The fact is that we are busy every weekend but some go so well that they are worth a mention. Well the weekend of the 19th & 20th October was excellent and really captures what the Club is all about, so we are giving it a mention!
Friday – Birdlip 6:30 to 9pm
2 beginners courses, week 4, 20 participants aged 8 to 60+. Involving Xperience Archery and Deer Park Coaches. Participants are making good progress, on completion of the 6 weeks they will need to complete a further 6 weeks Improvers course prior to joining the Club, during that period they will be introduced to their buddies who will be a friendly face to help them settle into the club. Logistically not easy, especially as there are 2 similar courses running on Monday evenings!
Saturday 2 – 4pm, Balcarras
First formal meeting of the Inclusion Club, coaches plus mostly new participants either doing have-a-goes to confirm their interest or starting a beginners course. Excellent start to this new club venture, as the 2 Level 1 Courses start in November, these sessions will be an excellent opportunity for participants to develop their skills and increase their experience. Timing will be everything and the challenge is to match increasing coaching capacity with the growth of the Inclusion Club!
4:30 – 5:30pm
Club coaches and trainee coaches attended the first of a series of externally resourced Club Sports Psychology Sessions. Excellent attendance, good feedback and a great session.
All part of the Club’s investment in supporting the development of it’s coaches.
6:00 – 7:00pm
Packed classroom session for parents of club juniors developing their optimum role in supporting junior archers and the role of Sports Psychology in that approach.
Standing room only!
6:30 – 9:00pm
Open Club practice session supported by coaches. Fantastic attendance, great shooting despite the Sports Hall being almost Sauna like!
Archers enjoying the Saturday evening practice session.
Sunday 8:30 – 9:30pm
1-2-1 coaching by invitation
9:30 – 12:30pm
Club open practice session .
1:00 – 5pm
Our Club hosted the County Junior Development squad, 22 archers including 16 from Deer Park. Coaches supplied by Deer Park. Team building games, shooting and some H2H’s. A great session!
Most of our County Junior Development Squad. Almost 60% female, which is surprising as there is only just over one third female membership of Archery GB!
Team building, developing social skills and having fun forms an essential part of our Junior Squad Development sessions and Steph and Dan ensure that happens.
Guess who?
The winning mummy.
Everyone got stuck in.
Planning the next move.
Great team work produced an impressive winning tower!
The group exercises continually mixed the groups, one challenge was to design a new dynamic warm up routine and the winning group developed our existing routine, introducing some new moves and based it on ‘the life cycle of a Penguin’ ! That is creative!
Everyone was kept engaged, with a mixture of challenges, shooting and none shooting but everything had a purpose.
A team challenge in the foreground and skills & drills in the background.
Everyone got to record a 3 dozen round for the GWAS Postal League, lots of target challenges and James Howse managed to record a 579 on a 3 spot Portsmouth! And despite all the various activities we still found time to do some great coaching!
During the course of the weekend there was also equipment maintenance, bow tuning, fund raising for the new land including the donation of some excellent compound bows and even a wet suit to sell on ebay! We also had 3 new members join us following completion of a beginners course at Minchinhampton.
Sounds like hard work for some but when then there is so much going on it does not feel like that, a busy week to look forward to and then the start of another great weekend!
Club open practice session .
