UK Petition - Keep the Olympic Range

JamesH · Post by **JamesH** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:19 am

Brits and expat please sign here
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OlympicShooting/

Over £18 million approx (at the 2006 bid price) will be spent on building the 2012 Olympic shooting sports venue at Woolwich Barracks and then after the Olympics it will be pulled down again. This is not only a total waste of money and an immoral use of resources but more importantly it does not leave any lasting legacy for shooting sports in this country. Every year the Great Britain shooting teams work hard to bring home medals from competing in ISSF and FITASC disciplines world wide.
Surely it deserves a lasting legacy?

Marc Orvin · Post by **Marc Orvin** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:04 am

Good luck with your petition. I certainly hope that all goes well with your desires to see this venue become a permanent shooting home.

Sure hope you have better luck than we did here in the USA with the Wolf Creek facility. Everytime I think of that place I want to shed a tear. Short-sighted politicians became the ruin of the place.

All the best,
Marc

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:38 am

Whilst I totally agree that there should be a legacy and don't support the Woolwich proposal, I don't see any alternatives proposed. The only suitable venue in London is Bisley, which has been ruled out. That to me was an error in drafting this petition. I will still sign up to it but my hope is that at the very least the building can be dismantled and re-used elsewhere, for example utilised in Glasgow for the 2014 commonwealth games.

Rob.

Neil Foster · Post by **Neil Foster** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:06 am

Sure hope you have better luck than we did here in the USA with the Wolf Creek facility. Everytime I think of that place I want to shed a tear. Short-sighted politicians became the ruin of the place.

Marc,
A minor correction to your post. The problem was only one politician "Mr. Edwards" who said "I do not want a country club for the white folks", sad indeed. The same thing happened to the world class archery venue after the 96 Olympics. The "Pols" said it had to return to its natural state. The "natural state" was a garbage dump. That is what we elect, or some people elect! I hope our British cousins fare better. They deserve a great place to shoot, especially with the restrictive gun laws they have in place. Fortunately for us in the colonies with few exceptions we do not have such a problem.
Neil

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:31 am

Neil Foster wrote: Fortunately for us in the colonies with few exceptions we do not have such a problem.
Neil

I wouldn't be overly confident on that, the powers that be would like to take your guns just as much as every body elses. Shooting is under attach everywhere including the US.

Neil Foster · Post by **Neil Foster** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:48 pm

Hello Richard,
Correct, perhaps I should have added the word "yet"
Neil

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 5:04 pm

I concur "yet" is the operative word and its not for a lack of trying. If they ever do manage to screw you guys out of your guns I fear we're all doomed.

PaulB · Post by **PaulB** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 1:03 pm

One reason Wolf Creek did not make it was that it did not (I believe) bring in in revenue at least 100% of the actual cost (a lot of debate about what this was) of operating the range. There were a lot of tangential financial benefits to the area (food, motels, gas, etc) but the politicians wanted to see (at least they said so) more actual income to the range itself. Of course, there was at least the one Board of Supervisors member for Fulton County that wanted to close it down no matter what, and use it for police training and offices. This one guy's power was more than could be overcome.

How do other Olympic level ranges worldwide support themselves? I bet that they are subsidized by either the government or the shooting NGB.

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:52 am

PaulB wrote: How do other Olympic level ranges worldwide support themselves? I bet that they are subsidized by either the government or the shooting NGB.

I 'believe' a lot are dismantled (wasn't Athens torn down almost immediately ?) whilst in some parts of the world they are government sponsored. There are of course some countries where (olympic) shooting is much more popular and facilities would get the use required to make them financially viable. The UK however would not be one of them.

Rob.

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:14 am

The one from the '76 Olympics in Montreal was torn down.

Athens-?
Sydney-open (Sydney International Shooting Centre)
Atlanta-closed (Wolf Creek)
Barcelona- ?
Seoul- open (Taenung International Shooting Range)
LA- open (Prado Olympic Shooting Park)
Moscow- open (Dynamo Shooting Range)
Montreal-closed (built as a temp facility part of the largest Olympic fiasco in history)
Munich-open (Olympic Shooting Range)
Mexico City-? (Vicente Suárez Shooting Range)
Tokyo- ? (Asaka-Nezu Park rifle) and (Tokorozawa Clay Pigeon Shooting Range)
Rome- no info (Umberto I Shooting Range)
Melbourne-? (Merrett Rifle Range)
Helsinki-? (Malmi and Huopalahti shooting ranges)
London-open (Bisley)
Berlin-? (held in Wannsee)
LA-?
Amsterdam- was no shooting events
Paris-?
Antwerp-?
Stockholme-?
London-open (Bisley)
Saint Louis- was no shooting events
Paris-? (Police Acedemy Range)
Athens-?

