NOTE – NO NEW MEMBERSHIP APPLICATIONS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

This is the procedure for joining the M.W.P.C.

Persons interested in joining the Club come from a variety of sources. They maybe friends of current members. Forwarded onto us by farmers, landowners and local gamekeepers. Referred by B.A.S.C. or have found details of the club from our Website. Assuming that the club is taking on new members at the time of an enquiry. The Club secretary will send out an applications form.

Step 1 – INVITE TO A MEETING

You will already have filled in an application form and returned it to the Club Secretary. This will have been discussed by the committee and you will have been invited to a monthly Committee meeting. Where you will get a look at the Club members and they can get to meet you. At the end of the meeting you may be offered a Prospective membership. A member of the committee will explain the procedures for joining the club to you.

Step 2 – PROSPECTIVE

A Prospective member is required to attend Claypigeon Shoots with members of the Club Committee. This is to assess your gun handling and safety. Once you have been out with sufficient Committee members for us to discuss your performance. You may be proposed and seconded for election to Probationary membership. You need to go clayshooting with as many Committee members as you can. Every time you go out a written report will be made by the accompanying Committee man. But at the meeting when you are proposed and seconded it is down to a show of hands. So you need to go out with at least six people to ensure we can have a vote. More would be better. It should be pointed out that we are only interested in gun handling and safety. We are not interested in how many clays you break. We have had the full range of Prospective members from the total novice to experienced pigeon, game and clay shooters. All must satisfy the Committee of their competent gun handling. You will be given a list of Committee members and it is up to you to chase them up to take you out clayshooting. We do not have a MWPC clayshoot. Some Committee members belong to various clubs, as frequently do Prospective members. Some experienced shooters in the past have been offended that we want to assess their gun handling when they have been shooting for forty years. We do not know anything about you and just because you’ve been shooting for years does not make you a safe gun.

Step 3 – PROBATIONARY

Once you have been elected as a Probationary member, you will be able to go pigeon shooting on club land accompanied by a member of the Committee. Once again the Committee man will submit a written report on your performance. At this stage we are looking at your decoying / pigeon shooting experience. Whether you have the equipment you need, decoys, hides etc. Do you turn up to shoot suitably dressed and so on. As with Prospective members we will have the full range of people from the novice with no equipment and no experience, to the person with a van load of kit and more experience that the Committee man he is out with. If we know you are a novice pigeon shooter we will take that into account. Show you the minimum kit you will need to go out and how to use it. Once again it is down to you to chase up the Committee to take you out. The more you go out with the better. Remember it is a show of hands on the night for election to Full member. Make sure you have more than half of the Committee able to vote. You will not be proposed as a Full member until we are happy that you are able to find a suitable spot to shoot, set out decoys, build a hide and pull the birds in. If you cannot achieve this you are not going to have an enjoyable days shooting, nor is it going to look good to the watching farmer, landowner. Anybody shooting as a club member represents all of us and we need to ensure we present an air of competence. As a Probationary member you will be required to pay an annual subscription, plus a one off joining fee. The subscription includes BASC membership. Which we require for the third party insurance cover. If you are already a BASC member, you can do a deal with them for some of your money back.

Step 4 – FULL

When you are elected as a full member you will be issued with the following. Full membership card, Photo ID card. (for which you will have to supply 2 passport sized photographs) club car stickers, a set of maps of club farms and a rule book. You can then go out shooting where and when you wish. The Club car stickers must be on the windscreen of any vehicle you may be using. They mean nothing to anybody but us and our farmers, local keepers and so on. But it does mean that when a tractor driver sees your car parked up at the edge of a field, he knows who’s it is. As a Full member (also as a Probationary member) you will have to submit a monthly shoot report on shooting carried out on club land. This should show the dates you were out, where you went, what you shot and what it was eating when you shot it. This allows the Club to form a picture as to what is being shot on what crops as well as which farms are not receiving many visits.

General Points

Only Shotguns may be used on club land. You may not use Section 1 firearms on the club’s behalf, neither centre fire or rimfire. Non FAC Airguns may be used in certain circumstances. (Clearing feral pigeon from farm buildings, shooting rabbits where safety dictates a shotgun is unsuitable, etc.)

Only fibre wad cartridges may be used on club ground. No plaswads. The club holds a stock of fibre wad cartridges in various calibres, shot loads and sizes. These are sold to members at cost price. If you buy your own make sure they are fibre wad. At the end of each year at the club AGM an award is made to the member who shoots the most pigeon on club land. Totals are taken from the shoot reports. We also need accurate shoot reports for the BASC annual vermin returns. They also help us to see which of the club farms are being covered and which are not.

The club has equipment for use by members. Long nets, drey rods, lamping outfits and the like. We also have a large selection of fieldsports videos for members to borrow. If you want a go at longnetting we can show you how to use the nets. We also have experienced ferreters if you fancy having a go at that. We also organise wildfowling trips, the odd days pheasant shooting, rifle shoots at Bisley ranges, inter club clayshoots, fishing trips and so on.

Membership Revoked

The following acts are liable to see your membership of the club a short one:

• Using plaswads– Whilst scientific studies have shown you can feed these to livestock by the shovelfull with no adverse effects. We are on the land with the farmers permission and if he doesn’t want plaswads we don’t use them.
• Leaving rubbish lying about– When you have finished shooting you must clear up all you empty cases, lunch wrappers, fag packets etc. If you see empty cases they are not yours (pick them up anyway). Other people shoot some of our land.
• Leaving dead birds– Make sure you pick up all of your shot birds, rabbits etc. Do not leave any carcasses unless searching for them will cause more crop damage than the pigeon were. Some farms have lambs and pheasant on and we do not want to encourage foxes.
• Interfering with game, wildfowl and deer– Not to mention domestic pets of the feline persuasion.
• Upsetting the Farmer / Landowner– The club does not pay for it’s shooting. We are there at the invitation of the Farmer / Landowner and we cannot afford to jeopardise our position.

Finally

The time it is going to take you to become a full member of the MWPC depends upon your persistence. The more Committee members you can get to take you out and the quicker you can get them out, will determine your progress. The fastest anyone has ever become a full member was about six months. He was a very experienced pigeon shooter / fieldsportsman and spent a lot of time ringing round the Committee. The average timespan is about eighteen months from Prospective to Full Member.

The upshot of this long and drawn out membership procedure, is that everyone in the club knows what they are doing in the field. Moreover when you are out shooting with other club members you can enjoy the day’s shooting without worrying about erratic gun handling amongst your fellow shooters.