ATSA - Ayrshire Target Shooting Association
Registered County Association of the NSRA
2000 to 2009
31st May 2000 AGM at Castle View Inn Dundonald.
In the absence of the Chairman the Vice-Chairman presented the Trophies available and the medals for the competitions completed in the year.
The Secretary’s report set out a concern over an apparent lack of interest in the County’s competitions which, if not reversed, will lead to a question of the County’s financial viability and future.
The second concern was a drop in shooting standards with the exception of specific individuals.
The Treasurer presented a very clear analysis of the year’s accounts advising that the accounts had not been audited due to the intended auditor changing his position during the period.
Utilising the presented analysis the Treasurer set out a comparison of the County’s income this year against last years which clearly showed the reduction of income from the lack of competition fees.
Setting out a projection for the present year, the Treasurer pointed out that the current affiliation fees will be significantly short of the expected affiliation costs and to break even, would require the current club affiliation fee to be raised to £38-50.
He considered that to be excessive and pointed out that if the County dropped its County status and moved to an Association the NSRA affiliation fee would drop from around £240 to £75.
Under questioning the Treasurer declared that the insurance situation did not change with the change in status and he could not find any disadvantages beyond the removal of representation at the Shooters Council which we did not take up anyway.
The competition fees were providing an excess of £83 over the prizes which provided running expenses for the County and currently topped up the club affiliation fees to meet the County affiliation expenditure.
However it was felt that this figure needs to be increased and the Treasurer put forward making each of the County competitions an open event.
That would provide the dual purpose of increasing revenue and also measuring the shooting standard in the County.
The Treasurer proposed that the club affiliation fees and the competition entry fees stay as they were for the coming season.
Following some discussion the Chairman seconded the Treasurers proposal and there was no counter proposal.
The Chair raised the Treasurer’s point on the County changing its status to an Association.
It was believed that required some consideration within the clubs for the moment and the meeting felt that it should be addressed by the elected Council prior to November 2000.
Acceptance of the Treasurer’s report was proposed and seconded.
There were two changes to the constitution, the first to meet an Inland Revenue requirement to state that the County was non-profit making and the second to establish conditions that would maintain the control of the County within the Ayrshire clubs if outside clubs were allowed into the County. The Secretary made it clear that the margins chosen would enable outside clubs to take-over should the Ayrshire Clubs become sufficiently apathetic to fail to attend the meetings.
It was considered by the Council that such a level of apathy would justify the control moving elsewhere for the basic purpose of survival.
Both amendments were accepted by the meeting without any change.
30th May 2001 AGM at the Old Racecourse Hotel, Ayr.
The Chairman stated that it had been an abysmal year with competition entries down to the lowest level ever and an air of apathy in every affiliated club.
He expressed some concern over the election of officers, which would follow shortly, stating that he had sought applications for the position of Secretary at every Council meeting with absolutely no success.
However the AGM turned out the Chairman felt that there was a need to be able to look forward to a much better year.
The Secretary set out the reasons behind the presentation of his resignation on the 5th September 2000 detailing the lack of interest in County Competitions, the general drop in shooting standards and the increase in divisionalisation with the increase in the number of disciplines. These all went against a principle of the Constitution which the Secretary considered fell within his duties to uphold.
The Treasurer set out the financial transactions over the year, compared them with the year before and produced a projection for the coming year.
This presented a very clear picture of the position in the County and permitted those present to explore with the Treasurer a number of options and to evaluate them.
These analyses indicated that if nothing was changed the County could be either £20 short of its income at the end of next year or £300 if things deteriorated further.
Those present considered that the County should leave everything as it is for this year and put every effort into improving the acceptability of the competitions.
The Vice Chairman requested a period to consider the Secretary’s report, a request held to this point in case there had been an additional input from the County Coach’s report.
The Vice considered that the Secretary was taking things to himself which were and are outwith his direct influence to the point that there cannot be any judgement on achievement or non-achievement from that base.
He pointed out that the Secretary had come into position just after Hungerford, had gone through Dunblane and the County was still in place indicating one major achievement.
The Chairman joined in the expressions reinforcing the points made by the Vice.
