Disclaimer: all the following material was written by the previous Hon. Sec. of the OCRC, Ted Eilley, and represents his views alone.
27th February - .22 v. the School
This was arranged to compensate for the failure of the OC Day fixture in 1999, owing to the fact that the School were off somewhere else with the SA80.
We were well entertained with tea and sandwiches in the CCF hut after shooting. Unfortunately we had only 7 shooters which meant that the School could discount their worst score. If we had had an eighth shooter who could have made 83 or more we would have won. If only....
8th April - Short Range Practice
This was a lovely day and the conditions were just about perfect. The organisation was not good. Many people were late and so we got off to a poor start and we aggravated things by a slow move to 600 yards.
We were somewhat taken aback to find that the Surrey Hut was closed for building work. Was anyone told about this? I missed it if we were.
This was fixed up because Rob W was approached a few days beforehand by Geoff Hooton, the Secretary of the Surrey RA. Rob wanted to bring his son, Edward, and was looking for one more OC. I asked Rob Pile but he said he couldn't do it so I volunteered myself. It was good fun and the weather was kind but not as good as the previous day. It is worth noting that we were beaten in the second round by O Epsomians B by just one point and we had more "V"s. O Epsomians B went on to win the competition. In the shoot off between the knocked out teams we came 5th.
The whole event finished with a barbecue back at the Surrey hut. Very good. My wife, Liz, came along for the barbecue and enjoyed it I think.
For future reference, we could have put up more than one team of three (Old Epsomians had 4). We wound up trying to get it all together with only a few days notice. It would have been very good to have had a bit more notice from the Surrey RA. It would also have been good to have had more reply slips back so that we had some idea of availability.
The Surrey RA is quite likely to seek our support for the Total Oil Challenge on 24th June; we would like to be able to respond positively.
15th April - Long Range Practice
Despite thoroughly miserable weather, eight of us turned out for this. At 900 the rain more or less held off but the light was poor and the wind was tricky. By 1000 a steady fine rain was falling, it was very cold and the visibility had deteriorated significantly. The only positive thing about it was that the wind had swung round to more or less straight up the range which made it a little easier to follow. Only half of those present felt brave enough to attempt the 1000 yard shoot. We all got very fed up. Nevertheless, this was good experience of shooting at long range in conditions pretty near the worst possible.
6th May - Short Range "Q" Match
The weather was very fine and the wind was "interesting" but the organisation creaked a little. This was not really our fault: in fact, we were on the firing point in good time. The first problem was that the radios were tuned to the wrong channels; then, at 600 yards our marker put the wrong target, a 500 yard one, up so there was more delay while we got that sorted out. Our main worry in all this is that we had a good turn-out: 8 OCRC members showed up and we had to prevail on the Old Albanians, who were short, for the use of their target. Actually, I love having to worry because we may have too many shooters on the Common! So, what happened? Well we didn't have a brilliant day. The results were:
| Old Lawrentians | 473.38 |
| KCS Old Boys | 472.42 |
| Lancing Old Boys | 465.37 |
| Old Cranleighans | 462.39 |
| Old Framlinghamians | 460.32 |
| Old Alleynians | 430.33 |
| Old Albanians (3 shooters) | 269.14 |
The selectors were largely responsible for the fact that we came 4th instead of 3rd: if they had got it right we could have had 470.39.
I have the impression that this event could have been better attended: as I drove up I thought I had come on the wrong day! Correspondingly, there were few shooters available for the .22 match in the Gamble Range: we managed to muster only 4. Chris Taylor came in "off the street" and his score tends to show this. The OCs scored 348 and the best 4 from the School got 378.
