Range Report

One of my regular readers mentioned to me recently that I hadn’t done a range report on the trainees for a long time.

He’s right. I haven’t. The main reason was that nothing newsworthy had happened with them. We were training two sessions a Saturday, one starting at 9.30am and one starting at 2pm. And basically we were just running through the list of competencies and trying to ensure that they were thinking about safety all of the time. However, as we are coming to the end of the training for the first half of the year I thought it was a good time to revisit this topic.

All of the training last year was conducted on the Saturday afternoons. This year, due to the numbers that started in February, we decided to start training in the mornings as well. We have found that training in the morning much preferable to the afternoon, as you do not have the noise of the regular squads shooting so that you can actually talk to the trainees.

Of the 15 people who were carried over from last year:
- 9 have passed their safety test and can now shoot with the regular squads
- 1 other will be doing their safety before the end of the month
- 5 have not completed their training

Of the 19 people who started in February / March this year:
- 12 have passed their safety test and can now shoot with the regular squads
- 3 will be doing their safety before the end of the month
- 4 have not completed their training

It’s very pleasing to see the progress those that have completed (or are soon to complete) their safety. Seeing many of these students progress from never having held a pistol to being a competent practical pistol shooter is gratifying.

It is sad that there are 9 people who have not completed the training course. Most just stopped turning up to training without letting us know why. One however was involved in a serious car accident and another’s wife was diagnosed with cancer. Our thoughts are with both of these.

It’s been very interesting working with these trainees. The Chief Instructor has allowed me to pretty much run the training course and has been there to back me up and help when I’ve needed it.

I’m a bit sad that the training is coming to an end, but I am seriously looking forward to having some of my Saturday’s back.