thing is firming up. Well done to the shooters to put in the effort. It will pay off later in the year.
Off to Stirling to a Commonwealth Games meeting tomorrow and then North Ayrshire on Sunday.
This job is fab!!!
All the best for 2008.

Much work at the moment about annual plans. If any of you have any suggestions as to how these should be constructed and what should be included, I would be delighted to receive them. It’s always interesting to see what others think.
Been down South once or twice lately and planning Bisley and Dartford late January. Anybody interested can contact me.
Yorkshire for the rest of the week. Let’s hope the roads are not too icy!

10 o’ clock Sunday morning, pouring rain outside. Joy of joys, working on next year’s budgets. I am a lucky guy. There’s a DTL shoot at Cortachy today – I hope they get a reasonable turnout.
Fore those of you who don’t know, Drew Christie had an accident on Wednesday and ended up in the hospital. He’s out now, stiff, sore, bashed about a bit, but, hopefully, no lasting damage.
Back to Excel for me.
Keep smiling.
iain

After some serious thought, I have decided to create a blog for myself to keep people up to date with what goes on in the – or my – clayshooting world. I hope that this blog will be updated very regularly and can be checked by interested parties all over the world.
Hello and welcome.
iain