WASPS CIO Charity
The WASPS CIO is the charitable arm of the Washington Air Sports Precision Shooting club and earlier in 2024 was successful in securing a substantial grant from Sport England’s Movement Fund. This allowed us to purchase a range of specialist training equipment and guns. More importantly, it included funds to facilitate the delivery of a number of ‘Try Target Shooting Sessions’ that the club could offer to children and young people and recovering armed forces veterans, allowing them to try a new sport, socialize and assist with recovery.
Young people from Denton Youth & Community Project in the west-end of Newcastle were the first group of young people to take advantage of the free taster sessions and had a great time at the range. After the usual safety talk each group member was issued with one of the range’s scoped, Weihrauch HW 100 rifles, pellets and targets and received quality instruction from WASPS chairman Mark Coulson.
The group soon got the hang of things and it wasn’t long before the natural competitive nature between young people began to show. So Mark introduced the group to the red dot challenge with everyone taking part.
However, after coming joint first with one of the boys, it was 10 year old Charlotte who held her nerve and after a shoot-off came out as top shot, proving that women, both young and old have a tendency to make excellent shots.
The session ended with some of the group even trying their hand at the Olympic 10 metre rifle discipline using an Air Arms S400 MPR competition rifle with dioptre sites. The group were very grateful for their day and left in high spirits taking their targets home as a souvenir.
If you know of or someone who works for a local organisation that supports children and young people or armed forces veterans then encourage them to get in touch with us via the contact page on the website as we have plenty more free sessions to offer?
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May 2025
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We had 17 young people aged 11 - 14 years old from Barmoor in Ryton visit us for two hours, supported by the Youth Work team from N E Youth.
The young people had a great afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, as usual there were one or two stand out shots with a couple of them even trying out the club's Feinwerkbau rifle and shooting 10 metre standing with dioptre sights, no mean feet for someone not used to shooting.
