Mechanicsville Appleseed 23rd and 24th of May 2009

[VAshooter]

This Memorial Day Appleseed was dedicated to Sgt. David Thornhill who is recuperating at Fort Sam Houston from wounds he received in action. His birthday is this week and we circulated a card which everyone wanted to sign.

We had a great Appleseed at Black Creek last weekend. No rain, just a few clouds and a light breeze and 29 shooters learning the fundamentals of shooting a rifle. Thanks to FiremanEd, smwwoody, VaWolf, Old  Dog, jman, crashkid2K, and jmdavis I didn't have much to do. We handed out four Rifleman badges. Congratulations to  Emmerson with a 236, Kelly with a 226, Dan with a 223 and Don had a 210. A number of scores above 200 had many knocking on the door and I'm sure that they will cross the 210 barrier at their next Appleseed.

I want to thank all the instructors and shooters as well for a safe and successful Appleseed.

VAshooter

[Bama]

Good job! 

Thanks for the efforts in David's behalf.

[jmdavis]

I think that the card for Sgt. Thornhill really added perspective to this Appleseed. For that, I want to thank you Bama! Heat and rain are nothing compared to what he has and will go through. When I'm tired or miserable, I will try to remember that.


This was my second Appleseed as an IIT. I think that it went relatively smoothly. I know that I learned alot from my duties as RSO, Line Boss, and coach over the two days. I believe that the people on the line learned alot too. We generally saw improvement with every AQT and before that we saw groups shrink with each square.

[smwwoody]

jmdavis,

You put so much heart into your Dangerous old men stories It sounds like you were there.  I really want to be able to present the history as well as you do.


I had a great time at this shoot their were a lot of great people there students and instructors alike.  My Son even got to take home a rifleman patch.  This was the first Appleseed I was able to get him to that did not conflict with a 19 year olds schedule.

Woody

[FiremanEd]

Thanks to all, Shooters and Instructors alike, I think this was a very good weekend. Good weather, good friends both old and new and a lot of learning. What more could we ask for. As mentioned above, 4 Riflemen out of 28 shooters, 14.2%, and I'm pretty sure this was the first Appleseed for each of them!!

For the most part I think everyone had a good time, we had long time competitive shooters and one who'd never fired a gun in her life. Talk about a contrast.

I've sent an email out to everyone who gave us their email addresses asking for their thoughts on the weekend. I'll be composing a break down of the replies, without names, to be shared among the Instructors for our self evaluation.

Thanks again to all who made the weekend happen.

FiremanEd

[crashkid2k]

A hearty second to the above!

Our shooters couldn't have been better.  They genuinely wanted to learn, listened to everything the instructors had to say, asked very good questions, and were an overall pleasure to be around.

Saturday was a little warm, and the shooters were working pretty hard; we were all tired by the time we quit on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday brought us shooters with fresh faces and a spring in their step; the same was true for instructors.  A good night's sleep did wonders for everyone.

Mike, Eddie, Woody, Tommy, and Jim did a great job of keeping the line running with minimal intervention.  Great job!

Thanks to both shooters and instructors for a great weekend.

crash

[VaWolf]

This was my first as an IIT and I had a ball. I can't wait till Montpelier. jmdavis, you set the bar pretty high with your story of the dangerous old men. You give all of us instructors something to shoot for. Going to signup for Montpelier.   Tommy