After 40 years the land owners have cancelled our use of their land. This is extremely disappointing and frustrating for the Club and its members. Today will be our last shoot on the Clevedon Range, after cleaning up we will begin the search for another venue to continue the Clubs history. This has happened before, in 1983, so a new venue can hopefully be found. This cuts down the availability of Auckland’s already pathetic number of ranges and means it becomes even harder for people to sight in or join a club to maintain a firearms license.

The Club has a very proud history with many members gaining New Zealand Team statues, the club has won the NZ National Club Teams title twice, NZ Postal titles many times in Target Rifle Class and F Class, Rex Chilcott won the Ballinger Belt, the NZ Championship in 1983. Around mid-90’s F Class shooting was introduced to NZ, Paul Neal has won the FTR-Classic NZ title for the last 3 years, Steve Moffatt has won the FTR NZ Title and Joey Meldrum has won the F Open NZ Title, so the club has a huge present at the National Championships held at Trentham in January each year. Two Members are Life Members of the NRANZ and Auckland Rifle Association, Steve Bower and Bruce Millard and along with these two, Clair Salter, Dave Grigsby and Bev Bower are also Life Members of the Clevedon Club. During the Clubs 90-year history many members have come along and enjoyed the sport of Target Shooting

The club Started Shooting at the North Road venue in 1985 after the Twilight Road Range was closed in 1983, shooting was only back to 600 yards then and access to the targets was difficult with a goat track that if it started raining everyone had to get out quickly, so until 1999 we walked from the 600-yard mound to the 300-yard mound carrying all our gear. Over this period the club worked with the Farmer and together made improvements to the goat track so that it could be easily accessed. In 1999 we gained consent to start shooting back to 1000 yards and built mounds at 800, 900 and 1000 yards, it took a couple of years before anyone scored a possible at 1000 yards. With Clevedon’s range gone there are only 4 1000-yard ranges left, all in the North Island. Many changes have happened over the years, up until 2016 we used manual targets, a club member had to be in the target pit and mark the targets, and this made for long days as we had to stop shooting to swap members around so all could shoot. In 2016 the club purchased Electronic Targets that meant that no one was in the target pit and the targets were marked electronical by the sound of the bullet passing thru the target, while we just shot and the value appears on tablets. This changed the club and sport culture, now you had to accept whatever appeared on your tablet as your score but meant no one in the target area so more time for shooting, some struggled with these changes. Many working bees have been held over the years to improve the facilities and the land, all in good spirits and banter. Over the years many fund-raising ventures have been organised, many club trips to Australia were paid for through sausage sizzles outside The Warehouse stores and late-night Stock takes at local supermarkets, day like Anzac Day even with it being a ½ day had huge sales of $1 sausages and bread. It was a lot of fun and good advertising for the club. It is funny how times have changed now with few prepared to commit their time and new Health & Safety requirements.

After todays last shoot, the club has until the end of May to remove bullet stop, target frames, Clubrooms and mounds and will be carried out with due diligence and care and then we move on and try and find another suitable piece of land to set up a new range. This will not be an easy exercise in the current environment and hopefully we can continue to survive as a club and make it to 100 years.

The club is now looking actively for a new venue in the Clevedon region if possible so the Clubs name can continue but we need to look wider afield and will consider anything available or with potential, contact the club Secretary on clevdonrifleclub@outlook.com