Chairman's Chat

Several things have occurred, or not as the case may be over the last few weeks that need talking about and this article is an attempt to impart information and stimulate discussion.

Expectations

I fully understand that everybody's expectations are different and it's impossible to please everybody all of the time but it's no good keeping quiet, or just talking amongst yourselves if you think that the club is not meeting yours. Come and talk to me and be positive and constructive with your criticism. We do not have a crystal ball or ESP to guess what you want from this club. The club is as much yours as it is mine and if you think things are not right, then do me the courtesy of telling me and also offering suggestions as to what you and I can do to put it right.

Coaching Or should it really be coaching and support?

To fully understand where we are now, a short history lesson is needed. Boring I know but necessary just the same.

When I first joined the club eight or nine years ago there was a GNAS rule that you couldn't start training to be a coach unless you'd been an archer for at least two/three years. The club at that time had more coaches than you could wave a big stick at and in consequence new coach training was relegated to something to get round to. I then left the club for a couple of years to work overseas and when I came back found that the loads of coaches, had dwindled to three and one coach training course had been run, which due to many factors had been a complete disaster and it ended up with no qualified coaches. Since then another of our coaches has left us to pursue her business career, which leaves us with two. During this period of turmoil you must not forget the GNAS factor. In their infinite wisdom they decided that archery coaches should be accredited and hold the United Kingdom Coaching Certificate (UKCC), so in consequence coach training was put on the back burner whilst they messed around trying to get their act together. If you go to the Sports England website and are a registered member, you can read the rules and all the information about accreditation. The most interesting thing is that Sports England says is that if your sport has an effective coaching system, then accreditation should take no longer than three months. GNAS/Archery GB has taken over seven years and on the 22nd March of this year I received a DRAFT copy of the new Level One coach tutor pack.

If you don't understand the UKCC coaching levels then they work like this:

Level One is a club coach who is able to run beginners courses and must be supervised by a Level Two coach. They know the basics of all archery and depending on how much experience they have, can be very knowledgeable in all manner of archery related problems at club level.

A Level Two coach is a County coach and is much more knowledgeable (done more courses) and takes over where the Level One coach leaves off. They will have a deeper understanding of all archery related problems and are able to resolve most problems with most bow types.

A Level Three coach is a National coach and these are the top tier in the coaching world and of course as rare as hens teeth.

And there you have it, three distinctly different levels all with different attributes of which only the Level One coach has UKCC accreditation. Level two and three are still being worked on by Archery GB. So where does that leave us now?

Coaching night is Tuesday night and the rule since time began has been, if you need coaching then ask for it. As I have said before the club only has two coaches. Jill and Carolyn are UKCC Level One coaches and they should be your first port of call for all matters relating to coaching. If they are busy with someone else then either, wait your turn or they may ask another experienced archer to sort out your problem. If they do ask another archer to sort out your problem then they know the archer asked will have the experience to deal with the problem.

If you ask another archer, not a coach, you will get their opinion on the subject (right or wrong) and I can assure you there are as many different opinions as there are archers in the club. I'm not saying you shouldn't ask other archers their opinion, what I am saying is what you will get is just that, their opinion. This may or may not be tempered by years of experience but in the end it is just their opinion. A coach on the other hand not only has the experience but also has done the courses and received the 'T' shirt for being able to deal with a myriad of different archery problems. An individual archer has only had their own problems to deal with and as you will know by now, what works for one archer, doesn't always work for another, a coach knows this, another archer doesn't.

This is especially true for questions on archery kit. There is no magic piece of kit that will make you a top flight archer. The only thing that will do that is constant practice and even more practice and when you're fed up with that, more practice. When you have developed your form to a point where you are getting groups of a reasonable size, then and only then, should you consider adding another gadget to your bow to reduce the size of the group. The real problem with archery is that to stay in business archery manufacturers and shops have to sell kit (profound statement) so therefore it is in their interest to sow doubt about the piece of kit you presently have to make you buy the latest go faster whizz bang piece of kit. This is of course is ably assisted by equipment motivated archers. These are archers that have just got to have the latest piece of kit that has just been produced because in their mind it will give them the extra points they need, because they are never at fault, it's always the kit that's wrong. To justify their needless expenditure to themselves, they then try and convince everybody around them what they have just brought is the best thing since sliced bread and everyone else should also rush out and buy it. Be warned, the resale value of archery kit is virtually nil, so think twice or even three times before you rush out and buy that can't live without bit of chrome, that actually is as much use to you as a chocolate fireguard.

Consider this; back in 1908 a gentleman called William Dod won the gold medal for archery in the Olympics. This was the last time an able bodied Englishman was to win an archery gold in any Olympics. His bow was an English longbow and his score for the double York round was 815. If you care to look in the GNAS publication Shooting Administrative Procedures at the chapter entitled Classification Schemes you will find that to obtain the classification (in longbow) of Grand Master Bowman you need a score of 450. William Dod nearly doubled that to win gold. So ask yourself, if William Dod could do it with a bit of stick and a string why do you need anything else?

Finally, if you think that your progression is being held back by the lack of experienced coaches in the club then there are two alternative routes. You can contact a Level Two coach and see if you can receive one-to-one tuition on a night that is convenient to you both. Or you can contact any of the archery shops and see if, like golf shops, they have a 'Pro' who will give you lessons on a fee basis.

We as a County are very coach poor, so you'd probably have to go outside of the County if you want to find the type of coach you're after.

On a personal note, five club members including myself approached the County Coaching Organiser over six months ago asking to attend the first available Level One coaching course. As yet none of us has been anywhere near a course.

