Once again, though this time donning rather warmer clothing than before, we went to the West London Shooting Club School for our last shoot of the year. The morning was frosty and dry, our luck had surprisingly held amid the appalling weather we’ve been suffering recently.

In a nod to the freezing outside temperature, the safety briefing was held indoors. We then ventured out into the weak sunshine, found our stands and started shooting. For some reason, Huw’s team seemed to take longer than the others, possibly because of the special attention their instructor, Mark, was paying to our top scoring lady, Claire Morison. The sun gradually strengthened, though not enough to melt the thick frost.

The flush was, as usual, great fun, with teams of three guns all firing simultaneously. Michael’s team of himself, Richard Harding and Colin Murphy squeaked first place ahead of Kate’s team, with Kevin Chapman and Rob Bray. Andy’s team of Toby Lambert and Rob Bray (again) came third, with Huw’s team, Claire Morison and Gary Needham coming fourth.

We made our way back to the clubhouse for prizegiving and a full English breakfast, of which there was very little left once we’d all tucked in. Due to an administrative error, it had gone unnoticed that there had been a tie for first place and it was too late to have a shoot out, so Toby Lambert and Gary Needham, who had both scored a handsome 35 points, arm wrestled for the honour of being Top Gun. Despite protesting that he really didn’t want the champagne, Gary whipped Toby’s arm flat so quickly I couldn’t get a picture. Perhaps he was in a hurry to get back to his seat next to Claire!

Thanks to everyone who has attended our shoots this year, we hope you’ve all enjoyed them. Keep checking back on the website to keep up with our events, projects and, of course, our Olympic rowers, Richard and Peter Chambers.