The DURC Report
30/10/00
Mark Dennehy

This academic year has seen a rather successful start for DURC, with
the annual Freshers' Week membership drive turning up some 270 
members. Despite difficulties
caused by windy conditions and a light stand, we had a very
good turnout and saw a lot of interest in the sport, both from students
and visitors to the college. 

This year we handed out leaflets to all and sundry, which gave
details on the club and the sport in general. Apparently this soft-sell 
approach worked - many people who initially were very dubious about a
club that uses rifles came back to the stand later in the week having
read the leaflet and joined the club. In fact, we have had several
people join up after Freshers' Week from having read the leaflets or the
member's handbook, so that our total membership is now at 290 and
rising.

Of these 290 people, nearly 60% are first-time shooters, mostly
first-year students who want to try every sport available. This is the
normal breakdown for DURC, and while it indicates a high turnover, it
also shows that we keep 40% or more of our shooters, and
many go on to be quite good and several stay with the sport after
college. This shows the importance of the college clubs for the sport
in general, and is why we are hoping to expand DURC even further in the
years to come.

On this note, it was announced recently that the college has finally
received planning permission for the new Sports Centre. This will house
the new DURC range, though there are still some important parts of the
plan that we feel are not yet right. We are hoping that
these details can be resolved before construction is due to begin in
February 2001.

The new membership cards and the computerisation of the ranges'
management are underway at the moment and we hope to be testing the
RCMS (Rifle Club Management System) early in the new year, if not
beforehand. Expect a more complete report on this system after the
initial testing - and if it proves to be quite useful, we intend to
release it to the public domain.

The Trinity Top Ten is now completed and the badges are being organised
and should be distributed both to this year's and last year's winners
shortly. With a little luck, this should be taken care of by the time
you read this. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the entrants
for their patience with this competition - we've had more than our
share of glitches this year which has resulted in very few results
announcements, instead of the hoped-for fortnightly announcements. With
luck, the committee won't be so short-handed next year and all will run
smoothly.

The website has also been moved, as some may have noticed, from our
old address of http://www.tcd.ie/clubs/rifle to the somewhat easier
to remember http://durc.tcd.ie/ and should by now be operating quite
smoothly. This is our own webserver, located in club rooms, and this
allows us to do more with the website than was previously possible.
As reported last time, things such as discussion boards and webcams
are being worked on, and while we already have a large supply of
embarrassing photographs, even more are now being taken and scanned in,
so come to the website and take a peek around!

The DURC Air Rifle Open is coming up on the 26th of November,
hopefully you will have received this before then. Given last years'
problems, we are hosting the open in the UCD range this year. We are also
starting a new perpetual trophy this year, so come along and be the
first to have your name engraved on it! And if you don't win prizes,
there will be lots of home-made white chocolate cheesecake for all!
We are hoping that this will be the first competition in some years
that DURC has a squad ready for. Already this year we've seen some new
rising stars with Aisling Broderick, who broke 500 for
the first time in Air Rifle at the UCD Open at the end of October -
congradulations Aisling! ;
Sharon Wall, who had a fantastic season last year, winning the Class C
section of the Air Rifle Nationals; and we also have a few new members
this year who look to be very promising indeed. We hope to see you all
there !