NRA Journal - Summer 2003 - National Rifle Association

Webb, the Membership Secretary, and please do nothesitate to contact either of them with your ideas andconcerns.Expect to see Bob at some of the shoots and meetingsaway from Bisley in due course.I mentioned Public Relations. In the Financial Statementswe describe, as required, the major risks we face. Secondto finance we mention, in essence, politics. You willrecall my article in the Journal following theCommonwealth Games. The Games were good for us,projecting our position as an international sport. Weshall do all we can to maintain and develop our relationswith our ministries, the MoD, the Sports Ministry andthe Home Office plus our contact with the Associationof Chief Police Officers. Our relationships with theCharity Commission and the Privy Council are alsoimportant and we shall do what we can with the media.It is our duty to promote marksmanship and we have acommon interest with the NSRA and CPSA with whomwe shall work closely.As I said in that article, the best public relations tool wehave is how we conduct ourselves in the public view.Unfortunately, many of the public fear, and have turnedagainst firearms, and neither understand them nor howthey can be used safely and be of benefit through thepractice of marksmanship. We must recognise andunderstand this even though we believe that they arewrong. However, our position as an internationalsporting body must help our cause.It would also be better if we could say that we have moremembers. We have less than 5,000 individual membersand this is hardly impressive in the political arena. Wecan only really guess how many participate throughaffiliated clubs and associations even though we believethat it is very many thousands. We must encourage moreindividual membership and to those who say “what isin it for us?” I say that we need your subscription andyour membership to ensure that we can protect andencourage the pursuit of marksmanship. With moreregistered members we can reduce the subscriptions indue course. As it is we reduced the surcharge this yearto give a consistent message towards where we want togo.We are also working on a basic Introductory Course toprecede our increasingly popular Probation Courses.At the last Bisley General Meeting I referred to the cadettarget rifle and how the current leaders in the Servicesappreciate training with the fullbore target rifle for theirservices and schools cadets. I have learned that the cadettarget rifle has been adopted and barring any final hiccupis being issued this coming month. Following this wecan make a push to encourage more young target rifleshooters to carry on after they leave the cadets.”The National Shooting Centre Limited (known as NSCfor short)“I found, early on, that the position of NSC was not wellunderstood. It was formed, belatedly in fact, in March442000 to manage the non-charity activities for the NRA,as required under the Charities Act and to manage thefinances of the Lottery Funding Agreement for thebuilding of the Clay Target Range and the extension ofthe Melville Pistol Range for the Commonwealth Games.I want to especially compliment Sandy Ewing, its firstChairman, for ensuring that NSC itself was financiallywell controlled in fulfilling the Lottery Fund Agreement,against difficult pressures.As I shall explain shortly, one of the major headacheswhich I faced on becoming Chairman, was theunconstructed way monies were borrowed and passedto NSC by the NRA. Last September we were able tocapitalise NSC with a £550,000 interest bearing loanwhich will be repaid over ten years in accordance withCharities Act rules and saved the day, just in time.NSC also managed, as I have indicated, some, but notall, of the activities at Bisley. This cross-over ofresponsibilities was inefficient and, as I have reportedbefore, NSC has been moving towards managing allactivities at Bisley for the NRA under the direction ofCouncil. I emphasise that it will manage. It will nottake over ownership of NRA property.NSC is now in the final stages of taking over themanagement of running Bisley which will be much moreeffective. The role of the new Managing Director willbe to take this project further.At this point I want to thank some people who havebeen working so hard for you, particularly to ensure thatthe new Managing Director, when appointed, would notbe faced with a difficult backlog.Firstly, we should thank Nick Jeffs and the EstateCommittee, supported increasingly by Sherril Dixon, ourAccommodation Officer, as Colin Cheshire wounddown, for getting a grip of a plethora of outstandingissues and anomalies relating to the Bisley Estate. Youwill have read Nick Jeff’s article in the Winter Journal.At the end of last year we began the transition ofmanagement with the appointment of Charles Oliver-Bellasis as Chairman of NSC following his election toCouncil. Charles had already contributed to the workof the Estate Committee as a co-opted member, but thework he has put in since last September has been wellbeyond what was expected and I thank him. In Charlesyou have someone who wants to get things done andget them done right. He has been well supported bySandy Ewing as acting and part-time Managing Directorand I am pleased that Sandy is prepared to remain as anon-executive director for a while to ensure a smoothhand-over. I also thank Julian Hartwell, a propertyspecialist lawyer who has contributed so much to ourEstate Committee since his co-option last summer andwho, recently, has been engaged in ensuring that all ourfreehold land is accurately and fully registered.