Stoke Mandeville summary thread.

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I'm just going to dump a few pics etc in here at the moment, then tidy it up once I've got the core of it pasted.

Watch this space......

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This is Terry's post that kicked the whole thing off; 17th June 2007.

" I went to Stoke Mandeville today..
...and came away thoroughly ashamed of myself.

I was ashamed that, as I drove into the hospital sports complex, the magnificent, state-of-the-art building on my left contrasted so starkly with the leaky, draughty, smelly, 1940s Nissen hut on my right that housed the disabled shooters.

I was ashamed that, as a representative of my sport, I hadn't been aware of this disgraceful disparity between the facilities enjoyed by other disabled sports people, and those endured by the disabled shooters.

I was ashamed as I studied the 'facilities' the disabled shooters have, the leaking toilets, the lack of heating, the buckets meant for the collection of funds now pressed into service as drip-catchers and many other things I can't publicise.

I was ashamed that this is the national centre for disabled shooters, from where our representatives at the Paralympic Games and other championships must come - and somehow do, despite the awful state of the place.

Most of all, though, I was deeply ashamed of the times I've moaned and bleated about my own medical problems over the past year, when all around me were people of all ages enjoying their sport and staying positive, with only a fraction of the advantages I have, and so many more challenges than I've ever faced.

I was horrified, angry, despairing and frustrated in turn, as was my colleague, Nigel Allen, Bill Sanders of Air Arms and Peter Martineau of BSA, all of us there on behalf of the Airgun Manufacturers and Traders Association. We all spoke at length to the shooters and the officials from their Association, in an effort to find out more about the situation and what was needed to improve it.

After an hour or two I noticed something; none of the disabled people were moaning about things, they just got on with their shooting. I mentioned this to a shooter and what he said brought tears to my eyes. He told me 'most of us have serious stuff to think about just to do the things everyone else takes for granted. We generally don't have the time and energy to complain, we just get on with it - and that's probably why we get treated like we do. Another fact of our lives, is that many of us won't be around long-term, so we don't want to waste the time we have on negative things.'

The tears came when I discovered that a lady I'd interviewed a couple of years ago, Isobel Newstead, had passed away in January. Isobel was a fantastic person and a seriously talented shooter, and I'd managed to get some sponsorship sorted out for her a while back. To hear that she had died was a real shock and I just couldn't bring myself to talk to her husband, who was helping out at the shoot.

We came away from Stoke Mandeville with a resolution to do what we could, and what we should, for these shooters. We're not sure what that will be, but we're determined to make a difference somehow or other.

Actually, we can all do something; if you're going to the CLA Game Fair, look out for people collecting for the Disabled Shooters Association, and drop what you can into their buckets. Every penny goes directly toward this fantastic cause, and believe me it needs all the help it can get.

Thanks for reading this, and above all, enjoy your shooting and be grateful that you can do so to the full. Just spare a thought, and a few quid, for those that aren't so lucky.

All the best. "

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This is the Stoke facilities/sports building

This is the Disabled Target Shooters of Great Britain building.

Spot the difference yet?

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An inspection visit in early June 2007 revealed plenty to do, including an asbestos roof sporting a considerable collection of holes.

Financial collections were taking place in many different places, at events, shoots, by donations, and any other way anyone could think of to raise the significant amount needed to simply make the building watertight.

Make no mistake, the Shooters had pools of water inside their building!

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Terry D posted this on 12.07.07

I'm absolutely delighted to announce that, at yesterday's meeting with the Airgun Manufacturer's and Traders Association, it was unanimously agreed that a sum of £15,000 would be donated to the appeal. This is designed to kick-start the refurbishing programme as soon as the estimates are in.

Furthermore, the organisors of the Midland Game Fair immediately pledged a further £1000, plus a whole range of fundraising options which are incredibly promising.

So, that's £16k in the kitty, plus the kind donations already received, which means we'll soon be making noise and replacing stuff. Lobberman is getting the estimate for the roof on Wednesday, after which it's all systems go.

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Donations continued to come in from Shooters, Clubs, organisations, all types of generous people dug in to help.

Then on 12.10.07 the roof works started, with the scaffolding to protect the sprayers who were to seal the roof.

Picture 1

Picture 2

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18.10.07, the roof works started in earnest.

From Pete Snock, our on-the-spot reporter....

Report from Stoke Mandeville.
Things are really starting to happen at the ranges!

