Awarded Life Membership 17 November 2012
Peter Anderson provided more than 40 years of service to shooting and the Commonwealth Games movement in Australia.
Peter was extensively involved in competitive shooting for many years prior to the inclusion of the sport on the Commonwealth Games program for the first time in Christchurch in 1974, where he was one of the first Senior Technical Officials invited by the organisers to ensure the sport was correctly and appropriately organised and presented at those Games. Prior to these Games he established the first national training qualification system for Technical shooting officials in Australia, and had the foresight to include New Zealand officials who would clearly be needed at the 1974 Games.
His involvement continued across the next eight editions of the Games.
In Edmonton 1978 he was the Australian shooting team Training Coordinator, Brisbane 1982 where he was shooting team Section Manager, In Edinburgh 1986 he moved to the Team Headquarters staff as Team Administration Officer, was Team Assistant General Manager in Auckland in 1990 and Team Transport Officer in Victoria in 1994. In Manchester in 2002 he was the Team Administration Officer at Bisley, which was the venue for shooting.
Post Manchester he moved to a role as technical officer, firstly as Technical Adviser and then Jury member in shooting for the Organising Committee at Kuala Lumpur 1998 and was a Jury member in Melbourne in 2006.
He was served as a Technical Official at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune in 2008 and Section Manager of the Australian Shooting team at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games.
Peter’s contribution to the Australian Commonwealth Games Association was just as extensive e, serving as delegate from shooting (1982-1986), as a Member of the Executive Committee (1986-1998) and Member of the Board of Management (1998-2010) and Director of the Australian Commonwealth Games Foundation – from inception in 1999 to 2010
Peter was a strong representative and advocate from Australia to the important and influential Commonwealth Shooting Federation (CSF). He was Honorary Secretary from 1982-2006, and in this position he was the architect of a campaign to have separate events for women added to the Commonwealth Games programme. Events for women had been part of the International and Olympic Games for some time, and despite stiff opposition, Peter was able to achieve this change which was of great benefit to the women shooters of the Commonwealth.
In his position of Commonwealth Shooting Federation Hon Secretary, Peter coordinated the campaign to have shooting re-instated to the 2002 Manchester programme of sports after Games organisers decided to drop the sport after the Games were awarded.
For his service, Peter was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2008 ‘For service to the sport of shooting, particularly pistol shooting, in administrative roles and as a coach and technical adviser’, he is a Life Member of Pistol Australia (2001), and was awarded the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 ‘For Outstanding service as an official’.
