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Local club hoping to build new shooting facility

The Cold Lake Fish and Game Club has aspirations of making their facility one of the best in the province.
The Cold Lake Fish and Game Club is seeking funding to build a new shooting range.
The Cold Lake Fish and Game Club is seeking funding to build a new shooting range.

The Cold Lake Fish and Game Club has aspirations of making their facility one of the best in the province.

Members of the local club have been approaching municipal councils in the region in hopes of securing funding to build a new, unique outdoorsman facility.

John Senior, Vice President of the Cold Lake Fish and Game Club, pitched his idea for the facility to MD Council on Sept. 23, with the hopes of convincing them to donate $100,000 toward the project.

“I am just looking for support,” said Senior. “We have been doing a lot of work ourselves. We have a lot of corporate sponsorships that have been helping but in order to take that next step we need your help.”

A non-profit organization, the Cold Lake Fish and Game Club includes archery, fishing, Olympic biathlon, air-soft and shooting sports. The club's vision is to build a 96-foot by 120-foot facility out of sea-cans stacked two high that would feature 15 lanes for restricted firearm shooting. The facility would also have room for archery and several classrooms for educational instruction and would have a state-of-the-art swipe card entrance system.

Senior is predicting a large economic spin-off for both the club and the City. Their current membership is setting around 160 people paying $75 per annual membership. Senior said they were being conservative with their numbers, estimating they could up their members to 640 people, which would result in $48,000 per year being brought in from membership sales alone.

Several MD Councilors questioned the clubs ability to bring in a membership of 640 people, feeling the number was extremely high. Senior assured them that if his idea came to fruition interested residents from across the province would become members of their club.

One of the main attractions that the club believes will draw people into the shooting range will be the ability to use restricted firearms. Currently being a non-restricted shooting range, the club feels it is tapping into only about 10 percent of its potential membership base.

“It's a very large selling point,” said Senior. “We're talking about the RCMP using it. The military police on the base could use it for their qualifications; even the training facility on the base could be using it.”

Senior also said that the facility would offer those in Cold Lake, who are using the gravel pits, an actually facility to shot at.

“There are gravel pits galore out there and people are shooting wild. We can't have that,” said Senior. “This would encourage people to stop using the gravel pits and come to this place.”

Senior said the club was hopeful to receive some funding from the City of Cold Lake sometime next year, but that the Town of Bonnyville notified them they weren't interested in supporting the project.

MD Council will take a few weeks to deliberate and will make a decision sometime in October.

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