Range Conducting Officer ticket.

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pa_broon74

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Hello all.

In order to shoot with Scouts I need to have a RCO certificate or a youth coach qualification.

I've had an RCO certificate which has since expired, unfortunately the place/person who did it before is unable to run me through it again. I can't justify a weekend away down south to do a full RCO or NSRA YPS qualification, the cost is also prohibitive. (Also, we're not doing target shooting - a lot of it (as I understand it) is about competition shooting and scoring, and we don't do that.)

I will say, within scouting, if you're not prepared to succumb to the maximum qualification required by TSA's POR, some do tend to look down their nose and mutter about 'complacency'. I'm not averse to education, we don't always know everything, and reminders can be useful - but it also needs to be practical and do-able.

I'm looking for somewhere local to me I can go - previously I attended club nights for a number of weeks, (but had no interest in the shooting they were doing, .22LR competition) - where I can re-do the RCO qualification. I have the pack, but the process for actually doing it differs depending on who you ask.

NSRA have said a club secretary can run through it with me - but I accept they won't want to if they don't know me.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how I might progress this?

(Apologies if this is in the wrong section.)
 
CJM said:
You have probably found this:
https://nra.org.uk/training-and-courses/range-conducting-officer/

SLightly surprised that they want Range Conducting Officer, that's only necessary if you are using Military Ranges.

RSO is sufficant for non military ranges.

If you book, you might get one locally

https://online.nra.org.uk/regional-courses-rsorcoclub-instructor
Click to expand...
Looking into this...

I'm a member of NSRA and have only ever really dealt with them. Not sure what their relationship with NRA might be?

I do see the RSO qualification on the scouts info page however. I think that's been added.

Previously with scout-led courses (and courses delivered by the NSRA themselves), they've all been down south, and over two days. Looking at the info on the NRA site, it's looking similar. This is what I'd prefer to avoid.

The confusing (to me) thing is, you get a RCO pack from NSRA for £14 or so, you can sit with a club secretary or club coach for an hour, (or so NSRA said - in reality, the club sec or coach wants to know you a wee bit better before sitting down with you) - or - you can pay the best part of £300 not including transport and accommodation to attend a two day course somewhere in England.

If I was a total noob, I would go for the latter, but I'm not (and no, I'm not complacent*) so would prefer the former option. Suffice to say, Scouts don't cover the costs of training. My group would, but I wouldn't ask them to.

I wondered if there was anyone here in the south east of Scotland that had any pointers?


* In Scouts, there is a slight atmosphere where if you suggest you might be moderately well informed or competent so may not need to repeat all the training, you get accused of complacency. :rolleyes:
 
Apparently when our club shot hft on scout land they insisted the heads were cut off the targets so they didn't look like animals. They also didn't allow .22 as that was a "hunting" calibre.
 
I have my YPS tutor, took three weekends. A local pursuit centre ran the course as they needed some people qualified, and offered places to the scouts and local clubs.

Scouts don't allow shooting at depictions of animals or people.
.22 can be used but only outdoors, not sure of the reason why.

We shoot indoors at 9yds with junior springers.
 
Doesn't matter if NSRA or NRA same course. Try booking the aren't likely to arrange courses until they know their is demand in an area.
 
NRA is a much more onerous course and will take a few days, RSO being done first. NSRA is one day. The NRA covers a lot more stuff which is nice to know but unless the range uses the safe shooting system and is on mod built and landmarc operated ranges, a lot won't apply.
 
Anchutz said:
Apparently when our club shot hft on scout land they insisted the heads were cut off the targets so they didn't look like animals. They also didn't allow .22 as that was a "hunting" calibre.
Click to expand...
Yup.

That is a thing. .22 is permitted outdoors - I was told it was to do with rebounds, but I don't buy that. I think it's down to the same reason they don't allow shooting at life-like targets - optics. (They don't want to ruffle any parental feathers.)

We shoot or shot anyway, on a 10m indoor range, with a range of .177 equipment, from springer to PCP to CO2.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to renew my RCO/RSO. A lot of why TSA (The Scout Association) does stuff - the seemingly not-practical rules - is down to liability. So I get it.

I can get young people shooting with the other youth org I run - we have land down in the Scottish Borders. A lot of what we do down there, we do there under the auspices of our independent youth org, because we can't do it as Scouts.

If anyone is interesting in knowing more about that charity, let me know. We have a camp site, buildings and 12 acres of grounds in the middle of nowhere. It's quite nice.

(I'll maybe have another try with my local NSRA club, maybe see if I can persuade them to have the scouts on their range or something...)
 
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