While living here in Switzerland, I tend to have many good memories of home and also realise that we have a potential in sport that we are not utilising to its full potential.

This refers to the possibilities of rifle shooting competition in Malta.

To practice their sport, especially anything beyond 300 metres, shooters in this part of the world go to remarkable lengths to get to adequate ranges.

I have first-hand experience of this since I need to travel a minimum of two hours one way and I am considered one of the lucky ones because other members drive four to six hours to get here. That means leaving home the day before and sleeping in motorway-type accommodation so that early morning they can drive to the range.

If they are lucky and mother nature is on their side they manage to arrive early morning and the range session really depends on the weather because if it starts raining heavily they will have to call it a day at least till the weather gets better.

Can anyone imagine what that feels like after you've been driving and setting up the car for the journey? Basically it's a toll on your account because you will need to sum up the price of the fuel which is constantly rising, the accommodation for the night, food, and we still haven't started with the cost of the actual shooting session which will easily ring €100 per session. And you still have to take into account the journey back home.

Interestingly, I'm just including men and women who come from different regions of the same country, not different countries, because there are also those that drive from northern Italy, France, Germany or Austria.

Well when I attest to all this I acknowledge that we are lucky, first off, to be living in a place where the sun soars and shines every day, that we do not have to overcome hours of travelling and that we do have one of the relatively longest rifle ranges in southern Europe, Pembroke, which goes to about 900 metres. Sadly this range is not utilised to its full potential and looks somewhat abandoned by European standards.

I have seen butts that rise three to four storeys so as to prevent any bullets going over them which are then covered with foliage and grass to make them aesthetically pleasing. It really depends on mentality I guess, but we still have to learn the so-called "can-do mentality" rather than finding all sorts of obstacles to stop something from happening.

Every so often they also organise international meetings with members coming from all over the world including the US. Could we not learn something from other European countries and upgrade and utilise our facilities? That range has been there for a couple of decades now and those butts need a facelift to say the least.

Tourists so far seem to come for sun and sea, but can we not introduce a new segment of interest for the sporting community? I believe we Maltese really underestimate how many people pour money into their sport and the reason is that we are simply not exposed to the global and holistic view of sport shooting. Indeed to look through a different window, sometimes you need to change house!