Club's first shoot - your thoughts please

[RichardH]

Hope you'll forgive a cross post from the NFAS web board, but I know there are a good few of you who don't lurk over there.

Down at Celtic Harmony Longbow Archery club, we've been slowly working our way to getting a shoot organised. We now have 25 3D targets, so we're intending to run a 2x20 shoot. We're going to run a couple of "club only" shoots first so we can get some feel for managing the shoot - but it might be nice to have a couple of outsiders join us to give some feedback and advice.

We're aiming to run the first "proper" shoot (i.e. open to other clubs) on the weekend of the 5-6th July - now I know it's the same weekend as the Jungle Jaunt, but I'm hoping that won't mean we're low on numbers, since we're a good way away from that shoot. We intend to keep the numbers fairly low anyway (let's say a max of approx 60 archers, which would mean a max of 20 groups of 3 - or more sensibly 15 groups of 4).

We'll be keeping it as a wooden arrow event.

To make the effort worthwhile, we intended to run the shoot on both the Saturday and the Sunday - we'd keep the targets in the same positions, but perhaps move the pegs between days. We have good facilities (car parking, near enough proper loos, a kitchen that can turn out a mean Hog Roast and brew).

I'd welcome any thoughts, feedback, offers of help with laying a course.... and of course an idea of whether you'd be up for coming and shooting - we'll be wanting post shoot feedback too, of course!

We're based just south of Hertford - so close to the M25, M11, M1.


Here's a few photos from a little club shoot we put on just before Christmas to give you an idea of the terrain. Bet no one else has a Roman Soldier 3D target!!!

Richard

[moo-mop]

Just in case you've not thought about it, this isn't a good weekend for attracting any of the target contingent over to your shoot: that's also the weekend that herts archery asso runs it's major shoots (ie county champs).

[grimsby archer]

My only pearl of wisdom "payment with booking - no payment, no place"

oh, and good luck!

[RichardH]

Well, we had a "club only" shoot with 20 3Ds on Saturday. Weather was kind, and everyone enjoyed themselves - here are a few photos.

We've decided to hold back from running an open until we have another couple of club shoots under out belt - hopefully we'll try and invite a few extra people to the next one to bump up the numbers and also to ensure we get some external feedback. So if you're in the East Herts area, are an NFAS member and are interested in a "trial" shoot on Sunday 6th July, pop me a PM.

[Celtic Dragon]

Hi Richard.

Hopefully this won't be against frum rules mentioning another forum, but it may be worth posting on Archers Rest as well. Most on their are EFAA or NFAS members. There are quite a few experianced clubs within easy driving distance of you, Avalon in Sandy, Beds, Cloth of Gold in Enfield are 2 I can think of instantly, oh and Orion somewhere around Beds too.

If you are after ideas on course layout, Avalon are holding their 2 day 3D event next weekend, if your an NFAS member its an open, why not try to book in and shoot it, or Contact Chris Cox (Club Chariman) and ask him if you can pop up and see what they lay on in terms of target layouts.


PS: I'm south beds based but your easliy drivable from me, so I'd be up for a friendly.

[RichardH]

Thanks for the reply. Having had a chat with the club head honcho, we're going to try and get around 20 people in for the next one from other clubs. He's going to the Avalon shoot on the Sunday, so will be letting people know about it there.

We've done several shoots at Avalon and Cloth of Gold before now, so we have already been busy gleaning ideas

Avalon are lucky to have the terrain they do, acting as natural backstops in a lot of cases - we're a lot flatter, so one thing we have decided as an outcome from the first trial shoot is that we need to get more backstopping in place - apart from anything else it speeds things up by making arrow finding easier.

[Celtic Dragon]

Yes, Avalon's a great ground, I'm lucky in the fact its 3 miles from my door step

The terrain does make good backstops, but makes humping the 3D's a PIA