Rifle Team Weekly Happenings 2021-02-07 / Welcome Back!

Hi Everyone!

I hope that everyone has the best fall semester, and first 1/3rd of the Spring Semester possible given the current situation!  I apologize for the length of this email, but this is the first message of the season so there's a bit more information than usual.

Due to frustrating issues beyond the scope of this message, we are starting our season about 6 months later than we normally would.  This means a few things:

1. If you're interested in joining but haven't - there's still time, and now is a great time to join as you haven't missed out on much.
2. It's far too late in the season for us to start any type of competition.  So this semester, we're going to be focusing heavily on technique and development.

Due to a lack of Range Officers at this time, we will only be having practice on Tuesday from 6-10pm in the SDC rifle range.  Due to the ongong pandemic, the range has a special set of rules.  Please be sure to read up on them: Michigan Tech Rifle Range COVID-19 Policies

For everyone new on the list a bit of housekeeping is in order.

• The "Rifle Team Weekly Happenings" email is a weekly news brief intended on cutting down on the number of messages sent to the list by outlining what's going on with the team, deadlines, meetings, and most importantly - what we'll be working on at the range this week.
  • If you have something to add to a news brief, please submit it to me (zdsimpso@mtu.edu) no later than Sunday at 1800 EST to be added to that week's email.
  • Detailed notices regarding upcoming competitions and meetings will be sent separately from these messages.
    
    
• When sending a message to the list, or responding to messages from the list please do the following:
  • Know the difference between "reply" and "reply to all"
  • Verify that you intend to send a message to our list.
  • Verify that the scope of the message is rifle team related, cannot be put into the news brief, and that it is an appropriate message for the list.
    • Advertisements, Jokes, Threatening & Abusive Content, and Political messages (rifle related or not) are NEVER appropriate.
    • Wait 5 minutes.
    • Double check the scope of the message and re-verify that the message needs to goto all 400+ people on our list and not just a few people.
    • If it passes both of these checks, it can be sent to the list.
      
      
  • This listserv is a google group.   Please don't email the entire list asking to be removed.  You'll be messaging 400+ people who have no ability to assist you.  There's only 7 people who can remove you from this ist.   1 - Yourself.   2 - A member of the Executive Board.  3 - Coaching Staff.
    
    
  • To remove yourself from this list yourself simply goto http://groups.google.com, login, select this group, and click "Leave Group"

With that being said, let's get down to business.

A happy belated 10.9 day to everyone!  For those of you who don't know what 10.9 day is, it's a "holiday" celebrated by the Olympic shooting community (Clubs such as ours) and is celebrated on October 9th.   The reason for celebration on October 9th is that a value of "10.9" is the highest possible score per bull in international competition.  It is part of a  "perfect" shot; a mark of perfection, and a result of hard work.  The purpose of 10.9 day is to recognize the pursuit of and achievement of that excellence; not just on the range but in our daily lives as well.  But this day shouldn't just be celebrated on October 9th, or even just for shooting.  It's purpose is to encourage everyone to "shoot for excellence in everything that you do."

For more information, read a (slightly old) USA Shooting news article here -> http://www.usashooting.org/news/882

Items this week:

• We will be in the SDC rifle range on Tuesday from 6-10pm.
  
  
• We WILL NOT be shooting this week.
  • This will be our first day in the range since March.  We have some administrative tasks to close our 2019/2020 season and open our 2020/2021 season that need to be done before we can start shooting.
  • Most of this is just going over our inventory list that we needed to submit to the University back in September.  A bit will be evaluating rifle condition, and a bit will just be general organization type tasks.
  • If any returning team members are available to help, it will be greatly appreciated.
    
    
• Since we will be at the range, now would be a great time to come down to the range and meet / introduce yourself, get all the administrative paperwork filled out and in general, get all the administrative onboarding type stuff out of the way.

Upcoming Items:

• Next week we will (hopefully) be shooting Air Rifle
  • This is dependent on being able to obtain a scuba tank from the Aquanauts.  If we are unable to obtain one, we will jump straight to Smallbore Rifle - Prone.
  • We will start by introducing the technical aspects of the position and some real basic skills, and building from there
  • I can't stress enough the importance of Air Rifle.   In the typical NCAA / NRA Collegiate competition, AirRifle is 50% of the total score; And overall the Standing Position is 2/3rds of the total score.
    
    
• We will be having a membership meeting in February.
  • Date , Time, & Location are all still TBA.   Look for an announcement once we get that figured out.
  • This is the meeting where we will be electing next year's organizational officers (President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer, Etc.)
  • If you have any desire to be an organizational officer and have questions about what it entails, feel free to ask me or one of this year's officers

Once again, I apologize for the length of this message.  But there was a lot to cover. Thank you for your attention, and have a great week!

GO HUSKIES!
- Zach