Normanton Gun Club

It's a sad weekend for me this weekend because I really want to be at home.  By home, I mean Normanton, and more specifically the Normanton Gun Club.  It's the Annual Shoot this weekend and while a hectic time for the Reeves clan it's an occasion of good fun, good company, good targets, good food and the source of many good memories.

I digress.  It's been raining in Emerald, and I was unable to stop myself from using the opportunity to remove a few weeds from the yard.  Back to the shoot.

It's been a couple of years since I've been home for it.  I should make an effort next year.  My job for the weekend is usually taking out the scoresheets to the layouts (whilst driving Nanna's golf buggy "too fast"), making sure the scoresheets come back to the office, keeping a running sheet for shoot-offs and attempting to keep Nanna calm(ish).  We have a great team of people who all pull together to keep things rolling along.  I especially love how they do what they say they'll do, do it well and in a timely manner.  Thank you to each and every one of them.

The club is almost 40 years old, so we might be looking at another milestone event in the near future.  I have vague recollections of shooters in the middle of the racecourse when I was a kid, and then the day that the current clubhouse was relocated from the old Hospital to its current location.  (It might be the old photos that jog that particular memory.)  I was there for a lot for Dad's bricklaying, some concrete pouring, general construction, and installation of traps.  My first job was as a "Trapper" who loaded the trap machine by hand.  I spent pretty much all day in a Besser block box with one electric fan on the machine and one on me.  It would have been a bit toasty in there without them, and it was definitely cosy surrounded by cartons of clay targets.  Having a walkman was essential to pass the time, so naturally there were trap house karaoke sessions (luckily the shooters all wore earmuffs or plugs.)  I began shooting around the time that the first trap machines with hoppers were bought, which meant that they could be filled with clays between rounds and no one would have to stay in there are load them one by one.  How lucky was that?

I learned to drive at the Gun Club. At one stage there was no water being piped there, so Dad used to fill a huge tank on the back of the old Dodge and use it to fill the water tank.  I clearly remember driving that truck down the hill, sitting right at the front of the seat, with legs stretched out as far as they could go to get to the pedals, looking through the steering wheel, with the driver's door open so that Dad could stand on the running board.  

Carting water was a recurring theme out there.  Dad used to load a trailer with 20 litre drums, which he filled with water, and then drive around all the trees that he had planted and give them a drink.  I may have jackknifed that trailer a time or two doing laps in Dad's ute (when I forgot that I was towing it).  I had a flashback of such a time earlier this year when I hired a cold room for my flowers. Let's just say that I prefer not to tow anything, and reversing sends me into a cold sweat.

You will notice that Layouts 3 (left) and 4 (right) have signs.  Layout 5 also has a name, but I don't have a photo of that sign.  There's a bit of a yarn as to how and why these came about.

Before construction of the third layout could start there needed to be some earthworks.  The levelling of a slight mound to be exact.  A knoll, if you will.  It had grass on it.  Dad, being the history buff that he is, and someone who appreciates a good turn of phrase began referring to it as "The Grassy Knoll".  I mean, why wouldn't you call it that, instead of "that bit of a hill"?  Following on with the JFK theme you would naturally expect Layout 4 to be called "The Book Depository", which it is.  When Layout 5 was in the planning stage there was some discussion as to what to call it to be in keeping with the other two.  It is called "The Basement".  Fittingly, it is down the slope from the other layouts.  That's not the reason for the name, however.  Lee Harvey Oswald (the man who was to stand trial for the assassination of President John F Kennedy from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository) was himself assassinated en route to the county jail by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Municipal Building.  So ends this history lesson.  

This year is the first year that Normanton is awarding the Jim Edmonds Medal in honour of a wonderful man who gave a lot to the sport of clay target shooting in North West Queensland.  The inaugural Medals were presented at the Cloncurry Annual Shoot last year, as the two clubs have teamed up to create this additional award for their main events of the year.  My fingers are crossed that a Reeves gets to take one home this weekend.  Good luck Granddad, Nanna and Uncle Teddy!

I shall sit at home and sulk, catch up on how everyone is shooting on the My Club My Scores app, and hope that things are running smoothly up there.

Last week's 52Frames theme was "Architecture", and lacking any interesting buildings that I could think of in the area, or indeed, inspiration for interesting angles to shoot a 'normal' building from I opted to create my subject matter.  Some time with the Lego box resulted in these little hootchies.  This weekend I'm shooting something "Abstract", so I'm planning on creating that subject matter as well.  It's going to be something soothing to spend my time on.