HISTORY
Greetland Shooting Club was founded in 1974 by six lads from Greetland. Mac Wilde, Alan Robson, Steve Simcock, Neil Ogden, Ken Nash and Conrad Squire. The club started with an investment from each member of £10, that’s equivalent to a little over £100 by today’s value. Of the founding members, two are still members today; Alan Robson and Steve Simcock.
In 1978 Colin Webb and Steve Wheelwright joined and put their £10 in the pot. At the end of 1978 the decision was taken to open the membership. Two current members have been in the club for 39 years; Terry Thompson and Neville Hirst.
We bought a Stuart trap and Steve Simcock used that design for ‘inspiration’ to make another two similar ones. Alan Robson loaned the club a Bowman sledge trap at some time. Setting up for a shoot in those days involved carrying a trap, nuts and bolts and spanners.
The traps were bolted down to circular base plates concreted in steel barrels. Some of these can still be found in the wood. Later these traps were bolted to a steel frame with a seat attached, which made them more versatile, but a lot heavier to carry out in a morning!
Every shooter took their turn at trapping. Nearly all members attended working parties; digging trap holes, digging and laying drains, painting huts and constructing anything from tree houses to trap houses. Some members have made significant contributions to the Club, for example, building materials, machinery, donating steel tanks, time repairing electrical equipment, making parts for traps etc. These members have made the Club what it is today.
Membership took off quickly and at one point we had to limit membership to 75 members due to a restriction imposed by the insurance company. In recent years the membership has hovered around the 50 mark. It is still a duty of every member to contribute to setting up and closing down shoots as well as attending working parties.
Unfortunately some members have slipped through the net and haven’t done any work at all for the club.
We now have some good equipment and reasonable facilities but it's still a ‘work in progress’.
Over the last 40 years we have had hundreds of people come and try the sport, some join, some go to other clubs and some just decide it’s not for them.
The aim of the club was to provide a safe shoot at a reasonable cost to members and we have managed to do this so far.