Level 1 Coaching Course

Congratulations to David, Janet, Cathy and Roger for completing their coaching course during 2006. Vanessa, Yens and Mike have already put their names forward for the next course.

Archery Leaders Course

Well done to Di and Steph for completing their Archery Leaders qualification.

Child Protection and Vulnerable Adults Workshop

The Level 1 Coaches all attended a workshop as part of their Coaching Programme, Mary and Lynn also attended a workshop held at Deer Park as part of the requirement to be Club CPO’s.

Club Flag / Banner Competition

Juniors were invited to submit designs for a Club Banner, 10 entries competed for the prize of £25 worth of Archery vouchers and the satisfaction of seeing their design turned into the Club banner. The standard was excellent and well done to Georgia for the winning design.

County Honours

Well done to Callum and Amy J for representing the Gloucestershire County Junior team that won the GWAS Inter-Counties, to Alex, Di, Steph & Andrea for shooting for Gloucestershire against Worcestershire and to Steph, Andrea and Roger for representing the Senior County Team in the GWAS Inter-Counties Competition and to Vanessa and Di for being selected as reserves.

Indoor Team Head to Head

We organised an interclub team Head to Head competition with teams from local clubs at Balcarras in February, which saw one of our teams finishing with a perfect record of played 5, won 5. Well done to Amy C, John C, Fraser H, Alex and Emily. Cheltenham finished second with 3 wins and a draw.

Special Membership

As many of our younger members go off to University, some have elected to remain full members, Amy, Emily and Steph etc others have joined their University Clubs Rob left for Liverpool last year but has visited us when he is home, this year he won the British Universities Champs! Samuel left to join Oxford Uni and again he has joined us when he is at home, Samuel also finished in the top 10 in the British Universities Champs. We always offer a warm welcome to our returning archers.

Flash back to 2001

The British Indoor Champs saw one of our Club’s best ever performances. Chris and Rob Gruar and Steph all won individual British Titles, Amy Johnson finished 3^rd in her category and there were good performances from Mark Taylor (14^th), Steven Cownie (20^th) and Samuel Johnson. During that year our young archers won a host of cups and medals, broke a number of British records, became British Schools Champions and represented the County teams.

County Indoor Winter League

Having won 3 of the County Indoor Winter league titles in the previous 4 years, the 2005/6 winter was less successful in terms of titles but equally enjoyable. The single title we won was actually the first time we have won it, yes the Junior Compound Title, so well done to Alex, Callum, Paul and Amy C.

Christmas Beetle Drive

Annual Awards

This year the awards have been made as follows;

Best Junior Compound Performance – Alex & Callum,

Best Junior Recurve Performance – Eliza (British Champion),

Biggest Junior Improver – Rosie.

Best Senior Compound Performance – Steph,

Best Senior Recurve Performance – Andrea,

Best Longbow Performance – Roger

Best Adult Improver – Neil B.

Junior Regional Championships

2 of our members represented the County, well done to Callum and Amy J for being successful members of the winning Inter-Counties team. Both won Regional titles as did Eliza with a new County and Regional record. Rosie finished runner up and John won a bronze medal. And  the best news of all was that Deer Park won the Top Club team Trophy, last time we won it was back in our most successful 2001 year.

British Senior Outdoor Champs

Steph was our sole representative at the 2 day event in grueling weather conditions and she was over the moon to get the 4^th place medal.

County Senior Championships

5 members of Deer Park Archers entered the County Senior Championships, on what turned out to be a fairly windy day, however 4 out of the 5 recorded personal bests! Roger recorded an excellent score of 256 to win the Gents Longbow Title! Vanessa came 3^rd in the Ladies Longbow Section with a personal best score of 269. Di also had a good day recording a new personal best of 830, this was her last competition with her old bow! Neil continued to improve recording a score of 532 on a National which was a personal best, he won his section. Stephanie won the County Ladies Compound title with another MB score of 1202, she also claimed her gold rose award. 

Laser Quest

30 members in teams of 5 battled it out at Ballyhoo which was booked by the Club for the whole evening. The winning team consisted of Keren, James, Ian, Richard and Megan (Ian and Richard were also in last years winning team) just about beating Andrew, Roger, Elizabeth, Joe and Jack into second place. The pre competition favorites limped in 4^th on just 11694 so I guess that Paul Y, Callum, Steph, Michael and Eric will have to rethink their tactics.  In the individual competition James won with an impressive total of 4495 (he was last in 2005), with Nick second on 4247, Elizabeth on 3872 in third and Roger was fourth on 3595! Everyone enjoyed themselves so much we are going to book another date in February 2007 but will revert to the 2005 format with more games of a shorter duration.

