The Imperial Meeting is held every July at the Bisley Ranges in Surrey. It is the highpoint of the shooting calendar: more than a thousand marksmen and women from around the world coming together for ten days of individual and team shooting.

This year 20 shooters from Suffolk were there. As ever, shooting took place between 300 yards and 1000 yards with the culmination of the competitions being the final of HM The Queen’s Prize on the final Saturday. Weather conditions for the week were wetter and windier than most years, although a long-range weather forecast prediction of the worst summer gales for 20 years fortunately failed to materialise.

In the individual competitions, Andy Gemmill opened the scoring in The Lovell at 1000 yards with a near perfect 50.6 and third place. [For those who don’t know, this mean that of Andy’s ten shots to count in the competition, all ten hit the bullseye (which is around the size of a dustbin lid at 1000 yards), each scoring five points (10 x 5 = 50), and six hit the central "V-bull" adding .1 each time (6 x .1 = .6). Thus his total score was 50 + .6 = 50.6]

Elsewhere, Robin Hatcher was 8^th in The Times at 300 yards with 50.9 and 5^th in The Prince of Wales at 600 yards with 75.12. Dani Foulston shot a superb 75.13 in the first stage of The George’s, finishing in second place, winning the bizarre prize of a Gurhka kukri, and Debs Fenn shot an excellent 150.18 in Queens 2, finishing in 10^th place.

Two Suffolk shots made it to the Queens’ Final: Debbie Fenn finished 44^th (and thereby got herself promoted to the top "X" class of shots) and Geoff Cox was 73^rd.

Three finished in the top 100 of the Grand Aggregate of the week’s competitions: Geoff Cox was once again the top county shot in 18^th place, Robin Hatcher was 68^th and Andy Thomson 80^th.

The team competitions opened with the final of The Astor for the best clubs in each county; the West Suffolk RC finished 12^th / 28 teams with 609.62 (East of Scotland won with 620.67).

In the county competitions, we were looking for an improvement on recent years’ results and achieved a modest one - 16^th out of 30 teams in the County Short Range (Suffolk finished on 768.68 with our neighbours Norfolk winning with 790.89); and 12^th out of 35 teams in a County Long Range match curtailed by heavy rain (Suffolk on 288.28, ten behind the winners Surrey who scored 298.34). The two results left the county a middle-order 14^th out of 30 teams in the County Victor Laudorum (Suffolk 1056.96, the winners Surrey on 1082.132).

Finally, congratulations go to

on her selection for the GB tour of Australia this autumn

who was chosen to coach both the UK Cadets and the Athelings for their team matches at Bisley, and who is touring Canada this year with the Athelings

who was again chosen as a wind coach for England in The National

who was selected for the first time to shoot for England in The National