SFFGC

Feb 22 2015

 New Member Orientation Course Report

On Sunday, February 22, 2015, the Smiths Falls Fish and Game Club held their first New Member Orientation Course in over a year. The course was well attended by a fine group of eager, soon to be new members. The course started almost on time which was surprising considering the overnight snow fall and the early hour for a Sunday morning. 

The course went very smoothly, with some good interaction, and due to lots of coffee and Tim Bits everyone remained awake and alert. 

For the first time our Orientation Course also included a live-fire segment on the rifle ranges and was well received by all. We did, however, keep it short intentionally, as some people found the temperature refreshingly cool. 

All being said, it came off very well due to the cooperation of all in attendance and the particularly Steven Neilson, Dugald Souter and Denis Labelle who SO’d on the firing line as well as Steven Spencer from Memberships who processed all the paperwork. 

My thanks to all, and a great big Welcome to the newest members of the Smiths Falls Fish and Game Club. 

July 24 2014 

Positive announcement made today by Steven Blaney, Minister of Public Safety! 

Many of us in the firearms community have been struggling to deal with all the “Red Tape” that is part of an attempt by certain political parties, and anti-firearms groups to disarm all Canadians.

Today we have been given hope that some positive changes are coming. Minister Blaney today announced some steps that most will see as positive for the firearms community.  In what the minister calls the “Common Sense Firearms Act” that he plans on introducing into legislation in September, there are a number of changes that will have a positive effect on our community. Those changes are:

1:  The ATT will merge with your Firearms License.

2:  The conditions of the ATT will include all authorized destinations, such as any approved shooting range, any gunsmith and any other authorized destination (all current transportation regulations remain in place).

3:  All POLs will now merge and become PALs.

4:  The powers of the CFOs to place restrictions on ATTs with be reined in and made uniform across the country.

5:  Measures will be introduced to prevent the creation of paperwork criminals by creating a grace period between the expiration date of a firearms license and when it is actually renewed.

6:  Firearms safety courses will be mandatory for all first-time firearms owners, and challenging the firearms tests will no longer be possible.

7:  People convicted of domestic abuse will face the possibility of a lifetime ban on firearms.

8:  He also alluded to changes being made that would prevent the RCMP from arbitrarily being able to reclassify firearms.

In addition to these changes and separate from them, minister Blaney announced immediate changes to the amnesty on the Swiss Arms family of firearms as well as the CZ858 that allows the owners of these firearms to use them as well as possess them until 2016, during which time the final disposition will be determined.

These are definitely positive changes for the firearms community, and even though there are many that will say they are not enough we all should be happy that at least some changes are starting to happen that are positive for members of the shooting community.

Mark

For more information and actual speech:

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives/2014/07/20140723-125833.html 

June 9 2014 Community Challenge Match

Once again the annual Community Challenge Match was held this past Saturday and I believe I can declare it  resounding success. All the people that we involved in this match put forth a first class effort and the comments coming back from our guests  were nothing but positive. The whole day went smoothly with the exception of one minor hiccup at the end. In spite of that our people rose to the challenge and most people we unaware of any mix ups. 

We had 21 teams participating and over 85 shooters completing. It is a lot of work to organize an event of this size, but the great people at our club all came together and pulled it off in a very professional style. We had in excess of 45  volunteers working together to bring you this event, both in front and behind the scenes and the net result is we raise just under $3200.00 for this great cause. 

I would like to point out those that put in outstanding efforts, but there are just too many to single out! This type of selfless effort from so many is what make our Club such a great place to be associated with. 

When we work together we can do great things. 

Thank You all. 

Mark Todd

June 1 2014 

Range Clean up Day!

 The Range Clean Up Day turned out to be an outstanding success. We had dozens upon dozens of volunteers turn up today Sunday June 1^st for our annual Spring Clean Up Day and they came in force and ready to work. So many that it was hard to keep track of all the work assignments. We had a crew on the shotgun range building/repairing fences, cutting grass ,leveling gravel for the patio stones to go under the new shelter and gun rack. We had crews trimming around the target stands and the Bunker on the 200 yard range. Trimming and cleaning target stands on the 100 yd. range and finally cleaning the targets and stands on the 50 yd range, as well as trimming and cleaning all around the range structure.

