The Mountainview Marksmen’s Association held its annual meeting on June 26.
A whopping 12 people attended but 11 executive attended as well. Usually we have a couple of meetings a year, but since 2015 when we held a meeting with about 50 members it has been almost impossible to get the executive to hold meetings.
On Feb. 16, 2016 I had contacted the Alberta Chief Firearms Officer to advise what measures we would have to put in place to have the range given the green light.
We did have an executive group who held many meetings doing who knows what until the present meeting. We never ever discussed the requests of the chief firearms officer. I was on the executive and was one of the three people who were responsible for signing cheques.
Somehow I was dropped from that position, but as we had no general meetings I am not sure how that happened. I believe it was illegal and should only be done at a general meeting or for some transgression.
Three years later none of the things the chief firearms officer laid out have been addressed and suggestions of improvements to the range were ignored. I had presented three sealed bids for work for an eyebrow on each of the eight short-range buildings but these were not discussed and work which I believe was unsuitable was done to one bay.
What happened to the three sealed bids by the contractors that Steve Strocher and I had presented? At meetings no requests for any work or improvements were held.
I became disgusted when I believe three of the executive quit when a vote was taken when one of the executive requested that we give someone in Regina 10 or 13 thousand dollars to make a glossy brochure for the club. So as these executive had quit I called a general meeting at the Air Cadet Hall to elect executive and get work committees.
The executive showed up and took control as I guess they didn’t really quit. At the meeting at this time we elected some executive. That was June of 2016 and was the last legal meeting until June 26, 2019. What happened to our general meetings for 2017, 2018?
At the meeting last week where 11 members and 12 executive attended, attendance was poor because the advertisement in the paper was on the second-last page and may have been not a place where the average gun guy would look.
Usually our ads have a picture of a rifle at the top and are close to the front of the paper. I tried to telephone our members and found few knew about the meeting.
At the meeting one guy hogged the floor and finally I left in disgust. Generally we had people in charge of replacing targets, fencing, garbage control, memberships, fence repair, construction, etc. but I feel the club has lost the rudder.
I believe that we must hire a professional who knows Robert's Rules to conduct our meetings as any discussion or ideas are presently avoided or buried. I feel the executive think they know it all and stop any real discussion.
Any weekend you may go out of town and hear gunfire. It’s not taking place on our fine range. I understand someone doesn’t want the range. We have a safe site on a dead-end road with a locked gate. We have some excellent ways to stop noise if we could only get to discuss it at a meeting of our members. We need another general meeting now with proper notice and advertising.
– Dennis Combs,
Olds
