The first weekend in May was a busy one at Bisley, with an England squad and three different GB teams training on the ranges alongside those shooting in the Army Open. With fewer than 100 days to go until we depart for Montreal, this weekend’s agenda was to solidify our processes after the success of the training in March.

Saturday morning saw the GBRT Canada 2025 squad have the luxury of a breakfast and brief team meeting in the Surrey before heading out to Stickledown for team practice on the punishing ICFRA targets. Given the weather forecast, we were fortunate to have mild wind at first, ensuring each firer was now confident in their long range zeros. As the morning went on, the flags started to fishtail and coaches were kept on their toes to spot changes in direction. Under Bruce Winney’s expert stewardship as main coach, the team managed to find the bull more often than not!

After a refreshing lunch, we proceeded to brave the increasing wind back on Century. Each target team kept the same coach for the afternoon and the focus was very much on team efficiency, accurate plotting and fast shooting to ensure we could handle these conditions should they arise in future matches. Our efforts were rewarded in having ample time for an additional detail, allowing coaches to shoot while other squad members stepped up to (or sat down in) the coaching chair.

A superb dinner in the Surrey followed, with the squad taking a sensible decision to have an early night and meet early for breakfast the next day, ensuring everyone was ready and rearing to go for a short range morning on the Sunday. With coaches now swapping target teams between each shoot, we stormed through three details in the morning before diving straight into a final shoot under match conditions, drawing on everything we had practiced this year.

This weekend saw some changes in the touring team line-up, with Oscar joining the main team and Matt stepping up to the role of Adjutant. We now wish Liam the best on his honeymoon and thank him for the incalculable amount of time and effort put into organising the team and our tour in August!

With the shooting season now underway and our imminent journey to Canada, we are now more than ever spending time on fundraising and looking forward to the June training weekend and guest day.