(if any of these are wrong please let me know it would be nice to have a really accurate list. If anybody knows anything about the ranges prior to Berlin let me know too.)

PaulB · Post by **PaulB** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:25 pm

I would really be interested in knowing how the old Olympic ranges that are still operating our financed. I would find it hard to believe that you can make enough from entry fees, memberships and range fees to break even (at least on the rifle/pistol side of things, maybe the shotgun ranges can).

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:45 pm

PaulB wrote:I would really be interested in knowing how the old Olympic ranges that are still operating our financed. I would find it hard to believe that you can make enough from entry fees, memberships and range fees to break even (at least on the rifle/pistol side of things, maybe the shotgun ranges can).

Things are different in other parts of the world, lots of clubs in Europe make money from Restaurants and bars that are attached to the ranges, as well some derive income from property. Unlike here some clubs have 1000's of members. Some also have other sporting facilities such as football (soccer).

I've discussed this at our club, we have unused land , putting baseball and soccer fields on it and renting them to local leagues. Unfortunately they don't see the benefit. This also could be done with things such as horse shoe pits, lawn bowling, bocce. None of these facilities cost that much to construct or maintain so would provide a revenue stream pretty quickly.

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:19 am

Richard H wrote: London-open (Bisley)

(if any of these are wrong please let me know it would be nice to have a really accurate list. If anybody knows anything about the ranges prior to Berlin let me know too.)

Whilst London - Bisley is open, it is not an olympic range. Or rather is doesn't fulfil the current requirements of said facility. To comply it would need a total rebuild....

Rob.

Raymac · Post by **Raymac** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:06 am

In 1994 the taxpayers money (a bundle of it) was used to construct a world class range for the Commonwealth Games here in Victoria, Canada. We had promises that it would be kept as a legacy for the future use of Canadian marksmen. We had the support of the University of Victoria which is a sports specialty university. We had future financing established through exchange prgrammes with the Pacific Rim nations who would have come to Victoria to train. they would have the university sports medicine programme to draw on and room & board for them at the university too. Victoria's climate would attract shooters in training from all across Camada and the USA. The land was donated by the Department of National Defence. There would be no land taxes. We had an organization in place to run the thing.

They all lied !! A month after the Games were over it was all bulldosed into the ground. The buildings and furniture was destroyed. The range equipment was given (what was left of it) to a small local club who could not look after it. As a result it has been rusting away in storage. The shooters have nothing to show for their efforts in organizing the event and the promises that they were given were broken by the politicians. There was actually a large fund set aside to salvage the equipment and furniture but when we went to get the money we were told that it was all used up to pay the salary for a dude to administer the salvage operation!!! Somehow we should be able to learn a lesson from this kind of crap.

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:22 am

Yes we should learn promises are nice but get it in writing from the people who have the authority to give it in writing. On a similiar note shooters jumped on the verification ban wagon and the firearms education band wagon. These were the governments idea they should have been left to administer them at their cost. We see how well the did with the registry, which even most average Canadians see as a big waste of money. Fortunately (or unfortunately) shooter are good hard working people who want o beleive that there is someone who is going to look out for them, unfortunately its not true. Gun owners in Canada think the Conservatives are our saviour, news flash if they thought they could benefit they'd sell us down the river so fast your head would spin.

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:21 am

Rob the range might not be to modern Olympic Standards but at least is wasn't raised to the ground, so your at least in a better position range wise, now if you guys were only allowed to have something to shot on it.

mikeschroeder · Post by **mikeschroeder** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:28 pm

Richard H wrote:Yes we should learn promises are nice but get it in writing from the people who have the authority to give it in writing.

Hi

Actually, I believe that the only way to actually use an Olympic Range after the Olympics is to have a gun club / state association / national organization wholly own the facilities before the Olympics starts. The only way I (as representative of that organization) would take any olympic committee money / government money would be as a grant with no stipulations of ownership etc.

Of course, here in the US, they can still "eminent domain" you out of your facility.

Mike
Wichita KS

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:59 pm

I agree, basically if the government has ownership of a range it most likely will be destroyed unless it happens to be on a military base or such.

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:15 pm

Richard H wrote:Rob the range might not be to modern Olympic Standards but at least is wasn't raised to the ground, so your at least in a better position range wise, now if you guys were only allowed to have something to shot on it.

Richard,
I'm not actually sure it wasn't but I'm not old enough to remember the London olympics. The only modern smallbore & air range on Bisley is the one built for the commonweath games, which is way too small for the olympics.

Rob.

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:20 pm

There were no air events back then so it wouldn't have been part of any facilities. Air events are relatively new added in the 1984 I think. The Olympics were much differnt in those days and the history list Bisley as the site of both London Olympic shooting events. Remember early shhoting events consisted of more fullbore than smallbore too.

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UK Petition - Keep the Olympic Range

UK Petition - Keep the Olympic Range

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