I arranged with Rosie Hughes, the group coordinator, to meet her and her husband Keith at the ranges today, because the company who are doing the roof re-covering work, started today.

I met up with Keith and Rosie, who'd got their slightly before me, at about 11:15 this morning. The lads from the spraying company had been there long enough to set their gear up and have a cuppa whilst 'scoping the joint.

They gave me quite a concise run down of the process involved and it sounds very impressive! Basically it's a resin-based foam application which offers good insulative and waterproofing properties; just what they need down at Stoke Mandeville!!

It's applied via a compressed air line, through a spray gun attached to a very bulky hose. The actual foam seems to be made from a two-pack mixture of a resin and and another, ammonia-like smelling chemical. It doesn't smell too fragrant, but hey...what does that matter!

It's dried in about 10 seconds, so there's no problem with runs or poor coverage, as they can simply blast a load more gear onto the area affected.
They have to prepare the surface, of course, so all the lichen and moss has to be removed from the asbestos sheeting, otherwise the foam won't adhere to the surface and it could cause a blow hole where the moisture stops the foam curing. One of the lads was clearing the vegetation from the roof as his mate was laying it on. Sorted!

They were rained-off yesterday, for the reasons above, so they were anxious to start work because of scheduling issues with head office. Then they couldn't access some parts of the roof because of frosty patches which hadn't yet been melted by the morning sun. This wouldn't have been a problem by midday, so they didn't have long to wait.

The next part of the process involves painting the hardened foam basecoat with an aluminium rubber-based paint, to further seal the building from the elements. I can't remember what this stuff is called, but it comes in 25ltr drums and there's lots of it!! The painting will be done by another bunch of lads from the same company in the next few days. Hopefully I will get along for more stories and pictures then.

They were quite surprised, as I was, that there are few parts of the roof which are strong enough to support the weight of a person, but even so, they must tread carefully. That roof is 50+ years old!
Rosie told me that she always has reservations about workmen being less-than-honest, but her fears soon dissolved when the older of the two blokes pointed out, just by looking at the roof, where the leaks were coming from; that put her mind at rest.

Lots of large tins

Basecoat

That's a long one!

Hard at work


With silver topcoat

Drainage was less than impressive

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10.11.07, the drainage problems were attended to, on a work party.

Pete again,

"The day started at around 10:00

We were discussing the digging work we had to do, and I pointed out to Rich the obvious differences to the plush, aluminium-clad, smoked-glass building which is no more than 60-70 yards away, and is the new stadium for disabled sportspersons, and our 1940's nissen hut. Quite a stark contrast, I can tell you!

Rosie Hughes, the organiser of the British disabled shooting squad, arrived soon after with one of - in fact I think she was our best disabled shooter, Di Coates. Another friendly person. There's a lot of them here!

After a cuppa and a quick introduction we went around the side to look at what needed to be done. We got our shovels and spades out and got cracking!
The sole reason this needed doing was to stop the ingress of water from the surrounding soil [read thick, claggy clay], getting into the walls of the hut and seeping into the ranges, as it has been since I don't know when.

We got the gulley dug out to accept the drainage pipe and shingle which Mr Graham Guest is hopefully sorting out for us. This will, when laid, allow any rain water to drain away into the ground further away from the hut. Sorted.

Then the next job of the day: to re-jig the guttering which was compounding the problem by controlling the water which had been pouring out of the broken joint between two lengths of gutter, by improving the 'fall' on the pipe, whilst diverting the water to a point where its drained further from the walls.

Richard is an engineer for the people who supply, fix and maintain the vacuum pod systems we have in supermarkets, so he already had a selection of off-cuts of 4" tubing and all kind of fitting which we used to do this job.

In these pictures you'll see that we did a pretty good job of using what we had, to do the best we could.

There was also a small job of stemming the flow of water from the overflow from the gent's loo, which was soon rectified by a bit of creative ballcock-bending."

Base of Shooting "hall"

Creative guttering, I work with plastic pipes for a living!

A Rosie between two thorns.

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My view of the same day.

"Well, today really opened my eyes.

Met Pete, as posted above, its great to meet people that we talk to so often.

The contrast between the on-site facilities cannot be over-emphasised.

The look on Rosie's face when the range was dry inside was a great start to the day, and made me realise how small improvements can make life more bearable and facilities more welcoming.

