AAR: Gibsonburg 8/28-29th

[posterboy]

Another soon to be patented Black Swamp appleseed sprouted and then bloomed off the fertile soil of Gibsonburg.  

Under a clear blue sky and dare I say almost fall like weather 34 eager Americans ventured forth to learn heritage and marksmanship.Familiar faces, Families and even some who traveled all the way from Illinois with niece and husband checked in then prepared themselves to drink from the firehose of instruction. Had some great looking redcoats and had 6 shooters join Morgan right off the bat....better look out redcoats ! Amazingly one of Fuzzy's guest's who he had convinced to come for the day cleaned the redcoat ! Here's the thing.....she had never shot much before in her life ! Her First redcoat. I'm telling you there is something magical about the Black Swamp...it has rifleman mojo in the dirt ! The rest of the line went through the paces and learned all the fundamentals and all had improved by the end off the day. They also heard their heritage and pondered the sacrifices of 235 years ago. Saturday grew three riflemen Steve Gary and Chip. It was also our pleasure to help along the posterity in the form of junior shooters Huzzah ! Cole you did great as did Will , Matthew , Amanda... come back

Sunday .....August decided to return and although it was very hot and humid the shooters persisted and digested that huge meal of info they got the day before. Sore bodies preformed the AQT ballet and 2 other rifle men were forged. Hans ! I was especially happy to see you shoot the score you had been denied long enough and I was proud to be able to hand you that patch. Beaker, a club member also joined the ranks ..huzzah gentlemen. Our honored jr shooters were also recognized with our special patriot patch. Will, Jacob and Joe.....you all personify and represent the rifleman's character....huzzah ! As for Cole, I'm sorry you weren't able to show up on Sunday but you did great too..I'll see you again and award your patch in September ! A highlight for me was having Marty, who had joined the Coast Guard and not received any live fire training in the guard ..actually never having shot much at all ever, put a hit on my steel at a 1/4 mile after his third shot. To help him go from essentially ground up out to a 1/4 mile in two days.....amazing indeed. This appleseed stuff really works. Hats off to Katy his wife as well ...yeah she had fun shooting that garand and the M1a   Hans made us all look bad by placing two shots perfectly and I do mean perfectly in the center on both targets with each rifle!!!

A huge thank you to all you shooters. We do this for you. Without you appleseed doesn't exist. A special thank to the families that showed up with their kids. Posterity will benefit in ways we can't imagine right now. I'd also like to thank all the other instructors for their hard work I can't ask for better crew. Best for last. Taking orange hats  drum roll...... Austin and 3rd degree. Thank you for taking the next step in this great program.

Until September ......


posterboy

[Gordon]

As PB says, it was great seeing some familiar faces, and plenty of new to Gibsonburg too.

Becky, your persistence is admirable. Those +210 score you get when no one but Tim is around, you'll start getting them "on the line", I just know it. I'm really glad you two are digging into Appleseed so much.

Frank, you also remind of that all-important word, "persistence". Keep coming out! Keep instructing yourself. You *will* get that patch, it's just a matter of time.

Rob, great to see you again, sorry about your back. Thanks for bringing Chris -- I didn't get a chance to catch up on Sunday but I hope/trust he found it worthwhile.

Dan, Joy, and Steve, great seeing you guys again too. Steve, dude, see if you can get fixed up with some aperture sights for your 10/22!   But regardless of that, listen, if everyone could keep his/her cool the way you do during the timed stages, we'd have a lot more riflemen!

Matt, as always, a pleasure. Your skill and enthusiasm are infectious.

Jimmy and Tanner, nice to meet you. I'm glad we could help you with those slings. Speaking of which, thanks for being so careful to make sure they were returned. I hope we'll see you again soon!

Dave and Joann, thanks so much for coming all the way from Illinois! I know that a bigger part of why you came was to see Marty and Katie --- thanks for bringing them out. Hey Marty and Katie, we sure hope to see you again soon! KATIE: Fantastic score w/ that 196, with Sunday being only the third day you'd ever shot!

Larissa and Marianna, welcome to Appleseed --- next time I hope you can stay all weekend. Marianna, I'm still unclear whether you're a new shooter or, not new, but not shot for decades. Either way, that was an AMAZING REDCOAT! Please understand what a big thing it is that you CLEANED it on the first course of fire on Saturday morning!

Pam, Rob, and Will, glad to meet you. Will, your improvement was clear and rapid. Stick with it, you'll get that patch soon enough. Just ask Matt.

