Write on Target

Congratulations to William and Kate on their betrothal, and rumour has it they will be holding the wedding ceremony at Perryfields School Sports Hall, as it's a cool place to be. Only regular attendees will get an invite!

Dates for your Diary

Postal Matches

Sunday 21 November - Frostbite.
Friday 3 December - Indoor Portsmouth
Sunday 5 December - Frostbite. Festive food available.
Friday 14 January - Indoor Portsmouth
Sunday 16 January - Frostbite.
Friday 4 February - Indoor Portsmouth
Sunday 13 February - Frostbite.
Friday 4 March - Indoor Portsmouth
Sunday 13 March - Frostbite.

Hot food should be available for all the Frostbite shoots.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, the Frostbite shoots are all 30m, and only 3 dozen arrows. We would like as many as possible to shoot all matches, as it gives a better selection on the teams. We had a good number of people shoot these last year and it was reflected in the fact that we won in two of the Divisions.

Forthcoming Shoots

12 December: Droitwich - Worcester round - Record Status, part of the Garrington Cup.
9 January: SCOA's 25m FITA - again, part of the Garrington Cup.

A shoot report with a difference

A few weeks ago Dave Johnson and I took part in the Worcester County Field Shoot, hosted by the March Hare club.

This is not the same as most Field Shoots, in that it has Roundels as targets not animal pictures or 3D's and they use marked metric distances, so some of the purists don't like it.

Anyway we arrived in good time with the prospect of good weather for the whole shoot which consisted of 12 targets done twice.

When everyone was accounted for, we were split up into the usual groups of 3 or 4 and sent off to our first peg. Well - we were about half way to our peg when I noticed I was different from all the other archers - they all had bows - whilst I had left mine at the clubhouse. So I did a quick about-turn and w ent back to collect it. The whole field had to wait by their allotted pegs until I had reached mine before the shoot could commence.

It then got off to a good day with everyone enjoying themselves until our group reached target 11 which was 10m distance, shooting down from off the top of a small mound. As the sun was shining, the top of the mound was the one place where I had a complete white out and I shot 2 of my 3 arrows guessing where the target was. They both missed, so I decided to forgo the third arrow which was probably a good decision as I could only find one when I came to retrieve them.

We continued around the wood and reached a point where we were to pass the clubhouse and to do this we chose to climb a low bank using 4 steps. You guessed it - yes, I slipped on the third step, and slid down, dumping both body and bow into the mud.

After taking a short stop at the clubhouse for refreshment, we continued on and I started to relax and enjoy the day as I was hitting the targets most of the time. The sun stayed out, bathing us through the trees in dappled sunshine.

Then it happened: suddenly, as I raised the bow to shoot, everything went blurred and one of the other archers in our group shouted “DONT MOVE”. I froze. He bent down and picked up a lens that had fallen out of my glasses. He handed me the lens that had fallen out and proceeded to run back to the club house to see if anyone had a very small screwdriver to allow me to replace it.

Well in a very short space of time he returned with a small screwdriver with which I was able to repair my glasses. Off we went and completed the two trips around the wood without any further mishaps.

I must say that it was a very different field shoot and the three other archers in my group all said it was the funniest one they had taken part in.

Clive (with his own handicap) Freeman

Coaching

Three of our members are being trained as Level 1 coaches. They need to do some practical work and have it formally recorded, so if you feel you would like some coaching, please ask either Maggie, Roger or Alan, who will then arrange a mutually convenient time and place.
Coaching at the indoor venue will be available, and we hope that other members will bear with us - we won't hold you up, and will restrict ourselves to one (or two at the most) targets on one side of the hall.

AGM Report

The AGM was held last month; the only significant item was the constitution was changed so that the payment of our annual subscription moved a fortnight, to 1st August. This was to fit in with the GNAS alteration of payment dates. You still have one month to pay.

Our Honorary President, Sam Green, tendered his resignation, and a presentation was made to him of two silver goblets. A bouquet of flowers was sent to Margaret Green, who has responded as follows:
Dear members of Stourbridge Company of Archers,
Thank you all so much for the lovely bouquet of flowers you sent me via Sam. It was a very kind and thoughtful gesture and fully appreciated. I hope you will all continue to win medals and enjoy further shooting.
Thank you all once again, kind regards,
Margaret Green.

Contact Details

Now that membership numbers have settled down after subscription payments, we have updated our contact details. We have a list of e-mail addresses, and this newsletter will be sent to all those addresses. Just for our peace of mind, please could you ping a reply back to us on this occasion, so that we know you're getting this document.

A moral tale

Once upon a time there were two measuring wheels: Yardie, a fiery red character who was the favourite, and Blue who was useful at times but tended to stay in the background.

They were born in a blacksmith's shop in Dudley and lived happily together for over fifty years at an archery club, where they were taken out for walks three times a week.

One sad day Yardie was taken out and in the euphoria that his archer friend experienced in shooting arrows, Yardie lay abandoned, and was left all alone on the field when it was all packed away.

What became of Yardie no one knows, maybe some local children on a church outing found him and took him off to a new home.

Blue was heartbroken to have lost his lifelong friend, but a kindly equipments officer acquired a new friend for Blue, and we hope that they will live happily together for a long time.

And the moral of this tale is:

If you take equipment out of the hut make sure that you put it back, especially measuring wheels as they are bloody difficult to replace (electronic ones are useless).

Record Officer's Report

Tony Carter has new records with :
New Warwick - 390
Long Metric I - 637
Western - 854
Windsor - 968
Well done Tony.
There may be more, but our Records Officer is away - we'll record them when he's back!

Social

Olwyn and Becky have issued an open invitation for an evening out, as detailed below. If you are interested, please let either Olwyn or Becky know.

Christmas Get-together
KUM-N-AVALOFF
A number of us are planning to go to Stourbridge town hall, on the 2nd of December, for an evening of comedy (adult humour, over 18s only.)
Tickets are £7 each, payable on the door and the price of admittance includes a curry.
Enjoy a drink from the bar while you laugh the evening away.
The entertainment begins at 8pm in the Wollaston studio above the library. To make sure you get a seat. come early, it's very popular.

Thoughts from the shooting line:

Consider this: If a terrorist put a bomb in a tin of alphabetti spaghetti, would it spell "DISASTER" when it exploded?