Wow. I wish I wasn't getting on a plane tomorrow for work and missing the second day!
Great to meet what turned out to be an almost entirely new set of instructors (for me). As always, thank you for your dedication. You ran an excellent Appleseed today.
Just got home. It's a good thing sweat doesn't transmit through the forum, because If I took a shower before I posted, I'd collapse in the sack and not get this done until tomorrow.
You'd never have known that it was Alonso1's first go-round as Shoot Boss. Everything went as smooth as wet axle grease on glass.
Congrats to the three or four (sorry, not entirely sure) new riflemen (out of 21 on the line, I think, at the start of the festivities Saturday), and to wcmartin1 for his strong performance during his first day under an orange hat.
Special thanks for borther-in-arms Doug Tibbets, an RWVA instructor not on the forum, for coming and helping as much as he could. Under difficult circumstances, he was a pretty sick puppy dog. Little minor problem, he had a chemotherapy treatment Friday morning! But her was there Friday afternoon, ran registration and T-shirt distribution, as well as helped out intermittantly on the line. Pretty impressive dedication to the cause, from a pretty tough old bird (U. S. Marine no longer on active duty), I'd say.
All in all, a very good weekend, nicest weather I've ever seen at Davilla. A good mix of old and new faces.
LabRat and I, from the usual suspects in the Texas Cadre, assisted.
We passed out CTD! catalogs and No Redcoats! stickers, and gave the seventh step a big push. And did I mention that one of the new Rifleman was John Krenik, who just happens to be a director of the Midland (Texas) Shooters Association, which happens to have a range, that happens to not currently have any activity scheduled for 18-19 April, 2009? See some potential there? We do, too. Stay tuned for further announcements.
Things worked out at the last minute that I was able to attend the Davilla AS on Saturday only with my buddy, Rick. We both had to work on Sunday to get ready for next week. I spoke with John Krenik (my local HP match director) on Friday morning and he told me he would be there as well.
My mission was threefold:
1. Ensure that Rick, who had been to two AS events (Mingus 2006, and Davilla 11/2007), earned his Rifleman patch. He had previously shot Rifleman scores at our home range, but had yet to do it at an event.
2. Get John fired up about AS and bring it back to Midland.
3. Take the first step to becoming an IIT. Although I could only be there on Saturday.
I considered going to El Paso as it would have been closer, but since John would be in Davilla (due to him working in the area last week) I decided that being there for his first event made more sense for me at the time.
Bottom line - All three mission points were achieved. Rick got his patch, John got fired up (He called me on his way back to Midland saying"I got my patch!" and "we need to start doing this at our range" ;)), and I got to put on the orange hat for a day.
Thanks Alonso1, didactic, LabRat, Doug, and all the shooters on the line for your patience with the new IIT. It was a pleasure working with you all.
Oh yeah... It was a good day! ;D
Nuther great event in TX! Congrats to the new Riflemen! Congrats to Alonso1 for a well run shoot! (Who's up next for a Green Hat?)
Thanks for all the work out there folks. Hope to see you all in a couple of weeks. JB
Friday I arrived at Scout's place and started to set the range up for Saturday. With help from the good folks that were already camping out, it was an easy and quick task. Didactic was already there and shortly after Doug arrived.
As Didactic stated in his post, currently Doug is not in the best of health but on April 19, 1775, neither was John Parker. You are in good company my friend.
Saturday started with the usual meet and greet and then Didactic opened the "Match Box". The first rounds down range were around 9:10am.
We started with 23 shooters on line; good thing Labrat and WCMartin1 arrived to help out. We had a good showing of female and younger shooters on line as well as at least 1 active military.
Didactic called the line the first half of Saturday while Labrat, WCMartin1 and I worked the line. Both those guys were safety minded and engaged the shooters with advice.
The second half of the day, WCMartin1 called the line and Labrat gave the first and second strikes of the story.
By the end of the first day, we had 2 Riflemen. Well done gentlemen.
Sunday started early as well. We only had 11 shooters return. We continued as planned and after a few hours, we began to hammer the AQT's.
During lunch time, Didactic gave the third strike and then I got to thinking, maybe I should do something, so before the end of the day I talked about the Dangerous Old Men.
When we finished Sunday, there were 2 more new Riflemen, a total of 4 for the weekend. Overall, another great shoot. Congrats to all the Riflemen and thanks to all the shooters.
Special thanks go to Scout. Not only was he on the Appleseed trail this weekend, he allowed us to use his land for this shoot.
Till next time.
Mark
Good shoot and good AARs.
Not much to add, other than glad to welcome more Riflemen, men who know very well what they are about, to those who have passed through the mill at Davilla. Hope to see them with an orange hat as part of the Texas Cadre someday soon.
Special thanks to Doug for pitching in and making the event run as smooth as ever even though he didn't feel 100%.
Well-run shoot by Mark as Shoot Boss and thanks to the fellow instructors. Always a pleasure working with y'all.
Thanks again to all the instructors for a well run weekend and to Scout for use of his land! Weather was great and enjoyed getting out there on Friday to get camp setup for a slower Saturday morning. The shower facility was greatly appreciated!! Achieving rifleman on Sunday was indeed sweet ;D, but I've still got more work to do on consistency and qualifying with 308 ($20/AQT :o). A few will be returning for the Nov. AS. I'll probably be back out on Sunday and hopefully the 400 yrd range will be setup.
Quote from: preTex on October 23, 2008, 02:33:05 PM
Thanks again to all the instructors for a well run weekend and to Scout for use of his land! Weather was great and enjoyed getting out there on Friday to get camp setup for a slower Saturday morning. The shower facility was greatly appreciated!! Achieving rifleman on Sunday was indeed sweet ;D, but I've still got more work to do on consistency and qualifying with 308 ($20/AQT :o). A few will be returning for the Nov. AS. I'll probably be back out on Sunday and hopefully the 400 yrd range will be setup.
Congrats on receiving your Rifleman patch! Sorry I wasn't there to see it, Sir.
Scout,
I had a hard drive crash and lost your phone number. Please give me a call and I will give you an update on the range construction in Aggieland.
Steve