The Sewing Basket

Well, I just can't help myself.  See the Warning on the sidebar!

A while back I attended a "titled shoot" on the banks of one of my favorite rivers (name omitted for political correctness.)  As one of my prizes I received a beautiful hand made sewing basket.  It was just an awesome gift.  I brought it home thinking  that my granddaughter could store her dolls in it. The little woman told me that it was not going to clutter up her house, we are at the age of discarding clutter for the heirs benefit, so the beautiful work of some woman on the plains was banished to a closet in the mountains, where I see it on occasion and lament not having a better use for a sewing basket.

It also reminds of a shoot a few years ago, with maybe a thousand shooters, (nofpc) when I received a $50.00 gift certificate as a prize from a custom ammunition vendor.  I took my gift certificate down to the vendor who was on site to redeem it and found that the minimum order for ammunition would exceed my normal cost of ammunition by tenfold.  I have had a recent similar experience from another shoot (nofpc) with another gift certificate.

The point of all of this lament, is that this stems from a certain rule requiring a certain level of prizes for approval of a shoot.  The only way  for a host to meet this level and keep the entry fee reasonable is to give prizes valued at retail from donors.  Don't misunderstand me.  I appreciate the hosts, I appreciate the donors, I like the shoots, I like the prizes!  I don't like someone telling a host what they have to do to put on an event.

Seems like a lot of running around going in circles sort like a dog chasing it tail.  People wonder why we have states with many shooters but no titled matches.   Well, maybe the state is better off without a titled match.

Hope no one is offended!