The great and the good of the North West of England helped to raise over £7,000 for the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and nearly £500 for Over Wyresdale Parish Church, at the second Breitling at Banks Lyon Abbeystead Clay Pigeon Shoot, which took place on Saturday 25th April 2009.
His Grace, the Duke of Westminster attended the event, as did members of some of the best known business families in the region, to enjoy a spectacular clay pigeon shooting competition on the His Graces magnificent, and normally very private, Abbeystead Estate, all organised by Lancaster and London Marketing and PR Firm, Samuelson Wylie Associates.
The shooting part of the event was organised by the Hon. John Cavendish of Cavendish Sporting, and attracted teams of shots from across the North West. Each team of four were tested against some extremely challenging clays and even had the opportunity to bring down remote controlled aircraft with their shotguns.
After lunch, Ben Samuelson conducted an auction to raise money for the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust where the lots varied from magnificent shooting days on local estates through to tickets for an England rugby match and a Lancaster special edition Breitling watch
The Duke of Westminster made the awards to the winners of the shoot, the Preston-based Milkshakers, who consisted of Jonathan Simpson, Nicola Pattison, Matthew Marsden and Peter Halshaw . In the draw amongst the top ten teams on the day the Lune Valley Guns team picked up the Breitling Chrono Avenger M1 watches courtesy of principal sponsors Breitling and Banks Lyon Jewellers of Lancaster.
Additional sponsors Stratstone Ferrari sent up two gleaming new sports cars for the event and CCM provided their latest all terrain vehicle which helped maintain the shooting stands with provisions throughout the day. Royal Westmoreland, Barbados gave a Caribbean flavour to the event when they served everyone who had finished shooting with rum and cokes. Manson Insurance, together with Stratstone Ferrari and CCM, took it one stage further and actually competed.
Rodney Banks-Lyon, MD of the eponymous Banks Lyon Jewellers said the day was a huge success.
Lancashire is one of the great shooting regions of the country and an event like this fits perfectly. The standard of shooting was very high but best of all people really seemed to be enjoying themselves, and a decent sum was raised for a very worthy cause.
Rodney Banks-Lyon, Keith Sykes, Nigel Fairbrother, John Wright, Edward Metcalfe and Franz la Ros (Managing Director of Breitling UK).
Our greatest thanks go to His Grace, the Duke of Westminster, as well as the staff and tenants on his beautiful estate who were all incredibly supportive, Samuelson Wylie for organising such a superb day, as well as our sponsors and all those at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust who made the event possible.
Edward Hay, Director at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, welcomed the event onto the shooting calendar.
The atmosphere was amazing from start to finish and we were delighted at the way it has raised our profile in Lancashire, as well as the money raised which will go towards our use of science to promote game and wildlife management as an essential part of nature conservation, he said.
It was a superb event and our sincere thanks go to everyone involved.
View our full range of Breitling Watches