It was concluded that whether the Secretary left office or not he should not view his period in office as lacking in achievement.
Vice raised the point of Honary Presidents and the current lack of anyone in that position. He queried the Secretary’s view on the position of a Honary President to receive the opinion that an active HP could be advantageous for the County but an inactive figurehead did very little to promote the County.
To that end Vice proposed that the County should re-instate the position of Honary President which was seconded by the Treasurer.
Vice then wished to propose the Secretary for the position of Honary President which was seconded from the floor.
The Chairman then queried the Secretary as to how he felt about this nomination and gained the response that the Secretary considered it a great honour but one that he felt was undeserved at this time.
The meeting was of the mind to re-elect all the existing officers as proposed by Vice but the Secretary pointed out that he had not withdrawn his resignation at this time.
The Chairman pointed out that the Council had not accepted his resignation and in the light of no applications for the position had no room to accept the resignation.
The Secretary put forward his urgent need to regain some enthusiasm and proposed that if for the next 12 months all aspects of County’s competitions could be taken away from him he would carry on in post and most probably re-assume full responsibilities on conclusion of this break.
After some discussion it was agreed that the Competitions Secretary, the League Secretary and the Treasurer working together would undertake all the competition issues for the next 12 months.
It was noted that the Constitution permitted these positions to recruit assistance as they felt the need.
With this amendment to duties the office positions were re-elected an bloc.
The Treasurer outlined that he had access to a number of parties able to undertake an audit of the County’s accounts.
It was proposed by JH that the determination of an auditor should be left to the Treasurer.
This proposal was seconded by WTC.
The Treasurer advised that he had given some time to considering this subject recognising that the subscription had been static for some time.
However he felt that it would be counterproductive at this time to raise the cost and he would prefer to get some enthusiasm into the competitions first.
Accordingly he recommended no change in the subscriptions this year appreciating that there was a risk of a significant loss in the year if interest in the County’s competitions was not improved.
The Secretary queried whether the Treasurer might consider it worthwhile stating an increase for next year.
The Treasurer felt that it would be a good idea to indicate an increase for next year and he recommended an increase to £40.
That figure was accepted by those present.
The Secretary provided the background to the proposed change to the constitution included with the agenda for the AGM.
The Chairman provided further detail to the proposal for the ATSA to remain a County whilst ever it is financially viable and the floor proposed and seconded acceptance of the change.
The Treasusrer proposed that the quorum required for a Council Meeting should be reduced from 5 to 3 whilst maintaining a quorum of 5 for an AGM.
In recognition of a need to maintain the business of the County the proposal was well received and was seconded from the floor
The Secretary outlined the position for County Representation and the difficulties in finding someone willing to make the journeys to Bisley to attend a Council meeting in which the decisions appeared to have been decided prior to the meeting.
The meeting agreed to maintain the status quo.
Vice regretted that he had been unable to complete his review of the competition rules and accordingly could not present them for ratification at the AGM.
He undertook to complete the review as quickly as possible but the ratification will have to take place at the next AGM.
The Secretary planned to have a proposal for a new centre for the first Council meeting of the new competition year.
22nd May 2002 AGM at the Old Racecourse Hotel, Ayr.
In the absence of the Chairman the AGM was chaired by the Vice Chairman.
The Secretary advised that he had been persuaded to continue under agreed conditions and thanked the Council for holding to the conditions which had made the year much easier.
A deviation to note an opportunity to register support for the sport at this year’s Commonwealth Games was set out before looking at the position across the County.
In that review the support for the blackpowder events and the entry of a team for the Inter-County Junior competition were picked out as highlights.
The lack of support for a county social event was considered to be a serious weakness across the County and grateful thanks were expressed for the help and assistance of specific club members and the scorers.
Commenting on the Secretary’s report the Chair picked out the lack of commitment to the County events as a negative aspect and the new Junior County team as a very positive aspect.
On the latter the juniors had been very pleased to have been part of the County team and gaining a place in the County team was something to achieve which imparted a very positive approach to the juniors.
The Chair noted that the lack of support for a County social event and commented that social events were difficult for most clubs but he did not know why.
In respect of the assistance to the Secretary on County Competitions, the Chair considered that there was no reason why it should not continue this year as the people involved had not found it onerous.
