Sunsets and shooting arrows …
We are getting some amazing photos of sunsets on Friday evening sessions – archery silhouettes against a burnished autumnal sky. All very artistic, but in truth we are losing light and warmth as the sun sets. The chill in the air turns things damp and everyone just gets cold and grumpy!
So, because of this and the rapidly diminishing numbers who want to shoot on an autumn/ winters evening, Fridays have now ended, and will be considered again in March 2025.
We have plans to put on some coaching and equipment evenings through the winter, utilising the Activity Centre. So, we will utilise the space we have and help the club members get the best out of their archery and equipment.
Beginners – take your positions
Saturday morning and the weekend is bright, sunny and despite a chill wind, the sun providing an underlying warmth. Rockingham Forest Park threw a curveball at us, with the internal barrier being unexpectedly down, so John was going back and forth to let candidates in. Our new style beginners course was off and running!
This our first running of the new style beginners course – thanks to Pete for developing it for us. We set up on the field and had 5 very keen candidate archers ready and willing to begin. Pete led with John, Trev and Carl assisting. Teaching began with a safety talk and warmup execises. Bows were assigned, and shooting began. All of our archers started out using sights, and got very good quite quickly. Our bosses at 10 metres ensured that there were few missed arrows.
Lots of help was given by the coaches, and we saw improvement in all of the candidates by the time we stopped shooting.
Before we knew it the entire 1st session of 3 hours had disappeared, everyone was worn out from information overload, but in a good way!
… and the course continues
Sunday morning, and the Beginners 2nd session started at 11am. Once again John was opening the barrier, and our candidate archers were busy practising and learning technique, along with stance and anchor points. This time the bosses were placed at 15 metres – a bit more difficult, but still very achieveable. They also learned to adjust their sights independently. This culminated with a colour aiming game of “Build a Beetle”. They also had the opportunity to to see the different bow types – Longbow and Compound. Robyn joined us as part of the coaching team for this session. This new style beginner course is proving very popular with both candidates and coaches.
Just as the course session was ending, Griffin members started to turn up, and the afternoons session range was built with more distances added. We run a booking system to make it easier to build the distances required. Club members find their targets via the Line Captain, and then set up their equipment.
Our beginners completed session 2 and went away happy, knowing that next weekend is their final session. After passing the course, we will be happily inviting them to join Griffin Archers family.
The club session …
Griffin Archers members were in full swing and happily shooting for the afternoon session, with Robyn and Deniss in charge. Our Griffin family enjoyed a “normal” practise session. Trev was getting sight marks for his next competition; Tom was trying to get consistency so he could get a 252 score. Katie and Paul returned after a few weeks away and Chris finally came back from holidays. Zander came and got some shooting in before he leaves us for a couple of weeks as he’s getting married. When he returns, he has a new compound bow to try out – we are looking forward to seeing how he gets on!
Take a look at our Photo Gallery to see what we do as a club …
Things came to a natural end as the chill in the wind and the warmth in the sun died down. I’m pleased to report that members are wearing their layers and they are starting to prepare for the cooler weather. Sunday sessions will continue for the Griffin family throughout the year. Let’s see what the weekday evenings end up looking like.