Insurance

Richard Pearce has asked that the following message be forwarded to all of you immediately:
 
To all USS members
 
Sorry that this letter is a little late but the Board of Uxbridge Shooting Sports (USS) has been tied up in a lot of minutiae this last week or two.
 
Recently, most of you will have received a membership in the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA) ( http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/ ) and I’d like to explain to you what this is all about.
 
Membership in the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA) gives you, as a shooter, much more coverage (up to $2 million) than, in most member’s cases, you ever had before, whether you are shooting clays with a shotgun, on a range with a rifle or handgun or out hunting with your buddy.
 
As you know, Bill C 68 changed our lives as shooters. One of the new impositions made it, in general, illegal to discharge a firearm, (as in “sight in” or “pattern” your gun)  anywhere other than at a licensed shooting range or when shooting at game! If you shoot at the gravel quarry near the hunt camp where you’ve shot with your Dad since you had a Daisy gun,you are now committing a criminal offence!

The forgoing is worth noting because many people that I speak to haven’t!
 
Anyway, one of the new requirements of Bill C 68 was a minimum level of insurance at shooting clubs. After a recent inspection at USS by the Range Inspection Officer it became apparent that USS was a little short in insurance liability coverage. Further investigation showed that whilst we had pretty good liability insurance in general, there were some omissions. For instance, you, as a member had excellent coverage if, in an accident, you shot a guest or visitor at the club. But, if you shot me! (another member) the coverage was pretty weak! e.g. shoot an outsider and you’re pretty well covered, but shoot the buddy you’ve been shooting with for 22 years and you’re pretty much on your own!
 
To this end the Board of Directors of USS researched what insurance was available to clubs various and found that, in their opinion, the CSSA Club insurance suited our requirements, as a club, best of all. We also discovered that membership in the CSSA is a requirement in many shooting venues throughout Canada.
 
‘Course, there was a catch! To be approved by the insurers of CSSA, every member of USS had to be a member of the CSSA.
   
The Board decided that it made sense to go ahead with the CSSA insurance immediately and that we would enrol all the membership by providing the CSSA with a list of our members. The reason we supplied this list was that quite a few of our members are already members of the CSSA through other clubs. These clubs have the same requirement and, of course, you’re only required to enrol in the CSSA once.
 
Due to the potential exposure, the Board decided to go straight ahead and enrol every member of USS in CSSA thus enabling our CSSA liability insurance. That is why you have received your CSSA membership without any prior notice from USS.
 
Naturally, we recognized that some people would feel that the Board’s spending $40 of their money without asking them first was pretty cheeky! Therefore, the Board decided that the Club should cover the fee for any member who felt that this was an imposition that they should not be required to pay. Therefore, if you do not wish to pay for this CSSA membership this year, there is no requirement for you to do so, yet you will still have the insurance coverage and all the other benefits of CSSA membership.
 
On the other hand, if you feel that this is a reasonable amount to pay for shooting insurance that covers you whether you are shooting at our club, shooting at any other club, or hunting in the field, we’d be delighted if you would cough up your $40 PDQ to the front desk the next time that you are shooting!
 
In the long term, when it comes to renewing your USS membership next November 2007, every member of USS will have to be a member of CSSA to shoot at our club. The fee for CSSA membership will be about $40.
 
Of course, nothing could be quite this simple: Uxbridge Shooting Sports renewal is November to November and we joined the CSSA in June so the CSSA renewal is June to June. We are working on sorting this out and, I hope that you, endlessly patient USS member, will bear with us. (please!)
 
 
 Observations:
 
If you’re already a member of CSSA you do not have to join again!
 
If you’re a guest or visitor the fee imposed by the CSSA insurers is $1 a visit for insurance coverage (this will be an in-house nightmare to track but that is not your problem!)
 
Your CSSA card will cover you when shooting at any other CSSA required club (most of them) in Ontario.