Member news

[Christel]

Dear Member

In our strategy which we published last year, we highlighted a series of areas that we would focus on in order to deliver the quality of organisation we feel we should have. I am writing to you now to update you on an element of that strategy.



The areas of focus for the strategy were:

• ‘Catch up’ at Bisley

• Commercial Revenues at Bisley

• Regional development outside Bisley

• Engagement with Government

• ‘Customer Centricity’



We asked for feedback on that strategy and those priorities and one area which came up strongly in that feedback was a more proactive approach to lobbying government on firearms legislation. Events in Cumbria and Tyneside last year made that still more pressing. Hitherto, the NRA had agreed to line up with the BSSC as the lead agency on engaging with government. We decided to change that stance as a result of your feedback and also in recognition that the target shooting community have skills and views which are distinctive and deserve to be heard. This is not to say that we seek to ‘break ranks’ with the BSSC, but we do wish to ensure that your interests are fully represented.



Thus far, that has lead us to produce the papers that you saw in December: ‘Facts about Firearms’ and ‘Proposals for Firearms Legislation’. These were sent to every MP and were favourably mentioned in the Parliamentary debate on 19th December and by Keith Vaz, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee in interviews around that time.



We have continued to progress this work, and on 22nd February, the Secretary General of the NRA, Glynn Alger, represented the target shooting community as part of a BSSC delegation which met James Brokenshire MP, the Home Office minister with responsibility for firearms legislation. Glynn, together with some of the NRA trustees has worked up a series of proposals and recommendations which he presented to the Minister and discussed with him.



These covered:

1. Options for improving firearms licensing at lower cost

2. Ages and conditions around youth shooting

3. Reintroduction of Olympic pistol shooting in the UK as a sport

4. The proposal to reclassify shotguns as Section 1 Firearms

5. Consolidation of Firearms legislation.



These topic areas will come as no surprise to those who have read the materials we sent out in December. In this most recent paper, we demonstratde a willingness and capability to enter constructive dialogue on how firearms legislation can be improved.



I am delighted to tell you that the Minister has invited us to continue this process and make more detailed proposals. Clearly, this does not amount to an undertaking by the Minister to adopt our ideas. Equally, I do not wish to inhibit those discussions so I do not intend to share the substance of our proposals at this point. However, I hope that you will see this as the NRA taking a lead role in engaging with government and will join with me in wishing our team every success in pursuing this vital work. In particular I would like to thank Glynn for his leadership in putting the NRA at the forefront of this process.



Over the next few weeks I hope that a number of initiatives which have been underway for some time will reach a point whereby I can share them with you. They are all exciting and important activities which again demonstrate our commitment to deliver on the strategy that we outlined last year.



Regards



Robin Pizer

[Robin128]

"I am delighted to tell you that the Minister has invited us to continue this process and make more detailed proposals. Clearly, this does not amount to an undertaking by the Minister to adopt our ideas. Equally, I do not wish to inhibit those discussions so I do not intend to share the substance of our proposals at this point. However, I hope that you will see this as the NRA taking a lead role in engaging with government and will join with me in wishing our team every success in pursuing this vital work. In particular I would like to thank Glynn for his leadership in putting the NRA at the forefront of this process."

Why is it BASC can be open and honest about what they are saying to Government, but the NRA cannot?

Why should anyone trust the NRA after the total lack of support following Dunblane and Hungerford? Moreover, why should the NRA think they can be so secretive and demand that we leave it all to them to advise Government...if anyone will inhibit shooting it will be the NRA, not the safe and legal shooter of this once great land. It all sounds a bit underhand IMHO.

Just remember who pays your salary and expenses...definately not me!

Lead role...sorry, don't make me laugh!!

[FredB]

Posturing achieves nothing. To talk to the Politicians, you have to do it in a way that they understand and accept---they can simply refuse to take part in the conversation. When the process is undertaken, the only publicity possible is that which the politicians condone. Whingers with big mouths simply indicate to the politicians that we are not united.
We don't like the process, but the alternative is to sit on the sidelines and complain, undermining the good work which our representatives are undertaking.
If you contrast our NRA with the USA version, the Amricans have succeeded in branding shooters as "Gun Nuts" in the media and those not involved in our sport are dismissive of it.
Join the NRA, volunteer your services, put your opinions to the committees that brief our representatives in the interface with authority or shut up. You are not helping.
Fred

[dodgyrog]

Nice - er perhaps not.:evil: :evil: :evil:
Do as I say not as I do???
The NRA have got an awful reputation and they are doing little to convince the average shooter/plinker that they are represented well by the NRA.
Yes I am a member, but not sure how much longer I'll stick with it.

[Robin128]

No, I will not shut up, FredB! Nor will I become part of your bureaucracy. Thankyou!!

[dodgyrog]

By the way FredB I have given my opinions and advice - but as they say some fall on stony ground.
Get the NRA out of Bisley as a start!

[dromia]

Fred I subscribe to your approach in principle and I have also in practice up until last year, however that approach only seems to work with other organisations of principle as well.

