The Official Opening

Bideford Target Shooting Club, its committee and members were delighted that on 28th May 2017 the official opening of phase one of our project took place with invited guests together with an open day for all on 29th May

On 28th May 2017 The Club President & Chairman, Mr Simon Dafforn, opened proceedings with a speech thanking all club members and contractors for the hard work and dedication to the club and its continued success in the future.

 
Guest of honour Mr Dave Walls, Co-founder of Accuracy International, congratulated the club on a fantastic job that by far exceeded his own expectations on what we had achieved so far. Mr Walls then unveiled a commemorative plaque and took the 1st official shot at 100 yards. Not quite a bulls-eye but a 9. The target was retrieved signed by Mr Walls & persons present, mounted and framed and is displayed in the club.

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It is almost impossible to mention everyone that played a part in planning and building phase one on the ranges. However recognition must be given to those that carried out the bulk of, not just the manual and physical side of the work but also to those that worked tirelessly behind the scenes with administration as well as the hard graft.

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I am sure the club will agree that special mention goes to Marc Pomeroy. click

Marc is a club member who took on responsibility as main contractor for the building of the covered firing points building. Under his guidance club members took instruction on many aspects of building work never attempted by any of us before. It may sound daft but there is a right way and a wrong way to tackle what seems to be the simplest of tasks such as banging in a nail and Marc was patient enough to teach us. If we got it wrong it simply was not good enough so had to be re-done, perfection or nothing for Marc! Take a close look at the woodwork around obscure angles high up in the building, no magic expanding foam, everything cut & joined to perfection. The saying goes..... "A jack of all trades and master of none" could hardly be further from the truth with Marc. A true craftsman without him we would have struggled and would not be where we are today.

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​Two club members who were almost constantly on site with Marc were Pete Thomson & Michael Coombs. Both Pete and Michael gave up an enormous amount of time over the years helping with the construction and we dread to think of the number of man hours the three of them spent on site, day in - day out, rain or shine guarantee one or all three would be on site. 

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Nothing gets done without a solid and focused administration. Credit here must go to the Club Captain Mog Thomson &
at the time Club Secretary Keith Travis.
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It's easy to think that "things just happen", things don't just happen! A minefield of planning applications has to be negotiated, contracts put into place, contractors and contracts agreed. Timelines agreed, budgets negotiated, endless forms filled in and sent off for approval followed by rejection followed by re-submitting forms followed by compromise etc. ​It takes a special kind of person to achieve all this and we had those special kind of people. 

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The club as a whole had a part in securing the site, we all put our hands in our pockets and gave what we could to buy the site at auction but that was just the start! We still needed a huge amount to secure our future. Events were organised and car boot sales & open nights were a big success but only generated a small amount of what we needed! Club members did what they could to raise whatever they could. Step up Mr Tony Mercer, Tony was co-opted onto the committee and not only set about tackling the grant applications with Sport England but also took on the responsibilities of tackling our environmental issues that had been levelled at us at the planning application stage! Tony successfully negotiated with Sport England  for a £75,000 grant and directed the club towards its environmental goals. 

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To all the club members, young and old who have turned up to work in rain, snow, sunshine, wind, frost and flood. To members that are still members yet are no longer with us who worked so hard for us yet never were able to shoot on the range and to former members that have left us but who helped us along our way.
To present club members that continue contribute.

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Here's to phase 2 & the opening of our indoor facilities in the not to distant future.

Well done to everyone, a job very well done.