Friday 8 July

We fired our first match this afternoon against two teams from the North London RC and one from Kenya. Fortunately Steven Spinney's flight from Canada was not overly delayed and he reached Bisley in late morning. It must be said that he was a little weary from his travels, but he did shoot in the afternoon! Leo Poulin and Jim Paton have also now arrived, but too late to be part of the match.

For those who were here, there was a practice at 1000 yards this morning. It was cool, blustery with frequent showers.

The match itself was bedevilled by a shortage of butt markers, several having to service two targets. This slowed things down to a considerable degree. In addition, towards the end of the 900 yards range, radio communication between the firing point and butts, which had been erratic at best, broke down completely, forcing an abandonment of that range. Two of our shooters could not complete their strings, so that, in the end, the scores of the six of our shooters were pro-rated to make eight. There was a further delay in starting the 1000 yards while things were sorted out, but they really were not totally. However, in the end everyone completed their shoot. The weather was better than had been feared, with only occasional spits of rain, but with a fairly strong and changeable wind. Apart from jet lag, some of our people were not yet in fine shooting fettle and there were also some mechanical issues - ask Peter Redstone sometime about his foresight falling off, his rush to get a new one fitted, and his completing his 1000 yard shoot firing at two targets! Results of the match were:
1. NLRC President's Team, 1132.113
2. Kenya 1096.85
3. NLRC Chairman's Team 1090.84
4. Canada 1080.67 - Serge Bissonnette 144.8, Stan Frost 137.11, Steven Spinney 136.8, Alain Marion (pro-rated) 136.7, Scott Murray (pro-rated) 136.7, Peter Redstone 132.4, John Chapman 130.8, Jack McKellar 129.4. Target "coordinator": Jim Thompson.
This evening we were hosted for dinner by the North London, a most pleasant affair.

Tomorrow morning our two groups head off for Wales on the one hand and for Huddersfield and Altcar on the other. They all return on Monday afternoon. I will report on their results when they give them to me.

The next encounter at Bisley is against the British Commonwealth Club on Tuesday.