I have probably been this tired sometime in my life – I just can’t remember 🙂
It’s a good type of tired (a friend asked me after the first day if I am ‘God, please don’t make me go back again’ type of tired or ‘God, please help me relax and go back again’ type of tired. I told her it’s the ‘God, please do something about my feet – I am having too much fun’ type of tired 🙂 I didn’t know what to expect – so I started the show without any expectations. I managed what I should manage every time in competition: go there, take it as it is, do your best, and enjoy the process. Like I mentioned, though, my feet absolutely kill me right now… and they probably will for a long time…
What did I take from our very first show?
First of all, I have been surprised (pleasantly so) by the sheer number of people that were interested in the sport. Being GTA, I thought we will encounter a larger percentage of ‘OMG, guns are dangerous’ people. We did encounter them, but in such a small percentage – it gives me hopes for the future of the sport! That was my ‘#1 myth’ busted 🙂
#2 – I was surprised (and again pleasantly so) by the sheer number of ladies interested; there were so many ladies in the ‘wow, I always wanted to try this!’ or the ‘oh, look, trapshooting’ (explaining to their children what it is and how they did it when they were younger, usually on their parents’ farm).
No surprise in the percentage of youth interested – lots and lots of them (both boys and girls) that were going ‘mom/dad, look! I want to try it – can I?’. And most of their parents being either familiar with the sport or receptive to our explanations. No surprise either in the percentage of the older generation that knew what trapshooting is.
Lots of ‘where are you located?’ followed by the ‘really? that’s so close – I must come and try it’. A few followed by the ‘oh, that’s too far – do you know any place closer to where I live?’ A few ‘oh, no, thanks, I do it on my farm’.
As for the exhibitors themselves – we are Canadians and we prove it every time: we are a nation of very friendly, polite people. Most of the exhibitors were glad someone is trying to educate people; some were reserved; some were probably openly against – but way too polite to do anything else but smile and pass by quickly. We had a few stopping by and expressing their pleasure we are there. We had a few asking if we operate in their areas (from couple hundred miles away all the way to Alberta and Oklahoma).
The show itself was very interesting – lots of different exhibitors, covering an amazing area of sports and activities. We sighed watching different promotions (like the Chilean adventure trip – filled with mountain pictures and amazing blue skies; or the diving in the Camayan tours – with incredibly clear waters); we had fun petting the huskies (an adorable 3 months puppy with wonderful blue eyes) and chatting with the Conservation people showing 2 cute owls; I could not convince William to try the wall climbing adventure (maybe next year), but we sat together and watched the Camayan video. We learned about lots and lots of camps / parks / nature schools – I had lots of the ‘wow, that would be cool to try’ moments myself 🙂
And, of course, we all cheered for our hockey team – for the first goal, the second one, we groaned together (all 30,000 SF still packed with people) when the US team marked their second goal too close to the end of the game. We had an agonizing few minutes until Crosby scored the winning goal – What a wonderful finish to an amazing weekend!
Thank you to all our volunteers – you did an amazing job promoting our wonderful sport to the large audience. To have members of our youth team every day with us helped a lot – it demonstrated once again that trapshooting is really a family sport that everyone enjoys. As usual, our Golden shirts and hats stood out everywhere we went.
Thank you to all LearnTrapshooting students and supporters that visited us over the weekend – your support and positive energy was so refreshing!
And thank you to all our visitors – thanks for stopping by, for listening to us, for showing interest, and for asking questions. We hope we picked your interest and we are looking forward to seeing you all on the range!