Birmingham, AL - Nov. 8&9, 2008

[Big Papa]

A great time had by all! 
Many thanks to Derek for lining up everything at the range, A Rifleman by all standards! Steel City Sports Shooting Association is a wonderful range. There was a great history question and answer/discussion Sunday morning led by Tazdevil. Everyone got involved! Dond and the "Boss" Lady kept us all in line.

25 or so shooters. 3 new Riflemen and one repeat. First Rifleman made his score at dark thirty Saturday! Two more on Sunday. More than few sore muscles. Maybe we could get Advil to sponser us! I don't think I remember a complaint.

We couldn't set up until Saturday morning due to other range activities. All the guys started showing up and jumped in as strangers to help. On takedown time Sunday, they once again jumped in, but this time as friends. It was wonderful to see so many swaping email addresses and phone numbers. These men, one and all, were serious about learning to shoot and sowing the seed!

[Bama]

Thanks to TazzDevil, Dond (and his better half) and you too, Big Papa for all you guys efforts. The seeds ya'll planted have already started to spring forth....

I spoke to the Steel City Director of Range Operations this morning and he sees no problem making a Steel City Appleseed Shoot a twice a year event, one Spring and one Fall shoot. A good start I think.

Also, we are trying to put together an informal "town hall shoot" once a month, based loosely on the Appleseed Project curriculum. Several participants from the Steel City shoot are spearheading the effort, and I already have received thumbs up from two of the board members on making a monthly meet/shoot where interested parties can meet, practice what we have learned, help each other train, share and discuss historical and current events, and just build those inter-community bonds that our colonial forebearers had.

Thanks again to Appleseed, and to all patriots everywhere who refuse to sit still and do nothing.

Deo Vindice

[smle]

Sounds like y'all had a good time.

Two shoots a year is definitely good news.

When you have some dates let me know. I think they have to sign new Host Apps. I'll double check. I still have your original EIF, we'll just have to update it.

And congrats on putting a good shoot.

smle

[TAZDevil]

Its intimidating trying to instruct 11 students at once;
thanks all y'all for coming out and allowing us to teach
this weekend.
Bamaboy was the perfect host.
TAZ

[dond]

A huge debt is owed to Bamaboy for persisting in setting up this event. He was also a great help in providing help during the weekend, especially early Saturday morning when his magnetic card failed to open the gate to the range. He summoned help for the entry, which was successful. But the main problem was that a tree had fallen on the power line controlling the gate, and work proceeded to correct that for the rest of the day. Thanks to him also for the additional events he is working on.

Twenty-one shooters showed up on the line Saturday morning. Seventeen arrived Sunday morning, which included one newcomer. At the conclusion, Sunday afternoon, six were on the line. The weather was rather cool early both mornings, but soon warmed up nicely. Some wind gusts were experienced Saturday afternoon, but everything was calm Sunday.

Big Papa and TAZDevil were a great help and the shooters were a great bunch to work with, as they are at all Appleseeds. The weather was especially good for November. But this time of year proved to be our greatest enemy since the sun set early, along with the time change. It diminished the time normally spent on instruction. Once the sun hit the surrounding treetops, it seemed to get dark really quickly. We had completed one practice QDAQT, and began one for real as darkness began setting in. By the time we reached the fourth stage, we really experienced the difficulty of target detection. But in spite of that, a Rifleman emerged.

As Big Papa indicated, the shooters were particularly interested In the history and had many questions for us. This was highly gratifying.

Sunday morning we began with the Redcoats again, with a marked improvement in the scores. After some reviews, and concentration on NPOA, we began the QDAQTs again. One more Rifleman was obtained in mid-afternoon. Then on the last AQT, two more were obtained. Four in all. On the final Redcoat, still more improvement was seen.

Everyone seemed happy with what they had learned, and were very complimentary toward us.

I would like to conclude this with a side issue which is only tangentially related to Appleseed. After supper near Birmingham, as my wife and I were driving toward home in the dark, we had a blowout which shredded one of our front tires. A nail was the culprit. Fortunately, we had just joined AAA a couple of weeks before, and gave them a call. Since we were on an incline, I was reluctant to attempt it myself. Two men arrived and had great difficulty with the job themselves. In fact, it took both of them, really struggling on the lug wrench, to remove the tire. There is no way I could have done it myself. I include this simply to encourage others to arrange for some kind of emergency service.