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Request from My Friend in Africa

2K views 12 replies 11 participants last post by  Jenkins 
#1 · (Edited)
OK, some of you folks may have met my friend Sabine when she was here for the Grand.

She is also the Chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal Clay Target Shooting Association. (KwaZulu Natal is one of the eastern provinces of South Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean. She lives in the city of Durban.)

While having a glass of wine this evening (they're 7 hours ahead of us) she shot me an e-mail:

I have this crazy idea percolating in my brains and I wanted to get your opinion/input on it.

I promise I have not smoked anything and only had ONE glass of wine because its Friday evening after a hard weeks work.....

It's got to do with Clay Target shooting...

Tim, as you know the province you represented in SA (Limpopo) and my province (KwaZulu-Natal - KZN) are the two "under-dog" provinces with limited members and resources due to variety of factors, the biggest of which is probably demographics. The other provinces which have big cities like Johannesburg and Cape Town have far more resources as they have more people, hence more members in their provincial clay target shooting associations and hence more money.

Limpopo has the added benefit of having a multi-millionaire benefactor which made the South African Grand (which typically hosts fewer than 200 competitors) possible in that province. My KZN clubs are struggling financially, e.g. Riva Valley Club, where you shot a KZN Open Tim, still uses mainly manually operated traps which are probably over 40 years old. The club recently managed to purchase it's very first automated trap (yeah, a historic occasion !) but is having hassles with a voice release system.

My thinking was to maybe formally (in my capacity as Chairperson) or informally approach both the Kansas and Texas trap shooting association(s) to ask for a drive to their members to donate to help clay target shooting in a "developing" country......

(Maybe even ATA itself, but I think this would then have to come from our national association and I can present that idea to national EXCO at our next meeting.)


But let's stay with the US states first. I could whisk something up (with photos and description) to present to the US state associations and my thinking was, given the number of members (I have not done any research yet on that), if each member donates JUST ONE dollar for KZN in SA, we could end up with some sorely needed funds. Of course all would be transparent, i.e. the US associations would receive proof of purchase of trap machines etc. This money would be solely used for capital purchases.

Anyway, that's her pitch. If asked, would any trapshooters.com folks be willing to donate a few bucks to people in a place you'll probably never go to, simply for the promotion of the clay target shooting sports?

I told her this might get a little more traction with the ATA (should she try to go that route) if the CTSASA would become a member of the ATA. I pushed for that while I was over there, but it was met with resistance. Difficulty getting the right targets, and enough benefit for the added cost to shooters, in their mind.

Some photos I took at Riva Valley Gun Club, of which she speaks. Crazy layout. All the traps face north (in the southern hemisphere they SHOULD face south. And on the ATA fields you are shooting into a hill that is about 60 yards away from the house. And it's in a little valley that gets a major cross wind from the Indian Ocean. Very hard place to score well.

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#2 ·
Maybe Verticalscope would be able to donate a portion of the supporting members annual fee? Even if they kicked up the cost a few bucks...
I don't have much (I'm still shooting my tristar if that tells ya anything) but I'd kick in what I could.
 
#7 ·
Thanks everyone. Still in the planning stages. I'll let you know more as I get details!
 
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