National Association of Target Shooting Sports

The National Association of Target Shooting Sports (NATSS), was a working group comprising representatives from the NRA, NSRA and CPSA to explore the possibility of merging the UK's three main National Governing Bodies for Target Shooting.

Shooting in the UK had been criticised by a number of funding groups including UK Sport as well as its athletes for its scattered and disparate governance structure, in addition to the absence of a coherent development ladder for British Target Rifle shooters to progress from grassroots to elite level. As such, UKSport provided funding to study the possibility of merging the three largest governing bodies. This was a complex undertaking as all three organisations had very different governance structures and financial circumstances. Both the NSRA and NRA were cash poor, though the NRA had significant facility assets in its Bisley site. The CPSA was the largest with approximately 15,000 members compared to the ~5,000 members each of the NRA and NSRA. Most notably the CPSA was and remains legally constituted as a private Limited Company whereas the NSRA and NRA are both Companies Limited by Guarantee and hold Charity status, creating significant legal challenges as to how assets and finances would be merged and managed.

Immediate reaction amongst shooters to the group was mixed, with some embracing the possibilities that a single, consolidated organisation would bring, whilst others raised practical considerations regarding the implementation and impact of a single coherent body, such as the CPSA's lack of charity status which would have required substantial restructuring to amalgamate into a new body that would be eligible for charity status.

Due to poor initial public communications, misinformation was rife with some shooters believing a third party was attempting to usurp the existing bodies, which resulted in angry postings to a number of Internet forums. Resistance remained, even when it was made clear that NATSS was formed of representatives of the existing bodies.

Much hostility to the merger proposal arose because the NSRA and NRA are member associations, so could not merge without explicit permission from their memberships at an AGM or EGM. The NATSS steering group had no powers beyond conducting research and the project was essentially a viability study.

...
Wikipedia