The grass and brush was all trimmed and cleared away from the roads, signing shed and all range buildings.  The berms were cleaned of rocks trimmed and the backstops were all refaced with wood chips.. We even cut and trimmed around the Club House and the fences near the club house. It was a flurry of activity that resulted in the ranges looking better than I have ever seen them. 

I cannot tell you how proud I am of the amazing effort made by everyone that came out today. We can all be very proud of our facilities and I think this effort will make them much easier to maintain for the rest of the year. 

Thank you all for a great effort! 

Mark Todd

May 29 2014  More Volunteers Needed! 

The date of the Community Challenge Match is fast approaching and we are working feverously to complete the dozens of tasks necessary to pull this off. However we are still short of volunteers! 

Many people have responded and volunteered their services, but there are still many jobs that we need volunteers for. 

Escorts to stay with the teams and guide them from stage to stage and answer their questions and keep them on schedule- we still need 3 or 4 more. 

Target patchers, and score keepers for each stage to patch targets and help keep this moving as quickly as possible – we still need 3-4 for each range 

BBQ – 2-3 people to BBQ the hot dogs and sausages for lunch

Club house – 1-2 people to serve the chili, make sure there is enough buns, utensil and whatever 

A few volunteers to run around filling coolers and making sure we have enough cold water and Ice on the ranges

And finally lots of help to tear down the stages and put everything away after the shooting is over.

None of this is hard work and anyone can do it, plus you get your volunteer hours in.

Please help us make this a huge success. 

Mark Todd 

President SFFGC

May 28 2014

Tonight with short notice ( notice sent yesterday) we had 8-10 people show up at the ranges to help me lay the new sod!

I could not be more pleased with the response and to all the volunteers I say “Thank You Very Much”.

May hands make light work, and in under 1 ½ hours the job was done and we were all on our way home! Many of these same people said they would be back out this Sunday for the Range Clean Up Day! It has certainly showed me that we have a great group of people that will come and lend a hand when we communicate with them.

Thanks again, and good shooting!

Mark Todd

May 11 2014

Our First Gun Match Of the Year. 

On Saturday May 10,2014 we held our 1^st 3 gun match of the year. Ian St. Pierre, Steve Neilson, Dugald Souter and their team did an outstanding job of designing  the extensive and challenging course for our first match of the year. There was approximately 17 shooters signed up, and some very stiff competition in all of the classes. A number of spectators showed up and were very impressed with the action and technical difficulty of the course of fire. You had to really pay attention in order to complete most of the course of fires without missing any of the targets.

Arzan Bulsara  came in first in the Open Class.

Earl Greene came in first in Tactical Irons Class

Ian St.Pierre came in first in Tactical Optics Class 

Earl Greene had the best time of the day! 

The day turned out to be a perfect day weather wise and a great time was had by all. There is no doubt that we will have a lot more demand for this type of match going forward. 

A big thanks goes out to all the volunteers involved in the setup, on Friday evening and target patching, score keeping and tear down on Saturday. Once again the volunteers really came through for us and contributed greatly for the success of the match!

 May 7 2014

Update on the 25yd. covered range. 

Kevin Ryder has taken it upon himself to repair and rebuild the falling Steel Plate targets in both bunkers at the 25 yd. range.

He has completely reworked the mechanisms and added counter weights so they will no longer require springs or bungee cords to operate the mechanisms.

This was a lot of work on Kevin’s part, but the net result is 2 sets of steel plate targets that operate smoothly and without the need to go down to the actual bunker to reset them.

They can be reset from the firing Line by simply operate the ropes to reset them.

The tall bunker on the left has a double row of 5 plates per row, and the lower bunker on the right has a single row of 5 plates 

These repairs required a fair amount of work and Kevin’s welding skills to complete, and should allow us to have many years of use from them.

We all owe Kevin a big “ Thank You “ for his efforts.