President’s Letter to the Iowa 1000 Yard Benchrest Association

I want to thank all the shooters for another great year of competition at the Iowa 1000 Yard Benchrest Association. We saw some terrific shooting and everyone had a great time!!

I want to thank all the club officials for their assistance in making this year go as smoothly as it did: Lee, Juli and Stephen Fischer, Dave Clark, Randy Bonnett, Matt Bonnett, Mike and Janet Shotwell, Chris McLees, Dean Walther, and my wife, Chris Gritters, who cooks and does the food service on match days. We also want to thank our target crew, Joel Bonnett, Mike Van Gorp, Tony Escher and Jared Stephens. We couldn’t have done a very good job without everyone's help running the matches.

I want to thank all our sponsors who gave funds to help us build the great benches we shoot from: Dave Clark (who built all the bench frames), Brownell’s, Elkin Co, Varmint Hunter Assoc, D&B Supply, Vais Muzzle Brakes, Holland’s Shooters Supply, Bob’s Shooting Supplies, Nesika Bay Precision, Red Door Storage, Pella Corp, Pacific Tool & Gauge, Ron Boyd -“In Memory of Marvin Boyd”, Bob “The Avenging Angel” Pastor, Mose Levy Steel, Lee Fischer, and Gordy's Gunsmith Shop. I also want to thank Carl Boat, KC Valster and Lake Prairie Hunting Preserve (the folks who own the ground and clubhouse) for letting us rent the place for our use and rework it for our ranges.

We had purchased a new computer software program to speed up and simplify recordkeeping at the matches, which is working great - this is the same program that the Hawk’s Ridge Club in North Carolina had developed over the years to use at their club. Lee Fischer has spent a lot of time getting this up to speed.

We’ve had people from all over the US (including from both coasts) that have competed in our matches. We had up to a record 61 shooters from 14 states at our matches this year and from the interest, I think this number will continue to grow.

We also held the IBS 1000 Yard National Championships at our range this year, which went like clockwork. We had 122 shooters from 23 states compete. See our website - www.iowa1000ydbenchrest.com - for results.

We have a number of items to make you aware of as we plan for the next season, which will be upon us before we know it.

First thing is our tentative dates for the 2006 season are as follows: April 22, May 20, June 24 (Iowa State Championship), July 15, Sept 9, and Sept 30.

The Friday evening cookouts at the range continue to go over very well, so we plan to continue this next season.

We are including a 2006 membership renewal form for the Iowa 1000 Yard Benchrest Association that you can mail in with your 2006 membership fees. As most of you know, club membership is required by our insurance carrier to give coverage to us and to all members who compete at our matches, but we are making some changes in how we do this and the annual membership prices will be lower than they were in the past. For those who might be interested in helping support and grow your club even more, we are also offering the additional option of a Life Membership.

The IBS has requested we change the way we do our memberships in order to promote more traveling between clubs. So now when you register at each match, you will automatically be a "member" for IBS and insurance purposes, whether you pay the annual membership fee or not. This way if a person travels to a number of different clubs throughout the year, he won't need to pay an annual membership fee at every club as well as the match fees like they had to in the past. But we still need to have most of the regular shooters be paying club members so we will be able to cover all the expenses to keep operating.

So to make this work, we are making annual club membership optional for those who do not wish to become a member, we are reducing the cost of annual membership quite a bit, and we are going to promote membership by giving club awards and some good prizes that will be for annual club members only.

Each match and at the end of the year, we will give out IBS awards like always, but we will also be giving out club awards and quite a few great door prizes that you must be an annual club member to get. We will be keeping track of and giving awards for club records, club group and score aggs, and daily club wins that will only be for annual club members. See the attached Iowa 1000 yard club 2006 award schedule.

I am also making my own 1000 yard range at my shop (Gordy's Gunsmith Shop, 1648 Cordova Ave, Pella, IA) available to club members to come and practice at any time during the year, if you want. This will be free to annual club members - the only cost will be for targets. If you want to practice at either range, just call me at my shop anytime - the phone # is 641-628-3044. The main club range is occasionally available during the year other than at matches for a small fee, but you have to call me in advance so I can make arrangements to use the club's range.

Keep an eye on our website - www.iowa1000ydbenchrest.com - for details on match schedules, match results, equipment lists, range records, and other details.

Remember to also keep an eye on the IBS website for our members national standings. You can access the IBS website - www.international-benchrest.com -directly or you can link there through our website.

Looking forward to seeing you all and shooting with you again in 2006!

Gordy Gritters, Club President