A key part of our Mission is to be an important member of our community and that has been important to us since day 1 of the Club!
Until 2019 we delivered multiple community events, worked with over 1500 school pupils in 150+ primary and secondary schools, unfortunately the COVID crisis has restricted much of this activity, however in October 2021 we recommenced just one of our after-school clubs at Balcarras School.
We also began a cautious number of open community have-a-go sessions and some booked group sessions in the second half of 2022. We hope to do a lot more in 2023, however it depends on the COVID threat and load on our coaching resource.
We started as a small club of Archery Leaders providing have-a-go archery for the Girlguiding Activity Centre at Cowley and all our members had strong connections with Girlguiding across the County.
As we evolved the importance of that became more obvious and this was re-enforced by our Governing Body as they specified ‘Community’ as one of three specialisms clubs should strive to achieve under the Ontarget Club Development Programme. This is again re-enforced by the ClubMark accreditation Programme. If you want to see a short video search on ‘Youtube Deer Park Archers Clubmark’ and see what our last accreditation process highlighted.
We far exceeded the criteria for the Community Ontarget Specialism shown below !
- The club openly advertises opportunities to participate in archery.
- A consistent warm reception is provided on club nights.
- On at least a monthly basis the club provides the opportunity for potential new participants to shoot.
- Membership to the club is truly open and the club seeks to attract new members.
- The club is able to provide shooting practice times to all of its members on a regular basis.
- The club actively seeks to retain members by providing a varied and appropriate shooting programme.
- The club is able to identify barriers to the above and works to find solutions through a plan of action.
These characteristics will be ingrained within the club and members as well as committee members will display these qualities consistently.
Much of what we have achieved can be directly linked to the Community Partnerships we have formed and these include those with:
- Our Parish, Borough and County Councils
- Local Schools
- Recreation Centres
- Local Businesses
- Local groups and societies
- Community Sports Partnership (Active Gloucestershire)
- Visitors to our open community shoots!
An essential part of our Club’s Mission Statement is to engage with and support the Gloucestershire community. We run multiple community events on a weekly basis.
Click here for the briefest of introduction to our community engagement.
2017 Gloucestershire Sports Media Awards – Community Club of the Year. We again submitted a summary of our activities and achievements as we are proud of our contribution and our members role in the community. Please click here if you would like to read our submission.
Many of our members help regularly with a range of community based activities, to increase the profile of our sport, which is very inclusive, to put something back and to attract new members. To increase our footprint we often work (on a voluntary basis) with Xperience Archery, who are also members of the club but who work full time running their own archery business. All services they provide to the club are free of charge!
A quote from 2015 Gloucestershire Media Awards Ceremony, where we were finalists in the Community Club of the Year, ‘Deer Park have elevated the sport of archery to one of the most popular and successful sports in the county!’
We have created massive demand through the school games programme, lunch-time and in-curriculum activities, engaging 150 schools and literally thousands of pupils.
We have achieved outstanding success, with Active Gloucestershire on a wide range of community events, including Special Olympics.
We have created productive relationships with Recreation Centres and NHS, running open have-a-go sessions, multi-sport themed events for the old/young/families, summer camps, half term camps.
We run 3 successful Satellite clubs, one of which became the first all female team to win the L3 County School Games!
We work with local business community and ‘Business Connectors’ to deliver team building and customer programmes.
We work with non-archery related organisations including the Gloucestershire Bat Group and Environmental Trust to enhance the environment.
We work with County Councils, Parish Councils, 3 MP’s etc. delivering a range of events.
We work across the county with the archery community developing junior archery, designing and delivering the County Junior Squad Development Programme, also helping many AGB clubs who have asked for advice etc.
As part of our community work in 2015, we were awarded an ‘Active Together’ Grant by Gloucestershire County Council to deliver open community ‘pay & play’ sessions at our new ground.
In keeping with our wider community work, we have excellent indoor facilities with venues in a range of locations across all 3 of the Council areas (Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury).
Through the above relationships, we have widened access to our sport particularly with ethnic minorities and disability groups. Our successful Bambies Club has extended age range of participants.
In 2015 we were awarded a Special Commendation by the Sport & Recreation Alliance for our work in the community and club development.
To support community activities, we provide all the necessary staff, equipment, risk assessments, DBS checks, insurance etc and most importantly the experience to ensure events will be safe, enjoyable, inclusive and affordable!
Deer Park Archers are an ‘ontarget’ Specialist Community Club!
The high levels of personal satisfaction were anticipated and we have not been disappointed, however the resultant increase in our club membership, cost effective access to school facilities, access to advice and support from our Community Sports Partnership, access to additional funding, training etc have been well beyond our expectations.
Members support many programmes, often in partnership with Xperience Archery, Active Gloucestershire, Gloucester & Cheltenham Recreation Centres, local Councils, help groups, Girlguiding, Scouting, Roundtable and the Local Education Authority.
Because of the high volume of activities, we have learned many new skills and Active Gloucestershire have provided us with excellent support through specialist coach support, workshops etc.