World Record Status Premier Events

These events (around 6 per year) provide an opportunity for the top International archers from across the UK to compete against each other. Steph turned in a number of outstanding performances winning a bronze in the 70m head to head at Cleve on the first day and winning the FITA on the Sunday with her first Grand Master Bowman score of 1328. As well as winning an impressive trophy she also achieved the English Archery Federation Gold Cross. Alex and Callum competed on the Sunday doing a Metric round both winning with excellent PB scores!

Steph followed this up with her best performance of the year at Oxford winning the double 720 with 2 GMB scores which were County and Regional records and providing her with qualification scores for the Commonwealth Championships.

Commonwealth Archery Championships

Steph was selected to represent England in Jamshedpur, India during early November. It was her first experience of such an event and she got to shoot with the Indian World Record holder during qualification, was knocked out by a narrow margin of 3 points by a New Zealand archer in the Individual Head to Head, finishing 9^th overall. In the team competition she won a Commonwealth Silver medal, losing to India in the final, with Scotland finishing 3^rd.

Community Activities

7 of our members used their Archery Leaders qualification to support the Guide Association running 100’s of hours ‘have-a-go’ sessions for Guides and Brownies. Members also ran sessions for the Gloucester Muslim Ladies group and for an organisation running courses for individuals who are unemployed and for those who have been excluded from the education system.

Equipment

This unique characteristic of the Club has continued to be developed throughout 2006, not only have we managed to purchase a significant number of bows to support the beginners programmes, but provide items such as fletching jigs, compound bow tuning 3 axis jig, string making jigs, indeed all the support equipment members need to do archery as well as providing the materials (string making materials, fletchings, vanes, nocks, arrow rests etc) to support our members. We are also loaning a lot of equipment to members although from January 2007 we will be introducing a small charge of £5 per month for this service.

Club Mark Accreditation

Further to David Wenn attending the National Coaching Conference and the GNAS information displayed on their Web Site and Archery UK the Club has decided to apply for accreditation.  It is a benchmark for ensuring a safe, equitable and quality environment for individuals to participate and progress in sport.  There are a number of articles in the current issue of Archery UK as well as lots of information on the GNAS web site. We have already started reviewing club procedures and the framework offered by the Club Mark Programme has confirmed that we already demonstrate a lot of best practice, it has also been very useful in identifying a few areas where we can further develop, so watch this space. As you are all aware we always welcome feedback, new ideas etc so would ask that if you have any concerns, can identify areas/activities that we can develop further etc then please let us know.

Sunday 17^th December

28 archers turned up to the Club competition last Sunday, trophies were awarded to the three beginners with the top scores. Mark Shaw who has only just completed his beginner’s course and bought his bow 3 days before the competition shot an outstanding score of 473 on a Portsmouth. Nigel came 2^nd with a score of 358, and John came 3^rd with 299. Well dome to everyone who took part!

Pizza and Cinema night

15 members enjoyed a meal before going to see a GNAS promoted film called ‘The Weatherman’. Shall we say that most of the attendees enjoyed the meal more than the film. Roger took up the inappropriate decision of the GNAS to promote the film; they admitted that they had not actually seen it! One good outcome was that at least we were given umbrellas and mugs for attending the event.

Bow Magazine Article

We were the featured Club in the Bow International magazine which profiled us as ‘a Club with a strong community spirit and plenty to offer aspiring archers’. Janet, Ian, Martha, Frazer and Roger were in the photographs. Our Club’s achievement of being selected as one of three clubs being selected to represent the GNAS in the ‘National Sports Club of the Year’ was highlighted.

Club Firework Night

The weather was much kinder to us this year so there was an excellent turn out of our members and their families. Paul and Ron orchestrated the fireworks and the display was stunning, not to mention deafening! Michael became the first ‘firelighter’ to do so without using an inflammable substance and the fire ‘professionally built’ by yours truly burnt well and collapsed into the centre as it had been designed to do. Lynn, Cathy, Lesley and Mary ensured that there was an ample supply of hotdogs, hot chestnuts and non alcoholic mulled wine. Needless to say these sort of events take a lot of work organising them before the actual event, fireworks to order, fire to build, risk assessments to be done and food prepared etc so well done to everyone involved.

Working with other clubs in the County

We have used the Field Course venue to invite members from Cleve and Cheltenham to join us for a round and this has worked well. We have invited representatives from a number of local clubs to join us on a number of Sunday morning sessions early in 2007.

Halloween Shoot

This was a great evening which ran for almost 3 hours; again the weather was kind to us. Andrea, Amy and Paul, to mention just a few had prepared some brilliant targets with witches, bats, pumpkins and skeletons. Plenty of food was again on hand, thanks to all that helped, plenty of rewards (mostly sweets) for archers that hit their targets. The entry fee was a pumpkin, so we had a great display by the end of the evening the most impressive of which was carved by Richard’s wife.

