Rowland Ward Closes Their US Office

Well for those of you who belong to or are interested in Rowland Ward, I received a message that they have closed their North American office. Wow...........they just moved it to Texas from the east coast less than a year ago and now it is closing its doors, apparently due to the recessionary problems. I also know there have been long standing issues between SCI and RW.

In any event, for me, it is sad news and is indicative of the problems the entire hunting industry must deal with these days. Declining hunter numbers, an aging client base, less disposable income, and now the global recession problems which impact everyone to a greater or lesser degree. This next decade will see a very large number of outfitters and lodges go out of business.

Rowland Ward Closes Their US Office
Rowland Ward News - A Sign of the Times

It is with much regret that we inform you that we have closed our office in Dallas, Texas. Unfortunately, the global financial crisis and particularly its effect on North America has left us with no choice.

Being a proud company with a long history of actively supporting the hunting and shooting fraternities over many years, it was with great reluctance that Rowland Ward has been obliged to face the inevitable. We are aware that, in doing so, we will have not only inconvenienced many of our loyal supporters and customers but have let them down as well. We apologize, most sincerely. We will also do our level best to minimize the inconvenience and, to this end, will ensure that deliveries to North America will be airmailed from our Johannesburg office at no additional cost than had they been shipped from the Dallas offices. As soon as the conditions allow, we fully intend to re-establish a North American presence.

Our office in Johannesburg remains as active and enthusiastic as ever and, after the positive results of the AIM Show in a Johannesburg, southern Africa’s premier hunting show, are cautiously optimistic that, in Africa at any rate, hunters and the hunting industry are starting to come to terms with the changed worldwide economic circumstances.

A sad day indeed... the old school takes a beating too i guess. The situation worldwide is getting very fragile for hunting sustainability and it worries me.

It's a sad day indeed!! Being a president elect in our SCI chapter I have heard there are differences between Rowland Ward & SCI! Big deal!! In this day & age we as hunters can't afford to burn bridges with hunters or groups of hunters that don't quite meet all your ideals. We need every ally possible to fight the anti's. If we all band together & respect each other & keep our opinions decent & roughly to ourselves we will all flourish & prosper!!
As far as in the States here, I have heard of the Roland Ward scoring system for more years than I ever did about SCI. I think it never was really promoted in the States here as with out looking for it I wouldn't have known where to even research it!! Any loss in the hunting community will be felt somewhere down the road!

Ryan...............you and me both.