Tag Archives: archery club

bows of Selection
Jul 15 2021

Volunteers in our archery clubs and societies – thank you

As many clubs ready themselves for the relaxing of COVID restrictions I wanted to offer an observation.

Volunteers help run most of our archery clubs and societies in the UK and no doubt overseas. From setting the targets on our course to running coaching sessions, from local admin at your clubs to coordinating the national society. They are aren’t paid employees, but volunteers wanting to put something back into the hobby.

We are all very fortunate to have individuals who are willing and able to give up their free time to help others.

It’s true that these volunteers may get their expenses paid but more often they refuse to ensure the funds can remain in the club or organisation. They aren’t paid employees, working 9-5. They are doing this on top of all their other commitments.

The vast majority of you know this, but not all may realise the amount of work involved in these different activities. Running a coaching session may take 3-4 hours on the day, but that won’t include the preparation required beforehand and afterwards, checking equipment, sorting, repairing etc. A club chair or secretary might spend a few hours a week sorting budgets, processing membership or booking for shoots.

Any of you who have been involved with setting courses we get to shoot will know the time and work involved in scouting shots, clearing paths, settings bosses, then buying and pasting up target faces so you have something to shoot.

Many will give up days of their limited annual leave entitlements to set courses or help organising for local or national championships.

So, I ask you all to consider this next time you send an email and don’t get a reply back in the same day, or your enquiry takes a few days to process. They are all volunteers, probably have full time jobs to support their families, maybe they are on holiday or unwell. They aren’t ignoring you.  When you hear someone complain or a post commenting on how long it takes to do something, maybe the individuals not aware of that these organisers are volunteers.

Thanks for reading and stay safe.

May 14 2020

Impact of COVID-19 on archery clubs

Apologies for not getting much material out there at present. I’m trying to finish off the series on target panic and hope to have a “walk with Roger Massey” out in the next few weeks.

What little time I have spare is being spent on trying to work on the logistics of whether we can open our clubs field range safely based on current government guidelines.

This involves both risk assessment paperwork for insurance requirements and trying to identify work rounds for the physical limitations of the sites access routes etc. I think we will have to go down the route of bookable time slots due to restrictions of parking space and range spacing.

I would be interested in hearing from any clubs that are going through the same process as I now there is a push by many to get people out shooting again.

The National Field Archery Society has posted some guidelines on their website (https://nfas.net/) for clubs looking to open their grounds.

This is from ArcheryGB site for reference

Thanks for reading and stay safe everyone.

Mar 4 2020

Sad news – archery club loses wood

Sorry but this post isn’t going to be very upbeat. It’s with a very heavy heart I have to say my club, Briar Rose Field Archers has lost its wood. We’ve been told to vacate it by end of April.
You can guess how down everyone is feeling after all the hard work and effort. Especially when you realise we were in full flow for redesign of the current course.
It took us over 2 years to find the site initially and since then we’ve seen the club grow along with the course from 8 targets to 30 in the last 18 months. Membership has increased with lots of new archers joining following coaching courses. Now we are back to square one with no wood and having to start the search again.
From what I understood Birmingham City Council plan to close the entire site. With all the media articles and medical reports on how being active outdoors is good for your mental and physical health I find it very said and disappointing the decision has been made to close the site. I’m guessing they have their reasons and I feel sorry for those who actually work at the site as i don’t know if they will lose their jobs.
We are going to try and organise a NFAS club shoot for March 15th as a bit of a final farewell come thanks to those who have supported us.
Thanks for reading.