Some of the competitors in the Republic’s first ever All-Ireland Open ISSF air pistol match
So Wilkinstown’s been a tad remiss in giving out prizes for various reasons (mainly to do with not having enough people to organise events as everyone’s been thrown full-tilt into training in recent times), and in order to fix that, we had a prize-giving event on Friday. Not a bad evening at all, huge numbers of people turned up from all over the country, from Waterford to N.Ireland, shooters and their families and friends. We had some local dignitaries from the Meath Local Sports Partnership and the Irish Pony Club to give out prizes, and food and drink and general craic and making with the merry.
Not a bad evening at all, and I think we’re going to do things this way from now on – it’s just too good an idea not to. The details are still being worked out of course, but one idea is to give out certificates on the day in competition and to award the engraved medals and trophies at the annual social event/prizegiving ceremony, where lots more people can make it to the event. The problem normally is, who wants to spend the entire day in a rather cold and utilitarian basement in UCD or in similarly less-than-comfy ranges round the country, in the hope of getting a medal? And how hard is it to get dignitaries, media or even just families to these events on the day in remote locations? In fact, we’re seeing an increasing trend of people not even staying for Finals, let alone medal presentations. It’s nice to give out prizes on the day, and maybe small spot prizes and the like will still go out, but I think the idea of taking the time to do things right and with a bit more polish has a lot of merit in it; after all, if you seriously train for a match and win, you’d prefer it if the organisers took a bit more time to applaud your efforts, right? And besides, what shooter doesn’t want to get a bit of applause now and then from their families and friends? And what club couldn’t do with more coverage in the local papers?
WTSC winners in the WAA Postal match