Happy New Year to all!

I wanted to take a couple minutes and talk about 2009 as it was a big year for Action Pistol. In Feburary of 2009, the WAC completed, using 100% volunteer labor, the new bays. 7 Beautiful (hey, its in the eye of the beholder, right) bays of shooting goodness built by club members for club members. This massively increased the facilities available for action type shooting and all of the disciplines that use the new bays have seen an increase in shooters. Cowboy Action, Defensive Pistol, Action Shotgun, and Action Pistol all use these bays every week. The new bays have also allowed the WAC to hold "major" action-type matches for the first time in about 20 years. The first match was the IDPA state championship, held in late Feburary. We had 195ish shooters attend the match and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. So positive in fact, that we will be doing it all over again this year. We held a USPSA Section "Factory Gun" Championship in late Oct with 89 shooters in attendance (this match is designed to be smaller than the IDPA match.) Again, the feedback was very positive. Also, the major matches provided us with the means to fund purchases of much needed equipment such as walls, steel targets, moving targets, timers, and other assorted range equipment. The major matches have been highly successful in their first year and we expect to do more in 2010. Basically, the WAC is on the map with the USPSA and IDPA as a first class facility which can host major events.

In addition to major matches, we added a 2-Gun match, a 2nd USPSA club, and expanded our Tuesday Night, Friday Night, Steel, and Gulf Coast Lead Slingers matches with more stages and better props. Attendance has gone up dramatically over 2009 and we have seen a rise in new WAC members as a result of Action Pistol events. We have also seen a lot of people step up in 2009 to help build and run matches. I want to thank each and every one of you who has shown up early to a match and swung a hammer, or built a stage, or run shooters during the match. This is a 100% volunteer club and sport. We need everyone to pitch in to keep the momentum going in 2010.

I also want to mention that 2009 marked the year that Action Pistol shooters stepped up and participated heavily with the general club work party which happens the 1st Saturday of every month. The entire range is maintained by volunteers and the addition of the new bays has added a lot more upkeep which has to get done every month. Our discipline has shown up in force at every work party and both maintained the new shooting area as well worked hard to help maintain the rest of the range.

See you on the range,

Charles