Finally the Chair considered that the Secretary’s Report should not be confined only to the minutes and felt that it should be distributed with the next set of Council minutes.
Those present were of the same view and the Secretary undertook to make the report available.
The Treasurer set out the financial transactions over the year, compared them with the year before and produced a projection for the coming year.
For this part of the meeting the Treasurer wished to concentrate solely on the income and expenditure over the last year.
Starting from a balance of £451.45 which fell rapidly due to cup and medal engraving costs to a point at which the County could not afford to pay the Sports Council affiliation fee.
Income rose through the affiliation and competition fees and the year closed with a balance of £299.23 in the bank.
This is less than the year before and requires some careful attention to this year’s expenditure together with the revenue generated.
The Treasurer indicated that he would pick this up at the appropriate part of the agenda.
After a few questions of clarification JH proposed acceptance of the accounts seconded by SS.
A copy of the Treasurer’s Accounts is filed with the minutes.
The Secretary proposed to the Chair that in view of the small numbers attending the AGM the interest of anyone present in joining the Council should be determined and after that the officers could be re-elected en-masse.
The Chair accepted the proposal and found that no one present outside existing officers wished to join the Council.
Accordingly the Chair looked for a proposal to re-elect the outgoing officers.
A proposal was received and seconded.
It was also proposed and seconded that the determination of an auditor should be left to the Treasurer.
The Treasurer advised that he had given some time to considering this subject and had produced an analysis on the last page of the Accounts report.
In the upper part of the sheet the budget proposals outline that with no changes there would probably be an increase in the County’s bank balance of +£65.00 by the end of the year.
No one felt that that was an adequate position.
The Treasurer then outlined proposals to raise the competition fees, taking the team fees to £6.00 and the individual fees to £3.00, to raise the club affiliation fee to £35.00 and to introduce a charge of £1.00 for every club member to be an Associate Member of the County.
Together these proposals would increase the income to the County by a further £170.00.
Those present felt that it was an acceptable approach to providing the essential income in the fairest format and the outline was formally proposed and seconded.
A query of a social night for the County was tabled as whether there was any interest in bowls night.
The Stewarton representative stated his club would probably be interested in a Bowls night in September.
It was proposed and seconded that there should be a County social event each year.
The Secretary outlined that the Council had changed the handicap rules for the Under 90 Competition so that there is only one point taken away from any score above 100 as opposed to the NSRA rules requiring two points off every point above 100 from this year.
The Council had decided to apply the same to all competitions for the following seasons but required the AGM to validate the decision. The acceptance of the rule changes was approved.
The Secretary pointed out that the County was now giving three County silver medals for three County Championships but only had two cups; one for the rifle and the second for the blackpowder.
The Council was looking to find an appropriate cup for the Standard Rifle Championship but the proposal is that the champion this year should be the first name on whatever cup is obtained.
That would place the silver medal and the cup in line with each other.
He added that it was hoped to have the cup in place for September of this year.
In response to a query on why the Council had moved to the PL14 targets for the Standard Rifle competitions from this year the Secretary outlined that the PL14 target is the one defined by the NSRA for the competition even though its choice was not entirely logical.
However enquiries to the NSRA had gained the informal recommendation to use the SPA target which is not recognised in any of the NSRA’s rules.
Adopting the PL14 target meets the NSRA’s rules, kills the conversation on the SPA target and ensures that all County Standard Rifle shooters are familiar with the target that they will meet at any NSRA run out of county competition.
Prior to starting the presentation of cups and medals the Secretary advised the meeting that the Council had changed the rules on medals in order to keep the costs within the money available.
Accordingly medals would be presented as just a Gold medal for competition with up to 5 competitors and gold and silver thereafter. In addition no medals are engraved this year but a label giving all details is attached to each medal’s package.
All cups and County Silver medals are engraved as usual.
Finally Stewarts, the engravers, had pointed out that the cups had suffered significant damage.
The Secretary requested all present to do their best to take care of the cups as most were irreplaceable. Separately the Secretary was hoping that money would be put on one side to effect a repair at an appropriate time.
The Chair undertook the presentation.