AAR: Dunbarton, NH 27-28 MAR 2021

[FiremanBob]

An excellent Appleseed to start the year! Seven brave shooters enjoyed a beautiful Saturday of shooting, including three repeat offenders (you know who you are) and three whose Appleseed journey began at this event. Brian, Tom, and Ming: Welcome to the Appleseed family. We hope to see you on our lines again real soon.

Saturday was action-packed with instruction, drills and AQTs. The students learned exceptionally quickly and we were ahead of schedule all day. This enabled us to fit in four AQTs on the first day. The second redcoat showed significant improvement by all during the course. We had two Riflemen: Dan (an old hand) with scores all day in the 230s and a high of 240 to qualify Distinguished again; and Tom, who scored a 233 on his very first AQT. Huzzah to you both.

On Sunday Mother Nature made us pay for the fine weather we enjoyed. Heavy, cold rain began around noon and beat on all of us for the rest of the day. Nonetheless, two students, Brian and Alan, braved the elements. And I mean BRAVED. It was a very tough environment for shooting with deep puddles everywhere including on the shooting mats. Both of them dramatically improved their scores and groups compared to Saturday, and I am sure that they will qualify as Riflemen, possibly at their next event.

Heartfelt thanks go from me to instructors MattNH and Jake 1918, who IAO'd in the morning after the SB's truck suffered engine failure on route to the range. You guys ran an excellent morning program including a Redcoat and position/NPOA drills until I could get there. The value was immediately apparent in the AQTs and Redcoat in the afternoon.

Many thanks as always to MattNH, our sponsoring member at the club, and to Pioneer Sportsmen for an excellent facility. Matt had a confab with a Board member on Saturday to discuss ways of increasing participation by club members which I hope will fill our lines henceforth.