New equipment at Mount Isa Pistol Club will not only make the space inclusive, it could also be the spot where a future Australian Paralympic champion learns her craft.
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The Mount Isa Pistol Club has always been an innovative club and was named Australian Pistol Club of the year in 2019.
Now it has been one of 11 local groups to win a Mount Isa City Council community grant getting $2150 to purchase new equipment to help the club become more inclusive and to encourage people with special needs to join the club.
Greg Anderson, president of the club, said the money went towards a specialised stand which would help people with poor upper body strength to aim and shoot.
"We've also got specialised chairs and we've got gas cylinders to make it easier to fill up the cylinders on the air guns," Mr Anderson said.
The grant was the dream of Pistol Club member Shannae Craig, 26, who said it would help her stay in Mount Isa and chase her dream of becoming a world champion shooter.
Ms Craig has functional neurological disorder, a medical condition in which there is a problem with the functioning of the nervous system and how the brain and body sends and receives signals.
"When I first came to Mount Isa the one thing I wanted to do was shoot a gun and I did that and when I went back to Brisbane I started shooting air rifle at the Belmont facility where they held the Commonwealth Games in 2018," Ms Craig said.
"They talent ID'ed me to potentially shoot in the Paralympics."
The obvious option was to stay there and shoot at the world class facility but there was a problem.
"I'm a physio and due to my disability I wasn't able to find work in Brisbane," she said,
"But I was able to get a job at the hospital in Mount Isa two days a week last year."
With the Mount Isa Pistol Club then unable to support Shannae's needs with the air rifle, it presented her with the choice between following her career or playing the sport she loved.
"I chose the work in Mount Isa because for me, helping people and providing care is more important that shooting," she said.
But in the end this determined young woman was able to do both.
"I then approached the pistol club about what I needed and they said yes," she said.
"Before we had the proper stand we made a stand out of sandbags and now we are grateful for the grant and we have the proper equipment."
Mr Anderson said the equipment was not just for Shannae.
"It's just to make the whole shooting experience a lot easier for people with special needs or elderly people," he said.
Shannae now has her eyes set on the Paralympics.
"Maybe not the next one but potentially the one in 2032 in Brisbane, so that gives me a little bit of time," she said.
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