Child Protection

By now you will be all aware of the nausea we went through just so that Archery GB would renew our insurance. Well, we still do not have enough qualified club members to allow juniors to shoot on a Thursday and regularly on a Sunday.

It's a simple and free process to go through. You fill out a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check form and Jill sends it off. A few weeks later you get a form back hopefully saying you're cleared to work with children and vulnerable adults. You must also attend a Sports Coach UK course called Safeguarding and Protecting Children which may be paid for by the Herefordshire Coaching Group. When you've done both you're cleared to supervise juniors. That is supervise not coach, as that's a whole different ballgame and a different subject. What we need are volunteers to become supervisors. The down side of being a supervisor is that on the night you're on duty, you cannot shoot.

It is very difficult for an adult not to offer assistance to a junior if they see them messing up their shooting. The problem is that unless you are a coach or are qualified as a supervisor you are leaving yourself wide open for accusations and are legally outside of the cover provided by the Archery GB insurance. So whilst it is well meaning, I'm afraid I must ask adults not to assist juniors unless they themselves are qualified archery coaches or supervisors, unless the junior is going to damage themselves or others around them. All the archer has to do is bring the junior to the attention of Jill, Carolyn or myself. I know it's sad but that unfortunately is the modern world we live in.

Supporting the Club

Throughout the year the club puts on events for you, its members and three times a year it puts on tournaments for all comers. Also in an attempt to keep clubs fees down to a reasonable level we attend fetes, galas and other functions so that people can have-a-go for the princely sum of £ 1.00 for five arrows. The lists for these functions are on the respective notice board in the shooting hall. These things don't happen magically, they are the result of a lot of hard work. Recently those doing the work have become less and less and the average age of the workers is now seventy plus. It's about time the younger element of the club took over and gave us old un's a rest. A lot of the jobs are not archery related e.g. refreshments, cleaning etc. so you don't have to be an elite archer/coach to assist. Of course if you don't want low club fees, tournaments and competitions, all you have to do is say so and we'll stop them. We have commitments for the next season, which we must honour but after that we can stop, if that's what you, the members, want.

At the end of the summer season the AGM will be upon us and now is the time to think about what job on the club committee you can do. At last years AGM the club came very close to folding because of a lack of volunteers and I can see with the lack of support offered so far this year, it's going to be a close run thing. The one job that must be filled this year is that of Treasurer and if we can find no takers, the club will definitely be wound up. So it's time to do a Kennedy and ask 'It's not what my club can do for me but what I can do for my club'. Of course if the answer comes back nothing, then come the end of the year there will be no club to worry about anyway.

Information Transfer

To impart information to you, the club member, we the committee use various mediums depending on the urgency and importance of the information we are trying to convey. There is the direct mail shot, the club website, the quarterly newsletter, the monthly diary that Carolyn emails to all members (with that facility) or a printed copy is left on the table in the club for those that don't have email. There are the notice boards scattered round the shooting hall (which I do admit need tidying up). Yet with all this information overload people are still saying they don't know what's going on or are turning up to events well after the published start time. Is this a case of leading the horse to water, or are we missing a trick and not presenting the information in an easily enough assimilated form?

The Outdoor Season

The outdoor season will soon be upon us and it's time to remind you of the rules of shooting outside.

1. When the outdoor season is declared, then irrespective of weather you will shoot outside. The bosses in the hall are being taken down for refurbishment so there will be nowhere to shoot inside anyway.

2. Do not use all carbon arrows on the field.

3. The maximum number of arrows allowed to be taken on the field by an individual is seven.

4. All arrows taken out onto the field will be found by the end of the practice session.

5. After exhaustive searching, if an arrow cannot be found then the lost arrow form must be filled in on the notice board in the hall.

6. Bosses and stands are heavy, so take particular care when lifting and moving them. Sack trollies are provided, so use them. It takes two people to lift a boss onto its stand, do not try and do it yourself. Bosses will be tied down with the anchor fixtures provided. All bosses put out at the start of a session have to be put away at the end. If you get it out, you put it away or come to an arrangement with those still left on the field.

7. Target pins may or may not be tied to the bosses with string. It is up to the individuals who bring out the boss onto the field to count the target pins out and count them back in again. A lost target pin can do a substantial amount of damage to another sportsman if they fall onto it.

8. To keep the time looking for arrows to a minimum, we have instituted a system whereby an archer has to prove to a coach that they can get all their arrows within the red or gold at a specific distance before they move back to the next distance. This means that they have to be observed over several ends before they are signed off at the distance. A list of all archers and their maximum allowed shooting distance will be put on the main table in the hall. Beginners/Juniors can expect to start off at 20 yards.

9. For practical purposes the field can be divided into two down the line of the rugby posts. Those shooting shorter distances can shoot on the side nearest to the rugby club and those shooting longer distances can shoot on the far side. Range safety will be the responsibility of the Field Captain/Senior Archer on the day.

Club Records

For those of you that have looked at the Club Records on the notice board you will see that there are some 'unbelievable' scores obtained by club members in the past. In an attempt to give current members a chance to see their names 'up in lights', it has been decided to archive all the current records and start again from scratch.

From your perspective there are a couple of changes to the rules.

Firstly for a score to be eligible for a club record, a round has to be shot either in a competition/tournament or on a club Target Day. A target day, is a day previously notified to club members with an announced start time e.g. end-of-month shoot etc.

Secondly, you the archer, have to claim the record on the form provided.

All that's required is that you fill out the form and hand it to Carolyn along with a copy of the competition/tournament results or a completed Target Day score sheet, duly signed by yourself and the scorer. Simple isn't it?

This brings us into line with what other clubs are doing and it will be good practice if you ever have to move clubs for whatever reason.

All the best,

Eddy Payne
Chairman
Bromyard Bowmen