Gloucestershire County Indoor Championships

A record entry of members saw 37 of our archers competing for County honours; there was a sea of pale blue shirts in the morning as most opted to shoot the first session. Roger came up with a cunning plan, to put foot markers down with words on them such as “strong front arm” so that people could remember the key things that they needed to do. Before assembly David led a club warm up session, this all proved to work with some amazing scores achieved by many of the archers. In the first session the score that stood at the most was achieved by Frazer, 526, this would allow Frazer to become the County under 14 Champion. Heather was competing in her first competition finished with a sliver medal. Amy C continued her good form in competitions with a score of 542, this allowed her to win her category! Martha and Alice also picked up County titles, junior ladies BB under 14 and Ladies BB respectively. Mark also became County champion but when asked at the end if he was pleased with how he did, he replied with “I’m pleased that it’s over”. Eliza again put another excellent performance in, picking up another title and trophy! Alex got a very respectable score of 492, this allowed him to pick up a bronze medal in the under 14 category. Callum became the Under 10 County compound champion.

In the afternoon 9 club members competed, David, Steph, Di and Vanessa all achieved personal bests, with Steph and Andrea winning their categories. The following club members got County Records: Steph, Alice, Martha, Eliza and Mark, these are also Club records! Eric and Vanessa also achieved Club records! Well done to everyone who took part! I’m sure that you will all agree that it was a very enjoyable day!

Field Course

2006 also saw the opening of the High Cross Field Course; we had plenty of support setting it up, although it took considerably longer than we anticipated. Thanks must go to the land owner Matt Hobbs who not only helped install the course but also paid for the 24 bosses and a few years supply of FITA faces! During the last 4 months many members have tried the course (but still not enough) and we have had a number of visitors from other Gloucestershire clubs. A number of members particularly Paul, Mike, Vanessa, Steph, Andy, Heather, Richard, Joe, David and Steve have become quite addicted to the challenges of Field archery and will hopefully form the nucleus of our Field Club. We have an excellent facility which will appeal to many of our juniors and what we have discovered is that it will certainly develop the archery skills of all that try it!

Clout Archery

Mavis Reynolds from Cheltenham Archers was kind enough to run a clout training course on the Cheltenham Race Course and David, Steph and myself attended. We learnt a lot and had great fun. In October we held a Clout training at High Cross and 12 juniors and seniors tested their skills with quite a lot of success (I must mention that I hit the Clout at 180 yards) but all that tried did really well and the Club now has 5 sets of clouts and ropes.

Members in and out of the Club during 2006

We only lost a few members during the year, however it is important to understand why they left incase we can learn from the situation. A sad loss was Frazer Harris as his family were moving to Cardiff, on the plus side we have over 20 members joining us as beginners. David is now working away during the week so is only able to join us on weekends and it is very likely we will lose him and James sometime next year when the family moves closer to his work. On the positive side David is still more than happy to use his excellent coaching skills on Saturday evenings. With that in mind we have been very fortunate that Andy has joined us from Black and Gold, his coaching skills will be an asset to all that use them, so if you need some help then ask him!

2005 Achievement Awards

A number of juniors were presented Achievement Certificates in recognition of outstanding performances during 2005. This photo shows Amy C, John and Alex with theirs.

British Junior Championships

This year we were represented by a very inexperienced group of juniors who all performed exceptionally well. Eliza became British Recurve under 9 Champion, Rosie finished 11^th out of 23, Callum finished 5^th and was one of the youngest in his group and Alex finished 7^th. Well done to them, the experience they gained will be invaluable in the future.

Football Visit

11 members made a visit to a football match between Bristol City and Yeovil Town, City winning and everyone having a good time. For several members this was their first visit to a real match!

Longbows

We now have 10 members shooting longbow, Paul, Mike and Mark making bows etc. Roger and Vanessa have become the first Club members to gain longbow Rose Awards with Roger representing the County and nearly all visiting the field course on a number of occasions. James, Mark and Roger winning County titles and Vanessa a Regional Indoor title.

Club Website

Unfortunately we lost our website in September when the Service Provider went bankrupt. We plan to launch a new site early in the New Year.

2006 Beginners

A record of number of beginners have completed the initial programme and are now developing their skills at both Birdlip and Balcarras. A number have already done the field course!

Competitions

During the last 12 months over 40 members have entered at least one local competition and some have entered as many as 25! Far too many tournaments to mention individually so just a couple of the highlights which seem to mostly focus around bad weather; the Black and Gold Spring competition was challenging to say the least, with 12 members shooting only 6 managed to survive a day of high winds and lashing rain and only about half of the total entries managed to complete the competition. The Competition at Minchinhampton saw all 9 members that were representing the Club win medals, 5 compounds, 2 longbow and 2 recurve. As well as the County Junior Championships abandoned on the Saturday the Blackburns travelled to Supermarine to shoot on the Sunday and guess what, that was also abandoned due to high winds! Roger and Vanessa had shot just 12 arrows at the Cheltenham Archers Autumn shoot when there was a flash flood and the tents were almost instantly under more than 6 inches of water!