CLUB captain of the Orange and District Pistol Club Roger Bond was declared the inaugural John Davis Mazda handicap champion for 2005 at the club's annual Christmas shoot on Saturday.

The miniature replica of the handicap challenge shield was presented to Bond by the club president Dean Brus, on behalf of the sponsor of the shield John Davis Mazda.

The challenge shield was donated to the club to encourage weekly participation by members in the club's activities.

The point scoring for the shield was five points for first, four points for second, three points for third on a weekly handicap basis.

Each member that participated in the match of the day received two points.

Points were also allocated for members that assisted in club working bees at state and central western championships held during the year.

There was close competition for the shield during the year.

As some of the newer members gradually improved their handicap, they started to take out the major positions in the pointscore.

This was achieved by breaking their handicap on the day and scoring over the maximum 600 points for a match of the day.

The top 10 on the new points scoring system were as follows (score totals, championship points): Roger Bond - 12,218 72; Maisie Harvey 3,779 68; Duncan Lockwood 9,982 68; Darren Hack 8,296 56; Djuro Cikaric 9,701 44; Garry McKay 5,867 44; Mitchell Meredith 8,039 42; Roy Jennison 5,295 33; Brian Johnson 4,682 33; Patrick McDonald 5,659 33.

New member Mitchell Meredith can consider himself unlucky as he was leading the pointscore easily up to July and due to family commitments has not shot for five months.

Even if he had shot and not scored a place he would have been over 80 points total.