20th May - Long Range "Q" Match
The day brought moderate temperatures and a fairly powerful and variable wind. The OCs turned in an excellent performance, thanks to very shrewd wind coaching from Rob Welford and David King and despite one of the Hon. Sec's shots failing to find the target at 1000 yards. The result is:
| Old Cranleighans | 456.27 |
| Lancing Old Boys | 446.29 |
| Old Framlinghamians | 439.23 |
| KCS Old Boys | 434.17 |
| Old Alleynians | 418.18 |
| Old Lawrentians | 412.18 |
| Old Albanians | 3 shooters only, no score declared |
10th June - Match versus the School and the Cranleigh Tankard
Unfortunately, our target booking for the Cranleigh Tankard on 27th May somehow got scrambled to produce an unacceptable result and, as the NRA could not offer us a satisfactory compromise to rescue the situation on that day, we decided to cancel the fixture and contest the Tankard concurrently with the match against the School on 10th June. Thus, the OCs fired ten shots to count at 300 and 500 yards and used the first seven to count towards the team total for the match. The result is, for teams of six:
| The School | 333 |
| The OCs | 378 |
The Cranleigh Tankard was won by Rob Welford with a score of 96.10.
24th June - The Total Oil Challenge
Three of us, Rob Welford, John Smith and Ted Eilley joined the Surrey Rifle Association team of 30 for the Total Oil Challenge. We shared a target with Peter Smith (Wandsworth), a girl from Pumas whose name I did not get and Mick Barr (Hertfordshire) who happens to be godfather to Tim and Rick Bourne. The event was organised by the RAF Target Rifle Club, who also provided strawberries and fizz afterwards, and a team from the London and Middlesex RA also took part. Total Oil sponsored the event and the trophy was a stainless steel oil drum. The overall results were:
| Team | Score |
| RAFTRC | 3006.309 |
| LMRA | 2969.247 |
| SRA | 2922.258 |
Two of our more reliable shots, David King and Rob Pile, were unable to join us but we did not do too badly, nevertheless.
The "A" Team was 21st out of 54 with 239.24 (winners were O Epsomians with 248.30) and the "B" Team was 18th out of 35 with 226.9 (winners were OGRE with 246.24). Rob Welford was a very worthy winner of the Simmonds Medal with 50.8. The individual scores are:
| "A" Team | Score | "B" Team | Score |
| Eilley | 48.6 | Smith | 47.2 |
| Welford | 50.8 | Pile J S | 47.2 |
| Bance R | 47.3 | Gammage | 44.1 |
| Elliott | 46.5 | Black | 48.3 |
| Shepherd | 48.2 | Bance W R | 40.1 |
| Total | 239.24 | Total | 226.9 |
Update! 4th October 2000. We now have a photograph, kindly submitted by Stephen Shepherd. It shows Rob Welford doing some wind coaching and Ted Eilley behind him doing the actual shooting. Click here to download it (42 kilobytes).
5th August - The Handicap Competition
Eight members took part in the "August Handicap", a competition specially arranged in support of the AGM which had to be postponed (see above). The Hon. Sec. had reviewed recent performance at the two ranges in question, 300 and 600 yards, and calculated a weighting figure to be added to the "gun" scores. If this had worked perfectly and all shooters had run true to form everyone would have scored 100. In fact 3 did achieve scores very close to 100 but John Pile improved significantly on his form to make a weighted score of 103.4 and carry off the loot, two bottles of wine.
10th September - The Annual Prize Meeting
The programme was as follows.
The results are:
| Competition | Winner | Score |
| The Jackson | R A Welford | 100.14 |
| The Lovesy | R A Welford | 50.6 |
| The Long Range | R J Pile | 48.2 |
| The Presidents Prize | R A Welford | 198.22 |
This was a perfect day out in glorious weather. Unfortunately the turnout was very disappointing and those who couldn't make it in the end missed probably the best day of the season. The moral is give this date priority in your diaries next year!
Seven OCs came along to see the season out which was very encouraging because it was not a good day weather-wise. After persistent rain during the morning things brightened up at 1:30 p.m. for the start of the first range, 300 yards. Some of us, however, had to pay for this later on at 600 yards when, for a period, it rained heavily. Despite all this there was some respectable shooting and most of us even enjoyed ourselves.
For more information contact the Hon. Secretary, Rob Pile:
R J Pile
rob.pile@btopenworld.com
To e-mail him now click here.
