Mentoring students

[Apphelia]

There is the odd student that is around a long time, when I was an undergrad in London it was always medics, that help with continuity, now it seems to be engineers (four or five year course plus a year or more in industry in some cases)

As someone who was at university for 8 years , no comment.

[Gaz]

The real problem is the experience base within university clubs. That's where linking with local clubs can be a benefit... although, even within shooters, there's a generational gap which takes a fair bit of bridging. No matter how well intentioned the local club might be, if they're all of one age group and the university club are of that age group, you're going to have problems convincing the students to hang around.

I see what you are saying about linking Uni clubs with local clubs, but I was meaning giving the opportunity for individual students to experience clubs local to their home (really in vacation time). If (as a member) I turn up with one of my son's friends in tow, other club members are more than willing to let him or her have a go with whatever they are shooting. On their own I doubt that the youngsters would have had the confidence to approach any of the "old farts" to ask if they could have a go.

Precisely. This is what I was getting at with the generation gap - with the best will in the world there's still a great cultural difference between someone of post-retirement age and your average undergraduate. Plus, uni clubs are (in my experience) still mostly geared towards TR-style shooting. Which in itself is not a bad thing, but other discplines do miss out as a result. I'd wager if the NRA set up a few more 1-day matches aimed at student clubs, with BUCS accreditation, and with some rifles and appropriate kit available on a "turn up and play" basis, we'd see a few more student shooters sticking around for the long term.

Take the Trafalgar match at the Imperial. Informal shoot, fun atmosphere, and drinks in the sun afterwards. Now, take that format, ask current shooters to volunteer their time and their rifles, provide ammunition at cost, and you've got the makings of a good match and social occasion all in one. Isn't that what our sport is all about?

[BrunelTR]

From our perspective continuity in our more experienced membership is critical to us staying afloat. We are still using more experienced alumni of Brunel University (such as Gaz) to help train our new members, which has worked well so far. We have also found that making connections with the next generation up has been a great help to us shooting fullbore at Bisley.

At present, Brunel Target Shooting trains in prone .22 at 25 yrds, 7.62 target rifle, air pistol and whatever else we happen to have lying around (namely a mosin nagant and an enfields). Since we are fairly close to Bisley we are well up for bringing our members along and trying new disciplines out. If anyone is interested in having us along we would be happy to provide you with some students!

In addition, if there are any clubs (University or not) that would like to do a Bisley trip to try out some TR or service rifle we will quite happily lend some of our expertise to you to set up a guest day and help coach. Alternatively for any clubs already shooting TR if you want to get together for a shoot maybe we can benefit from each others experience.

Chris

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I don't care if he's been rogering the Duke of York with a prizewinning leek! He shot my pigeon!