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Christmas celebrations are already in full swing here at Thimbleby Shooting Ground, with customers visiting for our festive shooting packages and enjoying our seasonal café menu. It’s hard to believe we’re nearly at the end of 2023, a year that’s been brilliant for so many reasons. For our final blog of this year, we wanted to extend a big thank you to all our members and customers for your support this year.

Whether you’re one of our regulars, here for shooting once a week all year round, you come for our legendary Simulated Game Days, pop into the café on dog walks or you found us whilst holidaying in the North York Moors, we value your custom. We count ourselves very lucky to have customers who are loyal, always ready for some fun and happy to share their views on what we can do differently and better. We think that’s what has helped us grow to where we are today and become a real destination for shooting enthusiasts in the area. We’re also proud to be a welcoming place for people of all ages who are new to shooting to come to learn and develop their skills.

This year we’ve ramped up our event calendar and debuted some new competitions, and it’s been a delight from start to finish! Alongside our popular Ladies Evenings and Young Guns Days (with a Halloween-themed version of the latter delighting our younger shooters), we also held our side by side competition. This took place at the start of August, and we were thrilled to welcome HOLTS Auctioneers here to advise our customers and display some of their side by side shotguns. The top prize on the day was a side by side, and we look forward to holding similar events again in the future.

Those who prefer to shoot with an over and under had plenty of chances to strut their stuff too, with several 50-bird sporting and flush competitions taking place throughout the year. These are always excellent social gatherings as well as injecting some competitiveness into people’s shooting, so even if you’re not sure you’re going to be winning prizes, why not come along in 2024? We welcome people of all abilities, and you’ll find support from your fellow guns even if your score sheet isn’t one you fancy sharing at the end of the day…!

We also hosted the Golden Grouse Clay Shooting Competition for The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, welcomed Zoli here for a demo day in the summer and held more Simulated Game Days than ever before. We’re thrilled to see our simulated game days growing in popularity, as they offer people fantastic shooting tailored to their level of expertise, the same camaraderie and excitement you get from a day’s driven game shooting and truly excellent food and drink. Those among you who keep an eagle eye on our social media may have spotted a new simulated game day partnership with luxury local hotel Grantley Hall. Combining our Simulated Game Day format with a superb breakfast before and then fine dining after shooting (and rooms if needed), these days promise to elevate an already unforgettable experience! There are three dates in the pipeline now – 20th of March, 24th of April and 22nd of May – and we expect them to be very popular, so make sure you enquire as soon as possible.

We’re already busy planning for 2024 and have several events taking place over the festive holidays. Our Young Guns Day takes place shortly into the New Year (we’ve just added another date on Thursday 4th January due to high demand with the first date being a sell-out) and the other is our first ever Ladies Demo Day on Saturday 6th of January. If you’re interested in booking a spot on either day, please email Lucy via lucy@thimblebyestate.com to learn more. Those events are just the start of an exciting calendar for 2024, so watch this space for more information coming soon.

For now, we’ll sign off by wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year!  We hope to welcome you to Thimbleby Shooting Ground soon, perhaps during the Christmas break if you fancy some fresh air and the chance to dust some clays!