Hans, congratulations on the consecutive Rifleman scores. You know what Fred says, "Once could be luck, twice could be coincidence, but three times is skill".

Gary, let's stay in touch about bringing in some other shooters, and about that range in Canton!

I had a lot of excellent conversations this weekend and I'm sure I'm leaving some out. For those, I apologize. But I join Posterboy in thanking *everyone* who came out for this great event. It really was a pleasure, and an inspiration. We hope you'll return to Gibsonburg, or any of the many other Appleseed sites, and bring plenty of friends!

-FM / Gordon.

[Miki]

Wow what a great weekend! I got the best of both worlds. Getting to do some instructing and some shooting. Fuzzy is good with names. Me, not so much, I'm better with faces. So, to all those of you who I worked with, thanks for listening and trying. There is nothing better for an instructor than having students implement what they are being taught. You ALL did that and the results were amazing. Listening to what you learned making those lovely 'pinging' sounds at 500 yards was joy to my ears.

To all the new riflemen, congratulations! To those of you who aren't there YET, persistence!

[posterboy]

Forgot to mention that someone left a caldwell sandbag on a picnic table. If it's yours let me know.

pb

[KAH]

Here are some photos I took during the long distance portion on Sunday.
D: You should have a few more on your camera too!
kah

[Beaker]

Thanks to all involved that helped make this a great event.

This was my first Appleseed (hopefully of many to come).

Even though I have shot competitvely off and on for 25 years, I still learned plenty.
This is a great program both in marksmanship instruction and history.

I was really impressed at how many of our youngsters turned out.
It is just fantstic to see such an interest.  Remember they are our future.

I shot three AQTs that qualified, then lent my weapon off when some others had a malfunction.
Glad to say that Chip got his rifleman patch with the loaner (a bolt gun to boot, nice goin Chip)
Also glad you came back to get your patch and target after leaving it behind accidently.

I plan on going to both the Sept and Oct shoots, so I'll look forward to seeing many of you again.

Also trying to get some new shooters to come along.
This is by far the best program I have ever been involved in.

Thanks again to all.

Beaker (Jim)

[posterboy]

Beaker

Glad to see you on the forum. It was an honor to hand you your patch and I hope to see you again. Appleseed is indeed an amazing program. I wouldn't dedicate as much time as I do if I didn't believe so. The hardest  part about appleseed is getting people to come. Beaker, thank you and I apologize in advance for exposing you to a program that's hard to ignore ! Be forewarned. Learning about your heritage and marksmanship at an appleseed is incredibly addictive and hard to forget absolutely overjoyed to have you on board !

pb

[safari ndefu]

And an excellent time was had by all.  The most important lesson I learned off the first and last targets...the last one I shot was the called NPOA shifts around the five sighter squares.  One round per square, five or ten seconds, just enough time to shift, check, and adjust once.  My best shooting of the weekend.  Turns out I'm fussing my shots a little too much   I was convinced that I needed to spend more time on each shot, needed to work harder to get the NPOA perfectly spot on every time, walking through the six steps and the steady hold factors on every target.  But when I didn't have time to fuss through all that...I shot better. 

Which leads into the excellent part:  Posterboy's Oath ("I will not lie to myself!") and and little something FuzzyMath said ("Marksmanship is such an excellent practice for personal development--you learn to nurture good habits, be humble, let the target tell you the truth, and never lie to yourself."--or something like that.  It's paraphrase.)  I've been thinking about those two things, and fussing shots in all sorts of areas of life, all week.  There are so many times when we get lost in what we believe to be true in our heads, without paying attention to the data right in front of us, and asking ourselves, am I getting better, or getting worse?  Is what I'm doing really helping, or am I just convincing myself that it's gotta be this way?  Or do I need an objective target of some sort to tell me I'm doing something wrong?

Thanks again, hope to see you all next year!

[KAH]

Safari:
Great feedback - It sounds like you listened and heard!  The information that the participants (and instructors!) receive at Appleseed events is so critical to everyday life!  I'm glad you kept reflecting back to the weekend's events and are able to gain insights to apply it in other areas.

I hope to see you again - sooner than next year! 

take care
kah

[posterboy]

HOLCOMB !!!!!

LOL man I enjoy every single last one of you (however many there are of you !)....please come back.. you guys/gals epitomize positive attitude  It is always a honor to have you show up and I enjoy having you folks on the line.

pb