We held the annual meeting of our club on Thursday June 27th at the Elks Lodge in Eastham. It was fairly well attended and we all enjoyed a fabulous cookout brought to us by Directors Sannette Gruenwald and Scott Brookshire. We had an update on various projects and activities at the club and insights into our future. It was reported that we are in a good financial situation and that our efforts to automate our membership process through our website augmented by the addition of our new electronically controlled access gate are progressing very well.
While we still have more work to do to bring that electronic access to the clubhouse, I think the improvements that have been made so far are tremendous and have gone a long way to improving access to our club for all. We would like to thank Bill Rice for all his hard work and dedication on our website project and incorporating the electronic access controls and working out all the bugs.
We have elected 2 new directors to our board and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome aboard Roger Faucher and David Crockett. They fill vacancies created when longtime directors Larry Baker and Scott Brookshire decided to take a step back. Larry Baker has been a member of the club and director for many years. We would like to extend our thanks to his many years of dedicated service to the club and hope to see him on the range enjoying the fruits of his efforts. Scott Brookshire has also been a member and a director for many years and for much of that time he spearheaded our membership committee, sometimes a committee of one, and has done a great job. Would like to thank him for his many years of service to the club.
This year we expanded the rifle range and installed a new 50 yard / 50m berm for greater rifle opportunities. It has already been put to good use by multiple members. As part of this project a tremendous amount of additional excavating work was done to expand the parking area near the shotgun fields as well as significant and much needed improvements to drainage between the clubhouse and the 200 yard range house. We would like to thank Craig Poosikian for spearheading this large project which is of such great benefit to the club. We would also like to thank Craig for his work on the upgraded shooting bench at the 100-yard rifle range house. We now have six shooting positions there on a continuous bench which has added capacity and versatility to the range.
Moving forward, we look ahead to future projects to improve the club which may not be quite as visible. Plans are underway for improvements to the shotgun fields and equipment used there as well as some needed maintenance and upgrades to the clubhouse.
I personally would like to thank all of the officers and directors of the club for all their hard work over this past year. With all of the changes there have been some hiccups and some confusion that we have worked through with your patience our club is now well positioned as we move into the future.
I would also like to thank Ed Tessen for his service as the chair of our nominating committee for this year’s meeting.
The next event that we have on our agenda is our annual attendance and participation at the Eastham Windmill Weekend celebration September 6-8 2024. As in previous years we are a primary sponsor and will have a booth on the green on Saturday and invite any of you to come down and join us as we represent our club, answer questions, and encourage new membership applications. This is a great opportunity for us to meet with the community members and put our faces to the name and project a positive image to our community. We also participate in the parade with several vehicles, and we are always looking for more people to participate. I would like to thank Mike Hackworth for being in charge of our efforts for this event and his continued great service to the club. If you are interested in assisting us in the booth or participating in the parade, please reach out to Mike.
Our club exists because of the dedication of our officers, directors, and our members. Unfortunately, we must stay vigilant to maintain our club and the shooting sports in general. I ask and encourage all members to take steps to support our club and the Second Amendment. You can do this by getting involved and being informed and taking action to communicate our feelings and opinions to our legislators when the need arises. The second part of this request involves you encouraging others to become involved in the sport. This is as simple as talking with friends and relatives, answering questions, and as always inviting them out to the range. It is a rare day when I take someone new to the shooting sports to the range that they don’t leave with a smile on their face and a desire to participate further.
Thank you,
Andy Goddard
President