A very productive break from the Gloucestershire Schools Programmes!
The schools summer holidays has not shown any let off for both the Club and Xperience Archery. Events virtually every day taking our sport to the community in so many different ways. Some organised and delivered purely by the Club, others purely by Xperience Archery but many delivered by XP and volunteer members from the Club.
The outcomes from these events are numerous, including income for both parties, lots of enrolments on our and other clubs beginners courses, more schools engaged with the School Games Programmes, more members of the community becoming active, development of our coaches and volunteers and promotion of our sport are just a few of the benefits.
Many of our participants have been inspired through our school activities and participation at council and recreation centre led activities, delivered by ourselves, so advertising has been minimal but our resources have been stretched to meet the demand.
All of this is on top of our active club programmes and our members great efforts supporting the development of our ground and general fundraising!
To give an idea of the scale of our activities during just the last 2 months we have introduced the following numbers to our sport:
Holiday Summer Camps – 360 juniors.
Holiday Clubs wewre not just about shooting, there was group work to broaden knowledge etc.
Fete type activities – have a goes. – 300+
Regular Community events – 100+
Party/corporate bookings – 30+
Inclusion (disability) specific activities – 94
Individual Beginners courses -17
Sports Leaders – Arrows training – 12
Our programmes over just the summer holidays period have given over 900 people a chance to try our sport!
So being clear on what the figures means, these are people trying our sport, many of those will have attended a number of sessions and many will continue in their school clubs or complete beginners courses.
Earlier at the British Junior Championships – Deer Park rule the Compounds!
Gloucestershire won the County Compound Title at the British Junior Championships and the members were all Deer Park, well done to Holly Clifford, James Howse and Lucy Mason.
Gloucestershire win the British Junior Compound Team Trophy!
Archery GB Week long Talent Festival
Our congratulations go to Archery GB for organising a great programme.
Yes, our archers have done the Club proud again. 1 club, 4 archers, 9 medals!!
The Archery GB Talent festival is held for a week at Lilleshall. They took part in an international-format competition lasting from Monday to Friday, starting with a ranking 720 round at either 50m for cubs ( up to age 13) or 60m for cadets ( aged14+)
After the 720 rounds, the archers were seeded second in their respective age groups.
Tuesday and Wednesday involved round robin matches, where all archers had a head to heads with the first archer to get six points winning the tie. This formed a league table.
On the Thursday morning there was good fun in team matches, followed in the afternoon by the top eight ranked archers competing in individual knock out head to head matches.
On the Friday morning, the tournament moved to the Astroturf in front of the archery pod, and the field was laid up in international style with just two targets for the crowd to see.
Well done to Riley, Tom, James and Lucy, great week, fantastic performances!
Riley Spencer-Nice shot well throughout the week.
Temporary Site Office
Thank you to the Gloucestershire Constabulary for donating a 20ft Container which is excellent condition and to QBD (Quality by Design) for donating the new large window which will be welded into the front of the container. The new container will be used for equipment workshops, competition control, and hospitality until the site developments are complete.
Container being delivered, windows to be welded in.
National Series Finals Weekend
Congratulations to Tom Howse who qualified for Final , finishing in the Top 8 from a number of events that took place over this years outdoor season. Tom lost to last years winner Larry Godfrey in the Quarter Finals but a fantastic achievement to qualify.
The match can be seen as part of the morning session. Click Here
Lucy Mason and James Howse were invited to take part in the Fuse Youth Mixed Team competition.
James Howse
Matches can be seen by clicking here.
Lucy Mason
James and his partner won Bronze and Lucy and her partner ran out as Gold Medal Winners and won a complete set of Fuse Longrods!
All very talented archers!
Drainage and ground restoration.
We are continuing work on tidying up the field following the completion of the drainage. We will need to reseed in some areas and there is some more leveling to do. A bonus has been the areas that have been created using some of the excavated soil which has been used to enhance the field course!
We have put together a short video to celebrate the support that the Gloucestershire Environmental Trust and DE Spencer and Sons have given us. Click here.
The leveling means that we can have targets anywhere across the field at 90m.
Visit of Gloucestershire Bat Group and Wildlife Trust
We have been hosting visits of various groups who have been very impressed with the potential of the area being dedicated to the field course, the environment is incredible and the potential massive. We have a great opportunity to sensitively install a field course and at the same time enhance our environment!
A magical environment!
Club Target Shoots
Just 2 competitions to report on, firstly a Short Metric Round on the 23rd August and then a FITA Field Course Competition on the 29th August. Unfortunately our Albion round planned for the 30th August had to be postponed due to bad weather.
Members shot Short Metric 1,2,3, & 5 rounds. There were some excellent scores including 3 County Records. Well done to Holly Clifford shooting Compound and Molly Peters shooting recurve who recorded excellent scores. There was also a longbow county record which was less than impressive!
Members shot a 22 target Fita round, not sure how to quantify the standard of shooting as it was the first competition on the course. Top Barebow score was Rachel Lucas 230 followed closely by Mike Dalton 222. Top longbow scores were Roger Crang 154 followed by Martin McKay 143.
Rachel & Mike went around in a group of 4 with Paige and Riley.
The field course is fantastic, well laid out to ensure no arrows are lost, compact enough to ensure not too much walking and hilly enough to ensure it is challenging!
Congratulations to John Dalton
John has recorded his 5th Master Bowman Score of the season, very well done.
