Clubbing together |
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Having successfully purchased a bit of the Ouse washes, the Cambridgeshire |
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Members of the club by the flightpond. Their success is down to energy and enthusiasm My advice to anyone buying land for shooting is to telephone Simon before you do anything else while heeding the old maxim; the only way to guarantee your shooting is to buy it. Terry and Simon won through with the ever-constant support of club chairman Trevor Norfield. Simon negotiated consents with English Nature, for the land is an SSSI, and what was more he won grant aid via the Countryside Stewardship Scheme for capital works - dyke and pond digging - and for day-to-day management. It was a long road, sometimes the going so rough that it was tempting to forget it all and wander off, but they clambered over all obstacles and the club owes them a huge debt of gratitude. We rent another adjoining wash and I throw in my little bit next door so they have a good chunk of some of the best inland wildfowling in Europe. Here is a funny thing. The "suits" and office-bound experts with mud-free boots also learned a great deal from Terry and Simon of what 'fowling is about. At first they could not understand why someone would want to crouch in the mud for half a day in the rain to shoot two duck and catch pneumonia. After three years of negotiating they were beginning to catch on. Maybe those who come after us will benefit from that awakening. And so the launch. The new pond glittered on the cropped grass like a pool of spilled aquamarine. A heron rose from the island and as we watched a redshank shrilled round and for a few moments settled on the exposed mud. Water bubbled in through our new dyke, and in the middle of a drought our pond was the only shallow water for a long way. A stock dove dropped in to drink. The job was done and now Terry is looking for another challenge. Thanks to hard graft and teamwork, CFSA members may look forward to some wonderful flights on our Millennium Wash. For details about The Cambridgeshire Field Sports Association, |
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| Thirty-five
years ago, Chris Hopwood and I formed the Cambridgeshire Woodpigeon Club, aimed at cashing
in on the boom in pigeon shooting, Shot birds were valuable and farmers all a-twitch about
crop damage. Those things changed but the club lurched along with a handful of members
until it was reborn with a wider brief as the Cambridgeshire Field Sports Association
(CFSA), and membership burst through the 100 mark. It still has good pigeon shooting,
rabbiting, a bit of 'fowling on the Bedford Washes and a fun monthly meeting. We are no
different from many clubs, but you must forgive us if right now our heads are a little
swollen. We have bought our own little bit of the Ouse washes, installed a beautiful
flightpond and I am just home from the official launch and barbecue. Still I cling to the non-active office of president. Members have shot and sold rabbits, their airgun plinkingstand at country fairs makes a small income, they have run gundog scurries, organised a monthly sweep and the committee worked its socks off until it had enough money for a down payment on a wash under the flightline. To make up the shortfall, members, by no means rich men, made interest-free loans, with no certainty that they would ever be repaid. That has now happened, the wash is ours with a smashing pond dug by that artist with a Hymac, Albert Garner, from Whittlesey, who wields his heavy iron bucket with the delicate precision of a dowager duchess with a teaspoon. Like most clubs ours stands by the committee, which in our case is star material. |
The committee members have the ideas, organise events, erect tents, heap straw bales, turn up at clay shoots and dog trials and set up the projector. They support the visiting speaker, donate items for the auction and enter teams for the quiz - in other words they not only run it all, but support it all. Sad to say, as with many other clubs, most of the members are rarely seen. The committee organises nice things for them, but not often can they be persuaded to break cover. It is their choice I but they miss out on a lot."A heron rose from the island and as we watched a redshank shrilled round and for a few moments settled on the exposed mud" The new wash is a triumph for a handful of members led by our wash warden, Terry Stannard. He spent three weary years negotiating and learning all there is to learn about water levels, slackers and sluices, and how the bureaucratic mind works. We needed authority and management agreements, we needed "consents" from everybody from the Women's Institute to the Flat Earth Society, or so it seemed. Without the help of that old BASC warhorse Simon Breasley, of Thyme Consultants, we might have fallen long ago. As it was we prevailed. Thyme Consultants and Simon have helped many a club and individual through the minefield of officialdom that makes life difficult for shooters on Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). |
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