On Saturday 12th September this year the Cheshire Team got together (well most of us anyway) to shoot this years County Cup competition (One we did especially well in last year, coming second). Due to the current situation with the Covid Pandemic the NSRA had relaxed the rues a little this year, and rather than insisting that the whole team shoot at the same time on the same range we were able to stagger shooting over more than 1 day to ensure social distancing. This meant that of the 12 Team members 10 shot on the Saturday, and the other two managed to shoot during the week.
Team shoot with social distancing look a bit like this:
Alongside the usual suspects in the Team it was really good to see some new faces, and I would especially like to mention Anna Maughan, who at the age of 14 is (I believe) the youngest shooter to be picked for the County, and she was really proud to receive her County Badge, and I am sure she will join me in thanking Jim for acting as chauffeur, and spotter!
I would like to thank everyone who shot for us, and a special thanks to Abby who came along as a last minute reserve when Martin was unable to shoot due to an injury, and also to Nick who filled in for Pete who had also sustained an injury.
The conditions weren't too bad for most of the day, and the 'squadding' that we had put in place worked extremely well, so again a big thank you to everyone for following the 'rules' to turn up, shoot and go home, sadly this meant we did not get to catch-up and have a good chat; but hopefully it won't be too long before we can all have a proper catch-up and social - fingers crossed.
I'd also like to thank Neil Gibbons for opening up, and generally keeping everything running smoothly as ever 
As a county we are very fortunate to have such a good range to shoot on, and hopefully once we come out of the back of this pandemic we will all manage to get more shooting in, and hone our techniques further! One or two of the team did say that they were a bit rusty having not been able to get any training or practice in for 6 months or so; so all I would say is thanks everyone for making the effort 👍🏻
The closing date is the end of September, so I will be posting the cards later this week, then we will have to await the results, but in the meantime my estimated scores are:
Our congratulations go to Simon for an excellent shoot, and ensuring he retained the County Salver, which I will present to him next time I see him at Appleton, not quite the same as having it presented at the shoot with the whole team there, but we live in 'interesting times' at the moment!
Cheshire & North Wales Rifle Captain.