UKPSA Chair’s Report | June 2024

UKPSA Chair’s Report | June 2024

Council Meetings

Since the election of the new Executive on January 28th, 2024, the UKPSA has held several Council meetings on 18th February, 6th March, 15th April and 2nd May. These meetings are advertised on the website and observers must request attendance in writing 7 days prior. The Minutes of these meetings are published on the JustGo members area once approved. 

For those who have never served on Council, there are a few key positions which can take some considerable time to get to grips with, namely Treasurer, Secretary, Comms Officer, Regional Director, NROI President and Chair of UTC. It is really not helpful to have these positions change on a yearly basis which is exactly what has happened over the last three AGM’s! That having been said Martyn (NROI) and Steff’s (UTC) teams have done an amazing job getting on with arranging and delivering training from the get-go, with the first RO seminar having been successfully run in Basildon last weekend and 128 Competitors trained this year already! Aryan (comms) and Wendy (Secretary) are doing a great job of streamlining and improving the Google documents and workspace; Jayne and Kirsty have also done a fabulous job getting to grips with membership and Gareth (Treasurer) has finally got the Bank’s to play ball, so he has access to funds! He will be arranging an EGM very shortly to approve the amended accounts from last year. 

Kevin (RD) and his team did an amazing job at Sport Accord and Mike (PRO) and his team put on a great stand at the Northern shooting show, but I’ll let them both give you all a full report on these events in due course. 

Vacancies and Upcoming Changes

Unfortunately, however, we’ve had a few casualties I’m afraid. For various reason’s but mainly ‘real work’ (yes we all also have Jobs), we are looking for several positions to be back filled, these are, in no particular order:-

Southern Regional Organiser (previously Simon Tobias) – Voting position

Head of Rifle Commission (previously Russell Hicks) – Voting position

Media Officer (previously Duncan Roe) 

If you are interested in committing to any of these current or future vacancies can you please contact the Secretary@ukpsa.org by 30th June 2024. 

Grants

Anyway, onto some good news, The Grants committee headed up by Gareth have recommended and Council have approved, a Development Grant of over £6,000 for a new affiliated club in the Yorkshire plus several Match Grants to affiliated clubs to assist in running Level 1s, 2s and 3s. For those of you who didn’t know about all this, last year’s Council put £25,000 aside to help get clubs running IPSC matches. You can apply for :-

£500 per L1 Competition (3 agreed/7 available)

£1,000 per L2 Competition (1 agreed/4 available)

£2,500 per L3 Competition (3 agreed/3 available)

The grants are limited to one payment per host per year, however, if the maximum number of payments have not been allocated, hosts may apply for additional payments for separate events. 

The criteria is as follows :-

  • Funds will be disbursed exclusively for competitions run in accordance with IPSC rules and regulations
  • Competitions must be organised by entities recognised and authorised by the UKPSA ensuring adherence to IPSC standards and guidelines
  • Competitions must attract a minimum number of participants in accordance with IPSC rules, promoting the growth and competitiveness of practical shooting in the UK
  • Funds are to be used for but not limited to; advertisements, statistics, match officials, helper payments and support, awards and prizes, targets and props, etc 

Organisers interested in applying for one of these grants must submit a written request to the UKPSA Regional Director detailing the Competition Level, amount requested, full match information and outlining how they intend to comply with the criteria as part of the match sanctioning request. 

Subject Access Requests (SARs) and Complaints

On a somewhat less positive note, we are still being embroiled with Subject Access Requests and Complaints. These things take up a lot of Council’s limited time and so in future SAR’s will be outsourced to an independent company at considerable cost to the association. 

Email Policy

Please also note that if you have an @UKPSA.org email address in future once you leave Council, cease to be a member of NROI or UTC your account will be closed after 30 days. This is because each email address account costs the UKPSA over £5 per month!

Rifle World Championships

Finally, I hope you will join me in wishing our UKPSA National Rifle Squad the best of luck at the forthcoming Rifle World Championships in Finland in August!

DVC

Clive Gamlin

Chair, UKPSA