SSAA NSW

5 ISSUE 60 JUNE 2021 President's Message We have a lot of good news to present for this latest President report. BRANCH COMMUNICATIONS. We recently completed our second round of Branch Zoom meetings. This has proven to be a successful communications model with large turnouts each evening. The idea is to have five or six Branches per meeting with as many of each committee executive attending as possible. With this model, we hope that the Branch Committees are fully engaged with your State Board and are part of the planning for our organisation's future. This will enable more information to filter back to the Branch members through the larger number of Committee members being engaged. The format of the meeting is an update from myself, an update from our CEO, Jai, and a presentation from each Branch President on issues and successes for their Branch. Board members also sit in and contribute. We receive valuable feedback as well as keeping our Branches informed. The meetings most recently completed took place over eight evenings and some went as late as 10pm. I do apologise to the participants for the larger than normal agenda with two big topics, the Company Limited by Guarantee Constitution Q&A, and the Criminal Use Bill program, being on the agenda. In future we will try to keep to a 90 minute meeting. SYDNEY RANGE DEVELOPMENT Around two years ago the SSAA NSW Board noted in meeting minutes, the need to seek additional range infrastructure for SSAA members in the Sydney basin. The type of range and potential locations for a new range were recently discussed with the Sydney Branch Committee. It has become clear that it is almost impossible for any Branch to buy land and build a new range that is able to meet the planning and legal requirements of a modern range. In an environment as expensive as Greater Sydney, this is more pronounced, despite having a large membership. It is necessary for a lot of important elements to align for new range developments. Significant funds, local planning requirements, NSW Firearms Registry requirements and a local community that is not opposed to the development are simple top line issues to recognise, but each of these is extremely complex and the required "pass mark" is incredibly high. Expanding population growth puts pressure on existing ranges and new open-air ranges are being pushed further from population centres. Only when we pool State and Branch resources together can we hope to achieve new ranges. Existing ranges that have operational licences are valuable and need to be protected and maintained for future use. FIREARMS REGISTRY CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL For several years now, SSAA NSW has been advocating for a ministerial level Firearms Consultative Committee. The aim of this advocacy was for SSAA NSW to assist positively with the review of legislation and more importantly, to provide input with regards to proposed regulations. This type of committee was the first proposal in a list of recommendations formed as a response to the Criminal Use Bill. It is important to provide input to proposed legislation to avoid any unintended negative consequences that may arise without industry and specialist input. Attempting to change legislation after it is enacted is a very difficult process, so early input is paramount. We are very pleased that this committee has now been LANCE MILLER PRESIDENT, SSAA NSW

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