2013-08-26 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – August 26, 2013 Chair Tony introduced Glennon Gingo who is in his fourth year as chairman of the Friends of NRA for Hawaii Island which is a non-profit arm of the NRA, a national organization. The Friends of NRA is a grassroots fund-raising program that fosters community involvement. It includes15,000 clubs involved in shooting sports, activities ranging from youth through adult, have auctions and dinners to raise money and those funds are raised specific for our community. All proceeds stay in the community. Last year for Hawaii Island, funds were used for shooting sports education for firearms safety education that was pistol, rifle, shotgun and wearing safety helmets. On the island of Oahu a big focus of theirs is to fund the air rifle teams at the high schools. Maui and Kauai also participate in this program. These fund-raising dinners will draw 300 to 400 people and net between $35,000 to $55,000. All monies stay in the community. The Friends of NRA on this island, our focus is to support the state and the DLNR in a public-private partnership through a non-profit organization called On Target Incorporated and that is to get our Hawaii Island shooting sports facility at Puuanahulu up to speed and ground rolling. We know as of the date we have engineering and design just about complete. TDR Hawaii is the engineering group and they did select a group out of Scottsville, Arizona that did all of the actual design work. DLNR is working diligently on that through their divisions and as Chair Kia’aina mentioned the Pitman Robertson funds. Those funds are also used for education including the development of shooting ranges. Anytime you buy a firearm or ammunition there’s a federal tax, that federal tax is given to the states, the states apply for it and use it in specific categories of endeavors which would be like I mentioned a shooting sports range, hunters take the education and so on. This year at our dinner is to continue that process to raise money. We haven’t used, we still have quite a bit in our pool of funds and when it does come time to get closer in our public-private relationship we will have those funds available in addition to range grants from the NRA to support a Hawaii Island public shooting nd range. The Hawaii Island dinner fund-raiser will be held on November 2 in Kona. 4. CLEON BAILEY UPDATE ON THE CONGRESSIONAL SPORTSMEN’S CAUCUS/FOUNDATION. 4