ken, we were called off of the ranges at nelsonville due to weather. we were never told of a method of notification of such a weather event. we heard the police sirens, but we could not tell if they were actually doing police work, or calling us off of the range. we had no way of knowing if it were an ambulance, fire truck etc.......
there used to be a little briefing prior to shooting by the check in tents telling us of the method of notification.. several years ago, again at nelsonville, we were called off using the siren method, but were briefed prior to entering the ranges that that was the method in use....
on saturday one of my buddies who was fortunate enough to shoot prior to the shoot being called for weather, said he heard a whistle, but had no idea of the nature of the whistle. in his mind it could have been kids playing, or any one of a number of things, but had no idea they were being warned to leave the range due to bad weather.....
i looked in the rules and did not see any contingency plan for weather, or a standard rule of notification to the shooters on the range......you may want to put something in there....the ranges got cleared by ibo members and volunteers actually entering the range and clearing it. some shooters walked out backwards, into groups who had not been notified yet......
Keith,
I have shot Snowshoe twice now. No one in my group of friends has seen a range official out on the range while shooting. Because the rules state that you cannot leave the range without notifying an official FIRST, I wondered just how I would do this (this year) if I had equipment failure.
So this year I inquired before going out to the range and the man at the sign in desk told me " yes, there will be an official out there" . Well, there wasn' t one. Which brings me to your issue of notification-
That should be done by a range official, and there should be at least one visible range official on each range.
the nature of the course makes having one visible hard since its a walk through course. I believe you can leave on equipment failure by having your group sign the card, then you walk out, not positive haven' t read that rule in awhile.
In 3 trips to snowshoe, I' ve seen course officials 2 out of 6 rounds (2 rounds each year). They just come walking up behind you and walk past when its safe, checking targets, looking for backups etc.
standardization and notification
