The Veterans rifle club met at the armoury on Saturday morning to dust off our weapons and get some much needed practice in before going to Bisley again next week. The Crowl - Langley range had been trimmed and strimmed and I think prize-giving had finished before we started. I haven't had any complaints about noise, yet. Dennis Morgan, for many years our SSI at school, was making a bit of a splash with his Chelsea Pensioners uniform ( Scarlet and Shako) on and it was a pleasure to see him again. At 1400hrs we moved down to the Albert Beer indoor range to compete against the School VIII for the Derek Holt memorial trophy.
 
Wakefield Morris-Carter and Hendrick Coombs (Cpt.) shot first against Amy Brown (Cpt.) and Isla Howells and put the OWBA in front with a thirty point lead. Mike Baggs and Pete Delbridge went next against James Mathews and Aidan Becklake. Mike and James shot the joint highest score for the day with 97/125. Mike has just realised that reading glasses work with really well gun-sights, so he borrowed mine, which could explain some of the discrepancies in my adding up. Pete admitted that he generally uses a shotgun and his grouping target certainly proved that. The veterans still lead but only just. Harry Edgells and Ruan Pring went down next against Patrick Clifton and Sophie Hide. Unfortunately, Ruan shot at five different targets in his grouping section but their combined tally of 162 to Patrick and Sophie's 157 opened the scoreboard up slightly in our favour. In the last detail Lewis Pring and Simon Holt racked up a very good 173 for the veterans, which proved unbeatable. Two of the school team were now fielding in the cricket and unable to join us but Isaac Tredant and Charlie Haines were found lurking near the range and press-ganged into service. They saved the day for the school VIII with a combined score of 107, but the OWBA won the overall competition with a final score of 656 to the schools' 569.
 
Four reserves shot for the OWBA. Terry Curtayne scored an excellent 85, Megan Morris-Carter scored 67, Richard Edgells racked up 45 and Chris Clifton scored 80.

James Mathews shot the highest score of the day for WBS and kept the Ludlow Gillies trophy again.
Many thanks to Major Dave Price who organised everything and better luck next time.
Also, a huge thank you to everyone who turned up to compete.

On behalf of everyone in the WBSVRC I would like to say a huge thank you to Jamie Conchie and the OWBA for presenting us with our new 'mobile HQ'.

If we can get it to Bisley we will erect it with delight.
Scores;
 

OWBA Wakefield Morris-Carter        Hendrick Coombs  (Cpt)       Peter Delbridge                    Mike Baggs  Harry Edgells      Ruan Pring Lewis Pring Simon Holt                   Totals Reserves: Terry Curtayne Megan Morris-Carter Richard Edgells

88 74 62 97 80 82 87 86 656   85 67 45

WBS Amy Brown (Cpt) Isla Howells James Matthews Aidan Becklake Patrick Clifton Sophie Hide Isaac Tredant Charlie Haines Totals   Chris Clifton (staff)

81 51 97 LG Trophy 76 77 80 54 53 569   80

Chris Wilson(67-72B) (Chairman, WBSVRC.)