Thread: To many oldies and to few young people.

I had an interesting experience last weekend, whilst visiting Chch. Granny and grandson were heading to Orana Park leaving me at a loose end.

So I headed back down the road to where I'd seen some ranges. There was a big gaggle of folks heading into one of them so I tagged along . . . Into the Nth Canterbury NZDA branch facility. Most of the gaggle were young fellas and a bit of a chat established they were from "Hunt Soc" which is associated with Canterbury Uni. There were a few old blokes there, they got "Range Officer" vests, some of the young ones had no firearms license, they got blue vests. I made myself known to one of the younger "old blokes" and was invited to stay and observe. There was also a bloke from the FSA There, had a great chat to him to.

MAN I learnt a lot. The old blokes were great, like all good ROs they had eyes in the back of thier heads but were very relaxed and accommodating - I had a yarn with all of them at appropriate (I hope) times, and a good read of the RSOs, which as a local range convener are always interesting.

The Huntsoc guys were great, a lot of the were sighting in/checking loads etc but after a bit all the blue vests guys got given a target, then a briefing, then the older huntsoc guys coached themthrough what was for most of them, their first shots out of a rifle (or maybe one that wasn't Dads). It was all very relaxed, companionable, and still professional. I left before the FSA guy talked with them but he'd told me he was speaking about getting a FAL with special mention of how to deal with storage whilst at uni - and he had solutions that sounded fine to me.

This experience has many pointers as to how to keep out sport going, some I took home being we need to seek out gaggles of young people like the "Huntsocs" and engage them. We need to ensure they deal with RO's etc cut of the right cloth - keep them away from the opinionated wankers who love to frequent ranges. We need to get young people doing the coaching etc, they speak the language of the young and are far more capable that most would think (and apart from range safety issues, why give a flying fuck if their opinions are different to the hierarchy, man I heard some funny stuff).