ieuan_johns
New member
Hi all.
At a RS status competition this weekend several people (including myself) got spoken to by a judge (who has personal prior reputation in the area that I'd had no experience of despite being at a dozen or so tournaments he has officiated at) about dress code. The telling off went along the lines of "In future if you attend a UK record status or World Record Status tournament you might find that judges will ask you to change if you are not compliment with the dress code, we won't do anything about it now because we have started already but just to let you know for next time".
Now I have several issue with this.
Firstly my jeans were clearly black and not blue (and the same type/colour I have worn to every tournament in the past 2 years), something I pointed out to him politely only to be rudely told that it doesn't matter what my opinion on their colour is. That is a minor issue for me as clearly opinions may differ.
My biggest issue is that he chose to do this to at least half a dozen people during the course of the tournament, namely right before shooting was due to recommence after breaks for comfort/target moving. I can't say it effected my shooting too much, but several people, including a junior, were definitely put off and intimidated by it and it had a massive effect on the several ends following the conversations. This for me is a massive issue.
I don't know what the rules are regarding this, perhaps a judge has the right to say whatever they want whenever they want to a competitor but for me I shouldn't think that would be the case. I would hope that provided it was not an issue regarding safety or fair competition then any comment (assuming the competitor was not going to be told to change) should be reserved for after the end of shooting for the day.
Is there any official word on what the etiquette should be here?
One more thing that surprised me was due to the competition being a York/Hereford/Bristol but also including a National round in the afternoon, the national entrants had a round of sighter's to do before starting to score, which they did alone at the end of lunch. The surprise was that no signal of any kind was given to the rest of the competitors that shooting was commencing, no line call or whistle at all. It was my understanding that a line call/whistle was ALWAYS to be used to signify a live range on safety grounds.
At a RS status competition this weekend several people (including myself) got spoken to by a judge (who has personal prior reputation in the area that I'd had no experience of despite being at a dozen or so tournaments he has officiated at) about dress code. The telling off went along the lines of "In future if you attend a UK record status or World Record Status tournament you might find that judges will ask you to change if you are not compliment with the dress code, we won't do anything about it now because we have started already but just to let you know for next time".
Now I have several issue with this.
Firstly my jeans were clearly black and not blue (and the same type/colour I have worn to every tournament in the past 2 years), something I pointed out to him politely only to be rudely told that it doesn't matter what my opinion on their colour is. That is a minor issue for me as clearly opinions may differ.
My biggest issue is that he chose to do this to at least half a dozen people during the course of the tournament, namely right before shooting was due to recommence after breaks for comfort/target moving. I can't say it effected my shooting too much, but several people, including a junior, were definitely put off and intimidated by it and it had a massive effect on the several ends following the conversations. This for me is a massive issue.
I don't know what the rules are regarding this, perhaps a judge has the right to say whatever they want whenever they want to a competitor but for me I shouldn't think that would be the case. I would hope that provided it was not an issue regarding safety or fair competition then any comment (assuming the competitor was not going to be told to change) should be reserved for after the end of shooting for the day.
Is there any official word on what the etiquette should be here?
One more thing that surprised me was due to the competition being a York/Hereford/Bristol but also including a National round in the afternoon, the national entrants had a round of sighter's to do before starting to score, which they did alone at the end of lunch. The surprise was that no signal of any kind was given to the rest of the competitors that shooting was commencing, no line call or whistle at all. It was my understanding that a line call/whistle was ALWAYS to be used to signify a live range on safety grounds.