With the ranks of the SSAA now 191,000 strong our sights are firmly set on reaching 200,000 members. After all, as we grow so does our political influence and the larger our number the greater the strength for every member and the shooting sports as a whole. With each additional member we continue to offer more benefits and increase our media empire.
Recently we launched three TV ads which were shown across Australia. They focussed on shooting as a sport for all, what the SSAA does and our Farmer Assist program and were screened to a potential audience of 650,000 with even more online. The eye-catching ads were put together by Corey Wilson and featured SSAA members and venues like the superb Silverdale range in Sydney. You may remember Corey as the brains and star of the popular Hunting the Menu and host of SSAA’s Field to Fork TV series.
In the print media, many members have expressed their approval at the second issue of Australian Women’s Shooter which accompanied our March magazine. The number of female shooters entering the sport is a key growth area, with the involvement of women at the range no longer restricted to caterer or scorekeeper.
In January we published the inaugural edition of Great Australian Outdoors, Australia’s first magazine of destination, exploration and conservation. It also contains a healthy sprinkling of firearms and the shooting sports to help normalise our pastime to an audience who may be unfamiliar with the benefits of shooting and the vital conservation work carried out by sporting shooters.
A priority is to continue encouraging newcomers to the sport through SSAA come-and-try days promoted by Coaching and Membership Development Manager Gemma Dunn, like the recent event at Springvale which saw 36 people try shooting for the first time. Additionally, our ongoing conservation projects such as re-populating quolls in the Flinders Ranges and restoring koala habitat to SSAA Queensland’s Stewartdale complex continue to make headlines and nurture a more robust and trustworthy image of the shooting sports.
With these projects and many more ongoing right now, there has never been a better time to encourage those around you to join the SSAA and promote our cause. 200,000 members will mark a historic milestone for the shooting sports in Australia – the larger our membership the louder our voice and the stronger we will be.