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The British Paraplegic Shooting Association was formed in 1976 to introduce shooting to people with disabilities. The BPSA changed it's name to Disability Target Shooting Great Britain in 2005 and they can be found - here.

Rules and regulations in conjunction with the ISSF were drawn up with target shooting being a sport that almost anybody can do, no matter what type of disability they may have.

Disabled shooters compete in the same competitions as able-bodied competitors. Shooting events for athletes with physical disabilities started in 1970 in Scotland. Shooting first became a Paralympic sport in 1980. Great Britain has won many medals at Paralympic Games through the efforts of such stars as Di Coates and Isabel Newstead.

Getting Into Competitions.
Once you have learned the basics of target shooting the world of competitions really opens up to you. Up to National levels of competition, disabled shooters may take part in able-bodied matches on a shoulder to shoulder basis. However, you first need to join a club and start shooting. Target shooting is one of the few sports where competitors can shoot against each other on a postal basis, without leaving their home ranges. That may sound a bit strange, but the system works and there are many competitions that can be shot, assuming that you wish to. After all, you can get out of the sport whatever you wish and perhaps all that you'll do is to shoot and try to better your previous score each time you attend the range  - hopefully, you're now intrigued enough to want to come and have a look at us!! Target shooting really is a Sport for All.

Our Club

At Tondu we have always been aware of the needs of disabled shooters and do strive to ensure that they are accommodated. This thumbnail shows a wheelchair member shooting .22 Rifle on equal terms with other able-bodied members.

The late Clive Davies and his wife Kerry were very instrumental in the promotion of disabled shooting at Tondu and this photo shows Clive and Kerry coaching a disabled shooter with a .22 rifle. Kerry is still very active within the club and looks after Stroke Association airgun shooters on Friday mornings.

Our clubhouse was built with full disabled access and we do our best to ensure that our ranges also have disabled access. Having said that, there are always areas that need improvement.

As you look around this website you'll find various photos and reports that involve disabled shooters.


A new website for the Disabled Shooting Project has gone live and we've received the following information release.

The website is live!

We are delighted to announce the safe delivery, on time, of the DSP’s shiny new website. I hope it will find its way onto everyone’s Favourites list without delay! It is, of course, also linked to our presence on Twitter and Facebook.

What you will see now on www.disabledshooting.org.uk is Phase 1 of the site. A lot more material will be added to it during Phase 2 over the next month or so.  After that, in Phase 3 we will create some more sections to “bolt on” as they are ready – most of these relate to DSP schemes that are still in development, such as Focus Clubs, Coaching Modules, and the Disabled Shooting Year.

The website is, of course, a key part of the DSP’s communications system, which should help us to achieve our goals for the next 12 months, but we will continue to publish information in magazines, bulletins, etc. as well.

I would like to record my enormous gratitude to Clive Garnham who built the site for us, and presided over my vertiginous learning curve! It is just over a month since he received the confirmation to go ahead with the project, so it has been very hard work all round. As I have by no means finished learning the mysterious arts of webmastering, there will undoubtedly be hiccups in future – may I apologise in advance, both to site users and Clive.

 Next steps

Now that the site is operational, please would you:

1.       Spread the news!

2.       Arrange for a link to it to be placed on as many websites as possible!  The more links we have, the higher up the search engine rankings the site will be, and naturally we’d like it to be top of the list!   I am attaching a .jpg of the DSP logo which can be added with the link if you wish.

3.       Feel free to submit things for the site, and encourage others to do so.  News, technical information, diary items, etc. will all be welcome.  We are particularly keen to find good video footage and photographs to illustrate as many different aspects of disabled shooting as possible, so perhaps some people would like to turn themselves into film directors and actors for a day or two and send us the results.  Reminder: Please ensure that everyone featured has given their permission for it to be used on the internet, and remember that names (if people are willing to give them) do make things much more engaging. 

I am aware that information in some areas is thin on the ground, but we did not want to delay the launch because of what we want to accomplish by March 2013.  I am particularly aware of the lack of material on fullbore, clay target and field target disciplines, and that is something that I would like to remedy as quickly as possible, so contributions on those topics will be particularly gratefully received. 

 Clubs

The information on disabled-friendly clubs is rather patchy, because most of it I have hoovered up from their own websites.  This is time-consuming, and also does not guarantee up-to-date accuracy.  I will shortly be sending out a concise e-form which can be completed and returned by clubs that wish to be properly represented on the site.  I do have details of more clubs to go on at the moment, and hope to have them all up in the next couple of days. 

 
I do hope you all enjoy the new site.  It feels about time for a bit of a celebration!

Liz

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