Over many years through Hungerford and Dunblane I've stuck with the NRA offering support and saying what I thought to people involved. But it has been for nought. The NRA is now going back over again, it is more Bisley centric look at the strategy. The regions are ignored, despite the strategies aspiration there are still no tangible ideas or proposals coming forward, we haven't had a regional meeting inyears. That coupled with the increase in subscriptions and the withdrawal of benefits for regional shooters shooting at Bisley means that the only reason for joining now is if you want to shoot at Bisley by booking lanes as an individual.

On canvassing government the NRA has been singulary unsuccessful in making any meaninful contribution to improving the lot for clubs booking MoD ranges. The introduction of the safe shooting certificate just highlighted how out of touch the NRA is. It isn't a safe shooting certificate its a safe target rifle shooting certificate whose content is purely related to shooting at Bisley, gallery rifle, shotgun and BP were added as an after thought. Where I come from the vast majority of shooters who use MoD ranges are not target rifle or competitive shooters and the narrowness of the safe shooting certificate just indicated the NRA's total lack of understanding of shooting and shooters beyond Bisley.

All this stuff now about lobbying is futile as shooting is represented by so many vested interest organisations that we as a community look amateurish and weak to government, they can listen to us all and get enough stuff to do as they wish we have no leverage as separate entities. That is the great strength of the US NRA at least for all its failings it is one voice. You almost feel that here the "national" bodies are having a match over who can climb into bed with government. They are all behaving like bairns.

Just you wait, if we have any "successes" from the Cumbria enquiry then they will all be crowing there own success, just look at this forum National Shooting Organisations, that says it all for me.

They even got money from Sport England to help expedite the development of a truly representative national organisation, which some consultant did very well out of no doubt but has been of no benefit to shooting or shooters on the ground. That is a disgrace and the shooting fraternity deserves an apology from all concerned. They failed us there and made us look like fools.

Glyn Alger spoke a lot of sense when he took over the NRA but all this has come to nought and all one can think is that he has been knobbled somewhere along the line, by whom I have no idea but there must be some reason that his song of sense has stopped.

More financial problems again last year, I ask you after all the past debt rigmarole there is something sorely amiss when it happens again.

So I will speak out about what I see, I am still a member for this year. I do not feel I am being negative, I have made positive suggestion about having costed, targetted and measurable action plans for us to come behind. I've also advocated for a long while now that the NRA leave Bisley and concentrate on building and developing its membership and being a lobbyist for shooting not target rifle and Bisley.

When I see an organisation that shows leadership, vision and action I will support it wholeheartedly but from where I am sitting the NRA and the rest are at best supporting their own vested interests as an organisation and at worst moribund and irrelevant.

Until then I shall criticise constructively but I will put no more time or money into the lame duck NRA.

For the NRA to regain my respect and the respect of the many non Bisley shooters out there then it has to show us some respect and enquire, listen, be seen to be active and be relevant.

[Mike357]

Aye, what he said! :lol:

Seriously, regardless of all the politics within the NRA, the first step for me to consider joining would be a national shooting centre in Scotland. I appreciate that it all costs money but Dromia's comments about creating a plan and then securing the funding is preferable to worrying about the money first.

When the NRA benefits me. I will join.

[FredB]

We are now getting constructive comment. What I objected to was meaningless whinging---it makes us look both weak and irresponsible in the eyes of the authorities.
I don't like much of what the NRA does--I have a reputation at Bisley for complaining about it! I complain from inside the organisation. A couple of years ago, I attended one of the Sport England consultation meetings and found myself sitting next to a whinger from another club. Very little of what he complained about was true, he had never visited Bisley and was just passing on malicious gossip. Like I said before, this does not help our cause. The NRA is all we have: if you don't like it, join and change it. I am a life member. I have never shot target rifle. I am not unusual in this. I shoot Historic calibres and muzzle loaders. The NRA runs more muzzle loading competitions for a greater variety of guns than the MLAGB does. It runs many black powder cartridge shoots. It has the only competitions that I know of where I can shoot my Schuetzen rifles at 200yds off-hand as they were meant to be shot. I do not go in for belly flopping.
As for what use it is, I live 150m from Bisley and only go there 3 times a year normally. I shoot competitively and enter the "flagship" competitions and have done so since Pistol'78. My club has had support from the NRA and is in need of it again--I am waiting to see what happens!
Fred

[Robin128]

FredB,

For anyone to listen to you, personaly...

You need to learn some basic manners.

You must stop being patronising and show some respect for clear thinking highly qualified professionals...yes, there are many on this forum and outside the Bisley bubble who may know a little bit more about business in general and shooting in particular, than you.

For the NRA to be trusted ever again, it must, IMHO...

Genuinely engage with its members ... listen, understand and act responsibly.

Impliment agreed, sensible and properly financed strategies, based on the aims and objectives of its membership, not its fat cats, chronies and old guard.

Be open and honest.

Be seen to be talking some sense into our Government regarding what, if anything really needs to be done about Cumbria.

Implement effective budgetary control.

The NRA has no right whatsoever to expect to be trusted, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it will yet again let down the lawful and safe shooter of this country, including its fully paid members.

I too concur with Dromia.