Ryan selected for Paralympics

Congratulations to Rugeley member Ryan Cockbill who has been selected to represent TeamGB at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris.

Ryan’s Paralympic debut came in 2012, shooting in the R4 and R5 air rifle events. In Tokyo he qualified for the final in the R9 Mixed 50m Air Rifle, finishing eighth.

At the 2022 World Para Sport Shooting Championships he won a Bronze medal in the R4 Mixed 10m Air Rifle event.

Best of luck to Ryan!

Four Paralympic athletes pose for a photo in a garden. Three are using wheelchairs whilst one stands.
(L-R) Issy Bailey, Ryan Cockbill, Tim Jeffery and Matt Skelhon will represent GB Shooting at the 2024 Paralympic Games.

Funeral Arrangements for Tom Glover

Tom Glover‘s funeral will be held at 2.30pm on Tuesday 4th June at Cannock Chase Crematorium, Norton Road, Heath Hayes, WS12 3HJ.

A wake will be held afterwards at Hednesford Town FC, Keys Park.

The family have requested no flowers, but any donations received will be passed on to causes at County Hospital Stafford.

Tom Glover

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our Club President, Mr Tom Glover.

Tom joined Rugeley Rifle Club in 1977 when he brought his young son Dave along to learn to shoot. In that time he has served various roles on the committee and his service to the club over almost 50 years is truly admired and respected.

Tom has been one of the most generous people the club has had as a member, time is the most precious commodity we have and Tom always gave his time to members willingly and without hesitation.

He leaves behind his wife Beryl, son Dave, two grandsons and three great grandchildren and will be surely missed.

To quote Tom “Thanks for coming”.

Tom’s funeral will be held at 2.30pm on Tuesday 4th June at Cannock Chase Crematorium, Norton Road, Heath Hayes, WS12 3HJ. Full details.

Rugeley members support British Shooting Target Sprint Series

Rugeley Rifle Club members supported the West Midlands leg of British Shooting’s Target Sprint Series today. Martyn, Mick and Michelle were on hand as stewards and range officers. The event took place on the outdoor ranges at the NSRA’s Aldersley Shooting Centre at the Aldersley Leisure Village.

Rugeley have been a huge supporter of British Shooting events in the Midlands, with members also volunteering at the British Schools Championship Finals.

Special award at Club Prizegiving

Rugeley Rifle Club celebrated the past year’s achievements at their annual prize-giving on Friday night, with trophies presented by Councillor Sarah Elsom DL. The highlight of the evening was the surprise presentation of the NSRA Silver Award to Club Chairman Martyn Buttery. Martyn has long served on committee roles in the Club, as well as sitting on the Rifle Committee at the NSRA. He was instrumental in bringing the British Shooting School’s Shooting Championship Finals to Chase Leisure Centre – an event which has relied heavily on volunteers from Rugeley serving as range staff. In addition to prizes and trophies for shooting achievements, a number of discretionary awards were made. Megan Bamsey won the Captain’s Prize for achievements over the past year, including selection to represent GB at the 2023 ISSF Junior World Cup, and the Secretary’s Award to Russell Barlow for his outstanding support instructing and coaching within the club.

A £500 cheque was also presented to Rugeley and District Community First Responders, one of the club’s chosen charities. RADCFR maintain the defibrillator hosted on the outside of the club. This lifesaving piece of equipment was installed in 2019. Since then it has been activated six times, and used at least twice.

Trophies

  • Short Range Champion – Richard Hemingway
  • 50metre Frostbite Champion (Winter) – Martyn Buttery
  • 50M/ISSF Champion – Richard Hemingway
  • Dewar Champion – Craig Dower
  • 10M Air Pistol Champion – Paul Watkiss
  • 10M Air Rifle Champion – Ryan Williams
  • Benchrest Champion – Paul Watkiss
  • “Through the Ranges” Champion – Zoltan Papp
  • “Through the Ranges” Runner-Up – Dave Glover
  • “Through the Ranges” Handicap Champion – Lee Featherstone

Awards

  • Junior Short Range Trophy – George Robinson
  • Junior Long Range Trophy – Alex Buttery
  • Best Potential (Junior) – Izzy Clark
  • Best Potential (Senior) – John Passey
  • Best Improver – Lee Featherstone
  • Secretary’s Award – Russell Barlow

Captain’s Award Nominees

Zoe Perkin

  • Fifth in final of NISC Open

Pippa Watterson

  • Finalist, British Shooting Schools Championship
  • Fourth in final of NISC Open, won Class C

Rugeley awarded Performance Club status by NSRA

Rugeley Rifle Club is delighted to have been registered as an NSRA Performance Club.

Scan of a certificate showing that Rugeley Rifle Club is registered as an NSRA Performance Club

NSRA Performance Clubs are those with an ethos of competition and athlete development. Achieving recognition as a Performance Club is testament to the hard work by the club committee and members in developing the facilities to allow quality training activities – particularly the new club room, training building and availability of electronic targets at 10m and 50m. It also recognises the effort by the club’s volunteer instructors and coaches, not only in developing athletes, but also providing support and continued development for instructors and coaches.

A cone depicts a performance pathway, with clubs feeding into performance clubs. These lead to Regional and National squads, culminating at a World Class Programme.

Rugeley RC joins the Fediverse

We’re delighted to announce our newest social channel – the Fediverse! Using the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress, this site is now also an ActivityPub instance. All news posts from this site will be accessible, and users can follow our feed from their accounts on any federated server. Find us at “rugeleyrifleclub@www.rugeleyrifleclub.org.uk”.

ActivityPub is the foundation underlying a new type of social media, where users can run their own servers or join other public servers, which can all communicate with one another – think of it like email. You can send an email from an Outlook account to a Yahoo account. You are not limited to sending email only between Outlook addresses.

No single company controls the “fediverse” – the community of “federated” ActivityPub servers. Anyone can create or join a server – large or small – and follow their friends and interests on that server and other servers. There are a variety of different types of instance. Pixelfed is oriented towards image sharing, much like instagram. You may have heard of Mastodon in the news – which is more like Twitter. If you’re interested, the easiest route is to visit joinmastodon.org, pick a server (it really doesn’t matter which) and have an explore. mastodonapp.uk is a UK-oriented server, which may be a good place to start, but you can access accounts on any server from any other server and you can move your account later on if you want to.

Youth Camp Finals

Saturday saw the delayed Shooting Final from the August Youth Shooting Camp run in collaboration with Vysions Youth Volunteer Service. Participants worked their way through air rifle, air pistol and smallbore rifle for an aggregate contest.

Congratulations to Jessica and Hollie, who won a year’s free membership to Rugeley Rifle Club! A huge thanks to all the volunteers who helped run the Youth Camp and Final.