Great launch of the Archery GB ‘Arrows’ Programme in Gloucestershire!
Cam Everlands Primary School was the venue for this initiative introduced by Archery GB and which was inspired by the London 2012 ideal of inspiring a generation. It is a no-fuss sports pack that allows teachers to deliver fun-packed archery sessions in schools.
In the company of Mel Clarke Paralympic Silver Medal winner and all the Archery GB Development Team, Ashe Morgan, a member of the National Junior Squad and our very own Austin Whitmarsh shot in the demonstration. John, Austin, Dan, Roger & Steph then manned the have-a-go session available to pupils and guests during lunch. This was a great honour for Gloucestershire to host the launch and for Deer Park to be able to support it.
This programme will significantly boost interest in our sport at Primary School level and clubs across the country will need to prepare themselves to support those that want to progress into clubs. In Gloucestershire we have been fortunate enough to be awarded an ontarget grant and we will be running a day’s Training Programme at the Gloucester Recreation Centre on using the equipment, managing the transition and working with the under 12’s. All clubs will be invited and as we are inviting many Primary Schools for free ‘have-a-goes’ there will be lots of practical opportunities to develop the skills and gain experience.
Lucy age 12 has been called up to the County Senior Team
Lucy has been selected for the ladies compound team to represent Gloucestershire in the Senior Inter-counties match at Exeter. This will be her first time shooting at 80yds but a quick practice at 80yds and she does not seemed phased at all. She will be joining Beckie, another one of our juniors in the compound team of 4.
Lucy working with Steph. Lucy’s hard work, practice, fitness & conditioning etc is really paying off.
Visit of 5 players from Cheltenham Town Football Club was a great success!
Last Monday saw 5 players (including the captain) do a complimentary 2 hour have-a-go session as part of their Gold Challenge to raise money for the National star centre Challenge. It was very well received and we have also been offered some complimentary match tickets! The players got to do Target, Field and Clout, we got good coverage on their website, ITV (showed them doing 3D field archery) and they were also very complimentary about the session on Radio Gloucestershire.
Club Leaders Mentoring Programme
During the week Steve, Dilys, Kate & Roger met with a representative from PWC/Sport England as part of an initiative to develop better business skills in sport. We have been selected as Archery GB’s representative in the first phase of the programme which will work with around 38 clubs from different sports. We should have a further meeting in the next couple of weeks with our allocated mentor.
Progress Awards
We continue to have great success in our archers achieving awards at all levels, this is no disrespect to the programme or our archers but for the levels below Gold it is proving a little too easy.
Sam (Recurve) just a couple of hours into the beginners course achieved Blue, Izzy (longbow)just a few week after her beginners course absolutely smashed the Red Award as did Fin (Compound).
On a more positive note, there is no doubt that achievement of the Gold Award (70m) is challenging for our younger archers, that said Lucy (age 12) became the latest archer to achieve it. We need to find some more challenging targets for our talented juniors.
Sunday 16th September – Gloucestershire Blind Association Archery
Thank you to Liza, Andy, Steph, Dan & Roger for running a brilliant session for 16 archers, many of them totally blind. They were inspired, we were inspired and it was very much a partnership between the coaches and the archers, finished with some great competition and you would not believe how good they were.
A story to share, one of the archers I was working with was incredible, he described his vision as what you would see looking through a drinking straw, to see an arrow at 10yds he would scan the gold for some time to see it. He was so consistent, repeatedly getting 28 or 29, needless to say I discussed the possibility of coaching him in Rio, and we came to an agreement! We had a group elimination competition and he got to the final but I was having a good day and had a second archer in the final so Steph offered to work with him (She had no archers in the final), that was fine. He won with a perfect score of 30 and after celebrating informed me that he was swopping coaches, ‘he felt that I could only take him as far as 29 and he was looking for 30!’
Beginners Courses
4 courses, each with between 10 and 12 participants will be starting next week at Birdlip. Do not panic they will not all be heading in our direction! There is definately an Olympic effect but we would also like to think that the price and quality of the support are also factors. Unfortunately despite these courses, we will still have a long waiting list.
Late News – Senior Inter-Counties
Gloucestershire finished second, Beckie shot very well recording her second successive 1194 and Lucy an incredible 1082 on her first Hereford. Well done to them both. Not to be outdone Martin recorded 338 and Lynn 271 on the York & Hereford longbow rounds. We do not have Ian’s score at the time of publication.
Another good score for Beckie, wait until she gets her new bow.
