Why We Turn Up
There is a particular quality to the carpark of an outdoor range at seven in the morning. Thermoses out, tailgates down, someone already laughing at somebody else’s expense, and the whole day still ahead of it.
If you have been part of this sport for any length of time, you know exactly the scene I am describing. I have been thinking about it a lot in my first weeks as President, because it is worth occasionally stepping back from the responsibilities of the role to remember what the association is actually for, and what a genuinely good thing we have built here
An hour where nothing else exists
We live in a spectacularly distracted age. Most people go weeks without a single hour of undivided attention on anything at all.
Our sport does not permit distraction. You cannot shoot well while thinking about the email you have not answered, the invoice you have not sent, or the argument you had on Tuesday. The moment your mind wanders, the target tells you. That discipline is demanding, but it is also a rare kind of relief, and I suspect it is a large part of why so many members describe a day at the range as the calmest they feel all week.
Very few things ask that much of your concentration and give that much back. We should say so more often, and without embarrassment.
The target does not care who you are
Ours is one of the most genuinely egalitarian sports in the country, and I do not think we make enough of it.
The target does not know your age, your income, your job title, your build or your gender. It does not care whether you played first grade or never played anything. A sixteen-year-old and a seventy-year-old can compete on precisely equal terms, and regularly do. Women and men compete directly against each other in our disciplines, which is close to unheard of elsewhere in Australian sport. Members with physical disabilities that would exclude them from almost any other competitive pursuit compete on merit here.
This is how the sport works, and it has been true for as long as any of us have been shooting.
Standing next to people you would otherwise never meet
Look along a firing line sometime and consider who is actually on it.
Tradies next to surgeons. Farmers next to public servants. People who would disagree about nearly everything if the conversation ever got that far, standing shoulder to shoulder, entirely comfortable, because for that hour they have exactly one thing in common and it is enough.
There are very few places left in Australian life where that happens. Our branches are one of them.
And they do more than that. Every branch I have known has a quiet support network running underneath it, the phone call to check in on a regular who has not been down for a few weeks, the lift offered to a member who needs one to get out to the range, the shed full of people happy to lend a hand to whoever needs it. Nobody puts that in an annual report. It is one of the most valuable things we do.
Handed down
One of the great pleasures of this sport is watching it move between generations.
The grandfather teaching a granddaughter the same fundamentals he was taught sixty years ago. The parent who took it up because their child wanted to try it and discovered they loved it more. The junior who arrives shy at fourteen and is running the scoring by sixteen.
If you are wondering what to do with a Saturday, bring somebody. A teenager, an adult child, a mate who has always been curious and never quite asked. Our branches are very good at looking after first-timers, and the newcomer who is nervous at nine in the morning is almost always grinning by lunchtime.
Try something you have never tried
A word to the long-serving members, and I include myself here; it is remarkably easy to shoot the same discipline at the same range on the same weekend for fifteen years.
We have an extraordinary breadth of disciplines available across this state, and most branches would be delighted to introduce you to something new. Some of the most enthusiastic members I have met are people who tried a different discipline in their fifties and found a second wind they were not expecting.
Tell us about it
Our members achieve things constantly, club records, state and national representation, juniors who out-perform their seniors, volunteers who have quietly done thirty years of service without anyone marking it.
Much of it goes unrecognised beyond the branch, and that is a shame. I would like us to be better at celebrating our own. If your branch has something worth sharing, send it through. I would far rather be forwarded good news than have to go looking for it.
Finally
We have around 74,000 members in New South Wales. Behind that number is a sport that gives people focus, friendship, fresh air, something to be good at, and a place where they are welcome exactly as they are.
That is worth protecting, and it is worth enjoying. I intend to do plenty of both.
Until next week: keep ’em on target, in the field and on the range!
Jai Rowell
President — SSAA NSW
ABOUT THIS COLUMN
Each week I pull up a seat at the bench to talk about what’s happening across SSAA NSW, the wins, the setbacks, what’s on the political radar, and my thoughts on whatever is front of mind, from the matters members are raising with me to whatever is shaping the sport that week. I’ll put our volunteers where they belong, at the front, because they’re the backbone of everything we do, and I’ll back the industry that keeps our sport strong. The promise is in the name: plain talk, no spin, and I’ll always tell it to you straight.
