CHAPTER 9 
     
     NEW ENTHUSIASM 
     
    
   
   
    
     When Charlottetown members headed to Winsloe for 
     
     the new season in May, clay targets were costing the 
     
     club $1.85, per case of 135, at Rogers Hardware. 
     
     There were some 'Blue Rock' targets moving into the 
     
     Maritimes, but the standard locally was still Nelson 
     
     Long's, ‘Canadian Blackbird,' which had been the only 
     
     target used in Charlottetown since 1909. 
     
    
   
   
    
     On the Maritime scene, a new National Skeet 
     
     Shooting Association ruling totally eliminated the 
     
     delayed release of a target, and for the first time 
     
     allowed guns in the shouldered position. Dr. Gil 
     
     Houston had been appointed a director of the Maritime 
     
     Association, and in Duncan Morrison's spring edition 
     
     of Flying Target, there were 294 registered skeet 
     
     shooters' averages listed, led by young Laurie 
     
     Saulnier of Halifax, who in 1953 had become the first 
     
     eastern Canadian shooter to ever record 100 straight 
     
     skeet targets in competition, when he won the Nova 
     
     Scotia championship. It is notable that, of those 294 
     
     registered shooters, only four remain active today in 
     
     Maritime shooting circles: Sid Green, Ron Atkinson, 
     
     and Ollie Harper of Charlottetown, and Lloyd Mattinson 
     
     of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. 
     
    
   
   
    
     President Tam Gillies conducted the local club's 
     
     first meeting of the new season on May 27th at the 
     
     Charlottetown Y.M.C.A. Discussion among members had 
     
     taken place through the winter relative to the 
     
     possibility of setting up trapshooting at the Club, 
     
     and Ollie Harper reported that it would cost 
     
     approximately $500 to become fully operational. 
     
     Following discussion it was decided to abandon the 
     
     idea for the present time. The Club's concerns in the 
     
     spring of 1954 were much as they are today, and at 
     
     this meeting there was great concern expressed about 
     
     squadding, some not paying promptly for rounds, and 
     
     others dominating the single field. They agreed that 
     
    
   
   
    
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