Blog Posts - Official Home of the United Kingdom Association of Hunter Field Target

UKAHFT Series Update - 29.03.2021

29/3/2021

After a largely competition free 2020 but with the beginning of a vaccine roll out, we have a light at the end of the HFT tunnel……

All indications are that the Championships will be able to go ahead in September at Weston Park and as previously explained everyone who booked in for the 2020 WHFTC will have their entry transferred.

We are now considering what is possible regarding restarting the UKAHFT Nationals and while there is a degree of guesswork involved, we believe it is reasonable to schedule competitions from July 2021 onwards with 3 double headers, dates we are looking at are:

24th/25th July MAD / MAD
21st/22nd August Furnace / Nomads
23rd/24th October Emley Moor / Redfearns

For the rounds that are not taking place, shooters that have prepaid will be honoured for the 2022 series

If we are in the happy position of restarting earlier than July you can be assured we will look to do so!

For now watch this space and stay safe.

COvid 19 Update

13/5/2020

The return to HFT normality will be in several steps starting with individuals shooting on their own and ending with a return to national and international competitions.
We will not know the dates for all these stages as the timing must be led by the decisions of both government and other industries.
Our over riding concern will be the safety and health of those taking part in the sport and their wider group of family, friends and work colleagues, however hard it may seem to accept, HFT is not truly essential.
Social distancing is still key as is hand hygiene, and of course if anyone suspects they might be COVID-19 symptomatic they must follow government instructions and isolate at home.
We are nearly at the stage where clubs can consider allowing individuals to go back and shoot at their club ranges. The latest government guidance (OUR PLAN TO REBUILD: The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy) has a staged recovery plan, Stage 1 applies in England from Wednesday 13th May and allows for outdoor sport such as tennis and angling, it does however rule against using outdoor gyms and playgrounds due to the commonly touched surfaces, HFT falls somewhere between these two classes of activity, the government cannot set rules for every sport so it is down to ourselves to make sensible risk assessed judgements when planning our return as well as staying alert to risk when and where our return should occur.
We are lucky that ours is an outdoor sport and it is known that the virus does not survive as well outdoors as it does indoors. For this reason, if indoor facilities such as club houses can be kept locked off that will avoid these higher risk areas.
Common contact points and infection risks will need to be identified and addressed:

CROWDING – a suitable booking system to manage numbers needs to be agreed so those attending are able to practice the 2m distancing rule and respect the distancing of others, failure to do this should be viewed as seriously as a breach of gun safety.
PEGS - have slightly narrower fixed pegs so each competitor can just carry a pipe (450mm long plastic drainpipe) that drops over the peg and which the competitor carries with them
STRINGS -Course setter ties each reset string to the base of the peg so the string will only need to be hooked and pulled to reset the target rather than wrapping around the competitor’s hand until the slack is taken up
MATS - All competitors use their own mats (those in the same household can obviously share)
DOOR HANDLES AND GATES - Any doors or gates that will require opening frequently should be permanently held open
POSITIONAL SUPPORTS - Have each competitor use sanitizer hand gel following any supported positional to immediately sanitize hands. Alternatively, all positionals shot unsupported for the short term.
GENERAL HYGIENE – the course setter or club committee / organiser will ensure the course is clean and fit to be used before competitors arrive.

This list is clearly not exhaustive and will vary club by club and of course each club will be individually responsible for deciding when they are ready to reopen to members and decide and communicating their procedures.
Looking to the future we are some months away from large regional or in particular national competitions as these will require a broader infrastructure to have returned including restaurants and hotels, based on the latest published government guidance UKAHFT are clear that this will not be before mid-July at the earliest. This sadly means that rounds Round 3 and 4 at Rivington and Emley will not take place.
As previously mentioned any monies already paid to UKAHFT for pre booked but now cancelled rounds this year will be transferred as credits against next year, if the shooter needs to have a refund please contact Pete Sparks but I am sure you appreciate that UKAHFT has already had to spend money on buying badges and trophies for this year.
Above all else look after yourselves and those around you.

UKAHFT Rules

12/5/2020

UKAHFT would like to formally announce the arrival of the latest revision of UKAHFT Rules. All previous revisions are now superseded as of today, 12th May 2020.

Click here to view.

The now current revision amalgamates all previous separate elements into a single document therefore giving the end user a much more user friendly tool. A huge amount of time, effort and relevant expertise has been called upon to produce what is now being issued and we believe this is a positive step in the right direction for our sport. A huge amount of thanks goes out to all those responsible for having an input into what we see now. I’ll be personally reaching out to all of you individually.

Additionally we would like to extend our thanks to all those whom continually support our very humble sport and unique community. Most of all the Competitors, without you there is no sport and with no sport there is no community. Fingers crossed we will all be safely taking part in our sport soon.

Keep safe.

Many thanks,

Team UKAHFT and Team WHFTA

2020 UKAHFT series dates released

6/12/2019

So, here it is.... the UKAHFT 2020 dates. Thanks to all the clubs for their cooperation and communication and Sparky for coordinating it all. The calendar link can be found at the top of the page.

We thank Cambridge for their years of support and wish Meon Valley luck in taking their place. We also welcome Theydon ARC on board as the pre-season round and wish Chris and the team luck with this. Those of you who thought their woes of shooting Quarry were gone, it remains on the calendar for 2020, ready as ever to collect more soles.

So... what's new? Well, over the last couple of weeks we have been delicately introducing Sparky (kicking and screaming) to the 21st century and have managed to convince him to bring in on-line booking for the series. We have trialled it to the best of our ability but can't completely rule out some teething issues. Card payments are handled by Square, an E-commerce company so fully protected.

AMENDMENT to allow for accounts to be finalised...

BOOKINGS WILL BE TAKEN FROM THE NEW YEAR BUT FOR NOW, IT WILL JUST BE VISIBLE.
https://www.ukahft.org/book--pay.html

Club team entries are also available through the on-line system. Full details can be found on the Book and Pay page.

There is also a new products page where series merchandise will be available alongside custom club banners and other products to follow.

Any questions or queries please don't hesitate to ask below or contact us directly.

Have a great winter, a Merry Christmas and we shall see you in the new year.

gathering timings

12/11/2019

Gates will be open from 08:00 with booking in closing at 09:30.

Kick off 10:00

Safe journey and see you Sunday.

Gathering Form 2019

4/11/2019

entry now closed

zeiss scope offer

4/10/2019

Solware's like and share competition

4/10/2019

New rule ammendments announced

6/8/2019

The following section has been added to the rules effective immediately:

TARGET CHECKING / CHALLENGING
On a UKAHFT National competition once the course has been vetted by two independent course checkers (one left-handed and one right-handed) no targets will be pulled from the course for a rule violation unless found to be:

under or over range
have safety issues
have a mechanical failure and cannot be repaired / replaced / reinstated without changing the nature of the target or shot.