It has been some time now since my last Chairman’s update and I wanted to give some reflections on what has been an amazing amount of activity in the last few months: –
We closed off our winter season at Bisley with the competition against archers from Farnham Archery Club. As usual in recent years we came second but it did mark a season where we had good participation rates throughout and achieved our objectives of breaking even. I also know that several archers improved their personal bests on the Portsmouth round. If you haven’t tried this form of archery I do recommend giving it a go next season.
We held our first indoor beginner’s course at Bisley also during this time and I think this experiment was a success. As I write this update we have also held our first outdoor beginners course with great feedback and influx of new members. The remaining two courses this year are fully subscribed. Many thanks to our coaches and helpers for making these events enjoyable and instructive.
We started the outdoor season with our popular William Tell fun shoot which was again well attended. Thanks for all those that supported the event and it was good to see the high standard of archery with quite a few apple hits.
We are now well into our monthly competition shoots with two held already and another in a couple of weeks’ time.
Speaking of competitions, it was good to see the numbers that participated in the Frostbite shoot and the new 252 badge competition has been incredibly popular. The 20 and 30 yard targets have had their middles shot out due to the high number of participants who have been hammering the gold at these ranges!! Whilst this activity necessitates restacking the targets, it is a price well paid given the vast number of arrows members are shooting. I do feel sorry for Lindsey our records officer who is now extremely busy in processing vast numbers of scoring sheets – sorry for that workload!!
We have seen a number of club records shot already this season and congratulations to those archers.
We have received a couple of enquiries on different bow types and how they fit into classifications. This is somewhat of a complicated subject due to the Archery GB bow descriptions being somewhat vague and ambiguous in the rules of shooting. The committee has trusted me to be the arbiter on bow type classification for the club, please contact me if you are unsure in what category your bow should sit. In time I intend to write an illustrated guide with brief histories on bow types for the web site.
This weekend we host the annual Lintman Junior Open Competition. Entrants are the highest they have been for a number of years with 8 Lintman junior archers among the ranks. Derek initially set up the junior squad and it is great to see this part of the club flourishing again.
The replacement mower is now in full operation. As a committee, we agonised over this purchase decision for the last couple of years, but it was somewhat forced upon us when the original mower became economically unrepairable. We realise this has used up almost all of our Capital reserves and a little more but, it does set us up for what I hope in the longer term a more reliable and sustainable solution. Additional range equipment acquired are, a line painting machine and three new targets in the last couple of weeks.
We continue to work on longer term car parking solutions once Wates finish their current work. More to come on this in future updates.
The maintenance day was well attended. Thank you to all that came along. Ditches were cleared, felled trees cut up, targets re-stacked, ivy removed from trees and holes in the range filled in, plus a couple of complete amateurs managed to spend three hours building a picnic table and bench!!!
At our Western shoot, we received a visit from our landlords. The timing was excellent, as the maintenance day was the day before and the range was looking great. It was also a very busy shooting day, which showed how much the club is flourishing. They was very complimentary on what we have been achieving and how we manage the field. ‘Keep doing what you are doing’ was one of a number of great pieces of feedback.
As I look back on the last six months, I am hugely encouraged by the activity at the club. We have high numbers of members shooting, with Sunday morning and Tuesday evening club slots being very popular. It is also good to see different bow types flourishing with an active number of horsebow, compound and longbow archers adding to the already strong recurve base. I do feel the future is bright for our club and in addition to the growth we are not losing sight of one of our primary aims of having some fun also!!
Be the arrow not the target
Michael