Tennessee Firearms Assoc. Inc.

more places to carry and who can we count on when we need them are very good topics.

Thanks for coming John. I enjoyed it.

John Harris, Executive Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association
(TFA), was the guest speaker on August 23rd for a group of East Tennessee TFA members and other supporters of the 2nd Amendment.

Mr. Harris gave some history of the Association, its accomplishments and
the rationale of the Association's tax status. John spoke about its goals,
one of which is to expand Association exposure to all shooting disciplines,
and then took comments from the floor. One comment was to develop
information packets for the various shooting disciplines to show how the
Association can benefit that portion of the shooting sports.

Many comments were directed to the membership problem Mr. Harris had
addressed in the Association's email list (Yahoo group) and on the members' forum http://www.tfaonline.org/memberforum/ . The increase in membership has put the Association at the point that part time work can barely address the Association activities. A problem with the company that was making the Association's membership cards (none made since January 2003) has resulted in a new card system being established and the consideration of a dedicated position for the Association business.

The work load of doing the Association's business was addressed such as the membership renewal system that is just being implemented, editing the "Sentry" (TFA's newsletter), and running the website/forum to mention a few. Mr. Harris noted once again that volunteers for any of these activities should contact him. Right now most of these functions are done in what spare time Mr. Harris has from his law practice.

Mr. Harris provided some numbers that showed that there were more members of the TFALAC Alert then were actual members of the TFA. This is because membership isn't required for the Alerts in keeping with the goal of getting gun related news out to all Tennessee gun rights supporters.

With the Shelby county and Lakeway Area chapters up and running the group was told that efforts are being made for chapters in Nashville, Rutherford county, and Chattanooga. Bill Noll, long time TFA member and manager of the Knoxville TFA gun show group, stepped up to address the formation of a Knoxville chapter and enough attendees indicated interest that Bill agreed to work with the group to try to form the chapter. Several of those attendees indicated they would be part of the leadership group to get the chapter started. Any one interested in helping with the Knoxville chapter should contact Bill at wsnoll@esper.com or Charlie Thoms at CVT8683set@aol.com .

The role of TFA chapters was addressed and Mr. Harris said that a formal
protocol was being developed. The main purpose of chapters is to develop contacts with gun rights supporters in their regions and get the word out to all the shooting disciplines of issues that concern them such as bills before the state legislature, possible range closings, restrictions on gun use, etc. Additionally skills and talents of members or some of their contacts can be identified for TFA activities such as graphic design,
printing, sources for promotional items, guest lecturers and probably much more.

Mr. Harris spoke of his efforts to establish a network of lawyers
knowledgeable in Tennessee gun laws for members that are involved in a
shooting. At present anyone desiring such support should not hesitate to
contact him.

It was pointed out that while setting up TFA tables at gun shows results in
varying degrees of success in gleaning new members and no doubt will be continued other venues have been well received; of note was a table at a Ducks Unlimited event. It was suggested that one possible exposure point could be County fairs as many provide space, albeit rental might be required.

It was emphasized that members should provide TFA material to their various "gun" clubs, i.e. hunting, trap/skeet, and let them know of the
Association's efforts in supporting them even though they may not be aware of it. TFA is the only state organization that actively works with the
State legislature on bills that affect the shooting sports.

A petition was available nominating John Harris to be on the ballot for NRA Board of Directors. Only signatures of NRA members with 5 years or more of continuous membership are considered valid.