The weekend of the 17th/18th January was a great step forward to making our new ground a fantastic place to shoot.
Club members had made generous donations to allow us to purchase a fantastic selection of trees with Jane & Dave coordinating the selection and purchase. Friday saw us take delivery of 1500 hedging plants, 45 trees together with stakes, tree guards and extra top soil.
Trees delivered on the Friday
A great selection of trees from Oak to Willow, Beech to Lime, Crab to Cherry and many other species.
Saturday was an incredible day with so much hard work and focus to the job in hand. Whilst cold the weather was very kind to us, although the conditions made it very challenging under foot.
So many helpers working to a plan.
Working together to create a great place to shoot.
The shear numbers of helpers (9:30 to 16:00 hours) and how hard everyone worked is a testimony to how strong we are as a family.
Steve & Lucy planting their own Oak, complete with name tag.
It was not all hard work, we had some laughs and a few trips which were a little messy!
A laugh at Roger’s expense after he took a tumble!
Rachel’s Dad joins the tumble club.
Creating our environment .
And yet with all that going on we still managed to run Bambies on the Saturday afternoon and had a great attendance on Saturday evening at practice.
Still a good attendance at practice on the same day as the planting.
Field Course
We are going to fix another weekend soon to focus on completing our field course, the terrain is very challenging, so there is much to clear, many steps to install, bridges to build and bosses to install. This will include some more landscaping and some tree planting.
We are attempting to design the course such that it will be possible for those with limited mobility can also try field archery.
Inter Satellite Club Competition
We now have February dates for our first Inter satellite after-school club competition, with HSG (Denmark Road) visiting Balcarras who will field 2 teams and use the School Games competition format.
Archery GB ‘Pass it on’ Course
We are pleased to announce that we have arranged to host a ‘Pass it on’ Course on February 22nd at Balcarras. Cost will be just £10 per head and all coaches in the county have been invited. It is hoped that every club will have a representative at the training day. The aim of the course is to develop the skills and knowledge to enable coaches and volunteers to become more inclusive.
Dave breaks 3rd County Record in as many weeks!
Dave Ponton broke the FITA18 Record with 386 at the Welsh Open Championships winning his section in the process. He has also arranged an inter-club longbow competition with Cymric Archers from Llanelli for this summer!
David Ponton – Performance of the Day!
Archery GB January Challenge
Many of our archers have recorded scores to submit but there is still 20% that usually compete that have not done so, there will be a last chance next weekend!
Las Vegas 2016 – Here we come!
A number of us are going to Las Vegas in February next year to shoot in the World Archery Festival, if you would like to be part of the weeklong trip then let us know, it will not be restricted to just Deer Park Archers members, other clubs welcome.
