Shotgun champs a good buy for Stocks and Securities

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Stocks and Securities Limited have pumped $350,000 into this year's staging of the two-day National Shotgun Championship. The event will be held this weekend at Worthy Park course in St Catherine.

Mark Croskery, president and chief executive officer of Stocks and Securities, made the announcement yesterday at a press briefing held at the Liguanea Club in New Kingston.

Croskery said his company was looking forward to a very successful championship.

"This tournament has had a long-established history in Jamaica and we have never done (sponsored) a sporting event, and so we wanted to branch out, and so we looked around and we found shooting," said Croskery.

"We thought that rifle shooting fitted our client bracket well and it (event) was open and so we met with the committee members and they sold themselves well and so we jumped at the opportunity to sponsor this event."

Croskery noted: "We want to align with an event long term and we also want to get our brand out there in the local market place in Jamaica. We will also be looking to sponsoring other sporting events in Jamaica."

More than 60 shooters are expected to compete at this year's main event, which will see each person shooting over 200 targets over both days.

Top contenders

Kirk Wall, Gladstan Simpson and John Barnes are among the top contenders for the C Class title. In the B Class category, Evan Thwaites and Paul Joseph, are the leading candidates while in A Class, Bobby Chung, Shawn Barnes, along with Robert Yap Foo are the main shooters.

Brett Thwaites, organiser of this year's event, said he was expecting an exciting championship because all the competitors were ready and rearing to go.

"It is going to be extremely competitive because we have five persons who are vying for the national championship, and they are all within 10 points of each other, and this makes it really exciting," said Thwaites, the president of the Jamaica Skeet Club.

"This course is a very pleasant environment, because Worthy Park is 1200 feet above sea level and the average temperature is far less than the other courses around the island, and I think the shooters will definitely enjoy it," Thwaites added.