ast Thursday shooters came together at Wilmcote Social Club for the League’s Annual Christmas Shoot. Two competitions were held and there was a record number of entries as shooters came to grips with the older style open sighted rifles. The Bill Amos Competition was shot using a single rifle, provided on the night by Paul Clingan. The competition saw shooters paying 50p for 5 shots. The highest scorer on the night being the winner. A clean bull, with no mark on the target counted as 5.1 points.

Steve Garlick was in his element scoring 22.2 points out of a possible 25.5 to win a bottle of Whisky donated by the League President, Richard Groom and Paul Clingan was runner up with 21.1 points.

The Open Competition was run in exactly the same way, however shooters could supply their own rifles to use as long as they had open sights. Scores ranged from 23.2 to a mere 11 points. Of the pellets fired 2% (5) scored no points at all, 4% (10) scored only 2 points, 35% (81) pellets hit the three and 43% (99) were in the four. Thirty five pellets hit the bull with eighteen being clean shots. Steve Garlick and Trevor Morris both scored 23.2 points and in a shoot off, Garlick kept his nerve to win the Competition with a score of 23 points. The Open Shoot prize was a bottle of port donated by Jeff Smith. Garlick very generously gave his bottle of Port to Trevor Morris.

Paul Clingan spent the night at the firing point assisting shooters to load and instructing them as to how to line up the open sights, while Andy Clingan spent the whole night marking. Andy Smith and his father Jeff organised the competition and did the scoring.

Jackie Mills assisted by husband Richard organised the selling of raffle tickets, £49 was raised and the league shooters came up trumps and donated a good selection of prizes, along with a great choice of food for the buffet.

Chris Green has started a new tradition bringing along a jar of his world famous pickled onions to be auctioned off for charity, Adam Clarke finally won with a bid of £12.

The total money raised from the night came to a total of £115.58 to be donated to the League’s nominated charity at the end of the season.

Shooting re-commences on Thursday 7th January 2016 with Webley Shield matches Binton A vs Avenue; Clifford vs MEB; Home Guard vs Avon and Wilmcote vs Binton B.

Report by Juana Everett, to be published on 24th December 2015