Your 2021-2022 OPTA Board of Directors
Please contact any of us and we’ll help you in any way we can!
| President | Bert Blackburn |
| Vice-President | Pam Muma |
| Secretary/Treasurer | Beau Douglas |
| Director | Emily Brown |
| Director | Bill Drikos |
| Director | B.J. Jackman |
| Director | Ron Rowe |
| Director | Lori Cain |
| Director | Peter Tsementzis |
| Director | Verne Higgs |
President’s Message October 2021
Greetings from your OPTA President.
We have just finished our October meeting of the OPTA board. The registered shooting season has pretty much wound down. We were pleased to see the initiatives by some clubs to throw more targets in September and early October. Well done.
Several board members have received questions about the sponsorship program that the OPTA had been running. We assessed the program and concluded that it didn’t accomplish its objective of increasing the number of registered targets thrown in Ontario so we decided that the money would be better used in other ways. We have a few thoughts going forward.
The ‘Meet the All-Stars’ plan was postponed due to the pandemic restrictions. This is intended to provide the opportunity, at various locations, for shooters to discuss shooting technique, mindset and performance to help move shooters to the next level where they will want to participate in registered shooting.
There is a suggestion to incentivise clubs to send more shooters to the Provincials. Each shooter would name their home club and a donation to that club would be made for every member that registers and shoots at least 1 event at the Provincials.
Junior and sub-junior shooters already have their OPTA annual dues covered. New shooters can have their ATA dues waived for the first year. Would some of the money previously used for sponsorship help get new shooters to join the OPTA and shoot registered targets?
One deterrent to registered shooting is that it is mostly on Sundays. Families are busy and may not be interested in shooting on Sunday as the family is into other events. Clubs could set up ‘Penny Pinchers’ or ‘Big 50’ shoots on weeknights, once the days get longer again, to throw registered targets so you don’t have to shoot penalty at the larger shoots.
Pre-squadding has made the winter league shoots more efficient and therefore more enjoyable. There are very large numbers participating in these leagues. Fewer than half of the league shooters shoot registered targets. This is a huge pool of shooters to expand the number of participants shooting registered targets. Now that we are pre-squadding, why not invite your whole squad to shoot in a local registered shoot in the spring? We are available to help you facilitate that move.
We are open to suggestions from our membership on ways to support an increase in participation by shooters new and old in registered shoots. Don’t hesitate to send suggestions to any member of the board or email Beau Douglas, your secretary/treasurer at secretarytreasurer.opta@gmail.com.
We just heard that the border is going to open on November 8th. After missing the large shoots for two full years it will be good to be able to compete south of the border again. For the snowbirds, enjoy your time south as you shoot in nice weather. I look forward to getting to the Silver Dollar this winter. Hopefully I will see you there.
Robert (Bert) Blackburn
President OPTA
Past Presidents of the OPTA
Neville Henderson 2010-2019
Steve Stiby 2007 – 2010
W. L. (Smokey) Smith 2000 – 2007
Ike Prokaska 1998 – 2000
Brent Price 1996 – 1998
Ray Norton 1994 – 1996
Paul Shaw 1992- 1994
Jerry Mariani 1991 – 1992
Jerry Gilroy 1990
John Van Huesden 1988-1989
Jerry Mariani 1986 – 1987
Bruce C. Lyons 1982 – 1985
Maurice J. Wainwright 1976 – 1981
Jerry Mariani 1975
John Kaylor 1973-1974
Jack Henning 1971 – 1972
Bruce E. Stevens 1969 – 1970
Ed Wladichuk 1953 – 1968
Tom Oliver 1952
Hugh Lennox 1951