In the first week of the Easter Holidays, the Rifle Club enjoyed a very wet, and slightly cold, Easter Training week. In total, 15 members of the team, along with five members of staff, headed to Bisley for the week. Three pupils had already travelled to Bisley the previous day and were taking part in ‘Maple Taste’, a training / selection weekend for forthcoming GB cadet rifle team tours. Harry P and Jonny W were both training with the British Cadet Rifle Team ahead of their three-week tour to Canada in August and Georgie B was hoping for selection to the UK Cadet Rifle Team for the ten-day tour to the Channel Islands, also in August. By the end of the Rifle Clubs week at Bisley, the UKCRT team selection had been announced and Georgie B had been successful. Many congratulations to Georgie B on this thoroughly deserved achievement.

After their weekend with the GB cadet training, two of the three Gresham’s pupils (Jonny W headed off on DofE) then joined the rest of the Gresham’s team for the remainder of the week. Unfortunately, Georgie C had to leave the Camp after the weekend due to academic commitments.

The team had an excellent week of shooting but, other than on the first day, the weather was basically wet every day, all day. The training always starts at short range (300yds) and then over the course of the week we shoot over increasingly longer and longer distances. By the end of the week, the team were shooting over a distance of 1000yds. Shooting is not just about firing the perfect shot, although this is clearly important, there is also a lot of personal admin required and record keeping to be done. The evenings were spent learning the skills of plotting and coaching, which are both very important skills to have as the wind can have a massive effect on a bullet even at short range, let alone at 1000yds.

The new members of the Rifle Team did particularly well during the week and if they can shoot as well as they did, in the conditions we faced, then they can shoot well in almost any conditions. Very well done to them all.

These sorts of trips do not happen without the assistance of many people and thanks must go to Mrs Liberman, Capt. Scoles, Tony Clarke and Owen Liberman who all gave up their time to assist with the smooth running of the camp. It was a fantastically successful trip.