The ditch was dug, and a repair made to the guttering to keep the water away from the building, not earth shattering stuff, but moving toward keeping the place watertight.

The toilets and sinks are in desperate need of replacement, yet all the way around Rosie was telling us what's going where, and how its going to be once its done. It certainly has loads of potential!

Watching Di shoot was awe inspiring, the level of concentration and discipline required to shoot that well was clear, watching Pete shoot at a similar target he showed how far she is ahead of us!
I chickened out due to my fear of making myself look a complete Berk!"

Pete shooting at 10m, with Diane in the background

Look at Pete's score, not the hat!

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Skip forward to 07.01.08

Rosie posted the following announcement,

" Great News
Hi everyone hope you’ve all had a good Christmas and New Year.
DTSGB has had a great Christmas. Our first present was to hear that we have been adopted by Countryman Fairs as their Charity for 2008. So this means that some of our members will be at the Fairs to help with the fund raising and hopefully meeting more of you. Thank you Country Fairs.
Our second present arrived when Bob Nichols MD at Air Arms heard through Bill Sanders that we had been let down by Mears for the materials to replace the back wall of the range. He has sent us a cheque for £5,000 to cover the cost of all the materials needed. Thank you Bob and Bill. Our third present was a cheque for £500 from the Ryan Cockbill Trust. Ryan came to his first training weekend at the beging of December with his Dad and his carer and heard about the repairs and refurb. Thank you Ryan and all your family.
2008 is going to be a great year with so many people willing to help us.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Can’t wait for the weather to improve so that we can get started.
Rosie "

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Weekend of May 4th 2008 saw a work party to clear gutters, seal gullies, painting and general brightening up take place, a good weekend was had by all.

Photos

Sadly rumours about snoring circulated for some weeks after this event.

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06.07.08 another work party went ahead, Baxterbasics summed it up better than I could.

I can thoroughly reccomend getting involved in this project lads-more like fun than work Great banter all weekend with plenty of good natured pi$$taking all round A lot was acomplished this weekend, but there is still a massive amount to do to get the centre into a respectable state.
What an incredible women Rosie (club secretary) is-a real ray of sunshine-I don't think you could meet a more positive attitude anywhere. Her enthusiasm is contagious-she worked tirelessly all weekend plus kept us fed and watered-enough tea to sink a battleship
Watching the wheelchair rugby was very humbling-these guys get maximum respect from me-showing a level of courage and determination that made me feel ashamed of myself. A couple of the lads looked a bit misty eyed as we trooped back to the shooting range.
We all sat down to a Chinese meal last night, had a few-Cough!- drinks, a great atmosphere all weekend and I for one will be back there for the next weekend

If you ever got a chance to watch wheelchair rugby (its on youtube, but better live) do so. Total commitment from the players, and totally engrossing for the spectators.

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Lobberman posted a few photos that gave a feeling of how it went for some of those present.

This years must have accessory the MANBAG !

http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/2307/pic017ld7.jpg

One usually has one's servants do this !

http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/5335/pic020wh1.jpg

I am not a mornings person

http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/8269/pic016rs8.jpg

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The next project was going to be the biggest yet, the back walls.

(Rotten) timber framed, and clad with asbestos, there was no way they were repairable, they had to go.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/DSC00304.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/DSC00305.jpg

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Rikki, the DTSGB chairman was kind enough to take the tiem to register and post, to give his thoughts on works so far.

"Dear All

Sorry it's taken me to long to get on here and write. I really want to say that you are all a great bunch of people.

You will probably never realise how much we at DTSGB owe you for all your kindness, generosity and hard work. I know that you those of you who came down a couple of weekends ago said you felt humble watching the wheelchair rugby etc - but you can't believe how humble we all feel when we see the work you are all doing for us. I really think that we will have a shooting range to be proud of. The the work you have done so far has already made so much difference. Whenever I speak to Rosie (THE BOSS!), we spend most of our time talking about how good the range is looking and how grateful we are to you all.

Sorry I couldn't be there for there for the last weekend, but the day job was calling and I couldn't get out of it! Sadly, I can't be there for the next one as I'm picking up my new car and getting the hand controls fitted.
Anyway, enough of this rambling b*########*s (Ha - I'm not putting any money in the Rosie swear box!).
Once again, can I just say THANKS to you all and one day I will meet you and have a beer (or 5) with you.

Thanks again.

Rikki
CHAIRMAN (BUT NOT THE BOSS) - DTSGB"