On the last Saturday of term, the Rifle Club travelled to Bisley for the annual British Schools Winter Open. Gresham’s took two good teams, one of which had a large amount of experience and ability, the other which was made up of several younger, newer members of the Rifle Club looking to gain some valuable experience. Our ‘A’ team went to the match extremely confident and certainly had the ability to win. Numbers were slightly down this year, with 142 competitors at the competition, from 11 different schools, from around the country and with the majority of the ‘big’ shooting schools all represented. Each individual had to shoot four times, to give a total out of 400, in what were particularly unpleasant conditions. The good number of newer shots that we took to the competition all shot very well but it was the senior members of the team however, that really showed their talent. Oliver R was 19^th out of the 142 competitors, Marcella B was 17^th, Alex S was 14^th, Jonny W was 10^th and George B was a very respectable 5^th in the British Schools Individual Championships with a superb score of 383 (x400).  Marcella B and Grace S were 3^rd in the Junior Pairs, with Ilana B and Margarethe G just behind them in 4^th. In the Senior Pairs, George B and Georgina B finished 3^rd with Oliver R and Jonny W just behind them, also in 4^th. In the Teams of IV competition, Gresham’s again did very well, with the ‘A’ team finishing in 2^nd place and the ‘B’ team finishing in 3^rd place. This set the team up for a good win, beating Wellington College into second place (by 11 points), in the Team of VIII competition.

Huge congratulations to all members of the Rifle Club but particularly to George B for being the top individual at last months English Schools competition and then following that up with a 5^th place finish at the British Schools Winter Championships.