Shooting For All with STS

The Importance of Being Inclusive

Target Shooting is a sport that anyone is able to take part in and succeed at the highest level with shooting a core element of the Commonwealth Games, Olympics and Paralympics. At Scottish Target Shooting we are continually monitoring information on our members, coaches  and facilities to check for opportunities to make shooting more inclusive.

Scottish Target Shooting achieved the Preliminary Level of the Equality Standard in January 2017. Our Equality Policy can be found in our Business Strategies document on the STS Policies page and further down the page is our Equality Action Plan outlining how we intend to identify and then support increasing diversity within the sport.

STS Membership Support for Members with a Disability

From 2020 onwards, the STS Board have agreed to provide discounts for STS membership and some events for individuals with a physical, sensory or learning disability. To help capture, monitor and apply these discounts, individuals will be asked to declare if they have a disability when taking out membership and/or signing up for an account.

Disabilities can take many forms, some visible, some invisible. At STS, we are not experts in diagnosing disabilities, so discounts are being offered to individuals who are registered disabled. We appreciate this is not a perfect system and may not capture everyone or type of disability, but it does provide a consistent system where evidence can be provided by members.

To define the categories of disability, STS has worked with our colleagues at Scottish Disability Sport to break down disabilities into five broad categories. These do not cover the whole spectrum, but will broadly reflect the majority of conditions and will enable STS to better understand the nature of disabilities within our membership and those entering events so we can look to tailor our services to better serve the community:

Physical Disability

  • Ambulant or Physical Disability - An ambulant athlete with a physical disability may have a partial or full limb amputation, cerebral palsy, arthritis, short stature (dwarf), spina bifida etc.

  • Uses a Wheelchair - An athlete who uses a manual or power chair may have cerebral palsy, spinal paralysis, muscular dystrophy, brittle bones etc.

Sensory Disability

  • Blind or Visually Impaired

  • Deaf or Hearing Impaired

Learning Disability

  • Learning Disability - athletes with an intellectual impairment e.g. Down’s syndrome. Notes

    • Not all athletes on the autistic spectrum have a learning disability e.g. athletes with dyslexia alone are not eligible in this instance for this support .

    • Athletes with unseen conditions such as epilepsy, asthma or diabetes are not eligible in this instance for this support unless they have a physical, sensory or learning disability as their primary impairment.

    • Athletes with emotional or behavioural difficulties who do not have a physical, sensory or learning disability are not eligible in this instance for this support.

Notes:

  • STS acknowledges that some athletes who are ambulant and have a physical disability or use a wheelchair may also have a learning disability.

  • STS acknowledges that some ambulant athletes with a physical disability may prefer to participate in a wheelchair.

Our Equality Strategy

Scottish Target Shooting (STS) is committed to making target shooting accessible to all. This will be accomplished by upholding the principles of equality in all aspects of our work. We will audit and monitor our business activities regularly, and take appropriate steps if it appears that our commitment to equality is not being delivered effectively. This work is being carried out as part of our responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 and as part of the accreditation process for the Equality Standard for Sport. To help focus our work on equality, Scottish Target Shooting has developed an Equality Action Plan.

Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form

We are collecting data on the profile of our employees and volunteers in terms of equality. Your cooperation in helping us to gather this monitoring information will greatly aid our efforts to ensure that all employees and volunteers are treated fairly regardless of age, race, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or belief. Without this data, it will not be possible to identify any current areas of under-representation or potential inequalities, and as such, it will make it much more difficult for us to tackle these issues.

How will your personal information will be treated? 

Responses will be treated in the strictest confidence, in line with the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. This means that:

  • Your information will be stored securely with restricted access;

  • Information will be anonymous (this means that there will be no way in which you can be identified), there is nowhere on the form that asks for your name; and

  • Information will be combined in the form of summary reports which will be reported to our board and published on our website.

Instructions for completion

Please complete the questions below - your responses will then be sent electronically to the Equal Opportunities Officer and will be completely anonymous as we do not require a name or contact details to be supplied. Please direct any questions you might have to the STS COO at coo@scottishtargetshooting.co.uk or by calling 0131 467 2489.