GNAS and publicity

[Adam]

Is it just my imagination, or does the GNAS actually have a PRO or Publicity Officer, or whatever they wish to call him? Would I also be right in assuming that said person is paid by GNAS (i.e. you and me)?

Despite much searching of the weekend newspapers, I completely failed to find any mention at all of either the medals won at the World Champs by our recurve archers or, more surprisingly, the 6 Beijing Olympic places they secured for GB.

Yes, there was some coverage online at BBC Sport, but with the majority of the population still reading a daily newspaper I find if rather baffling that (to the best of my knowledge) none gave the event or the results any space at all.

I did manage to find a five-line, one column mention of, if my memory serves, a canoeist who picked-up ONE Olympic place. We got SIX, for crying out loud. Even the Telegraph, well known for it's willingness to give column inches to "minor" sports, printed nothing.

In this time of electronic communication how difficult can it be to produce a timely and accurate (Ha!) report of significant events from major championships and deluge all of the relevant media?

Hands-up if, like me, you find this - let's be diplomatic - surprising, to say the least.

[Ian_S]

Originally Posted by Adam

Is it just my imagination, or does the GNAS actually have a PRO or Publicity Officer, or whatever they wish to call him? Would I also be right in assuming that said person is paid by GNAS (i.e. you and me)?

Nope, it's not your imagination. GNAS do employ a (freelance?) publicity officer. His email address appears in various places in articles on the GNAS website. There's also a bit about what he does and how to contact him in the latest (first?) GNAS E-news letter.

Originally Posted by Adam

In this time of electronic communication how difficult can it be to produce a timely and accurate (Ha!) report of significant events from major championships and deluge all of the relevant media?

Hands-up if, like me, you find this - let's be diplomatic - surprising, to say the least.

Not too suprising. I've been in contact with him on numerous occasions to tell him about archery successes (usually concerning our Junior archers). Most of the time it is the first he's heard of the event taking place or the results. GNAS aren't the best at letting him know about these things in advance.

As far as getting stuff in the papers is concerned. He did tell me he had been trying and had managed to get the Guardian to print some stuff (not sure what it was). So I'm guessing that he does send press releases out to the various papers etc. But it's up to them to decide to take it or print something about "soccer" teams in LA!!

Over the period of the world champs we did get 3 articles in the sport section of the BBC website. It's not what it deserves but better than the publicity the juniors got for their European success.

[phase]

I was going to post a topic similar to this.

It baffles me that archery gets such a lack of media coverage. Even at the olympics the coverage is scarce. I mean, when you actually sit down and watch archery at the olympics its really quite interesting. I think for people who do not participate in the sport it would be extremely interesting for them to watch.

I think maybe the fact that the majority of people who would watch it just see someone pulling a string up to their face, letting go and seeing an arrow land in the ten ring they think "That's easy, who couldn't do that?". The fact is, they dont understand how long it takes to become that good, how much practice a day, how much concentration, how much mental training etc.

Something should be done to inform people of what archery is about and the work involved. Said publicity officer should get themselves on GMTV :P

Various club open days showcasing archers, allowing people to try out archery etc would be good, a well known website which people can go to where people can find all the info they need (Something I may be interested in creating as a procject at uni).

It is definetley something that should be addressed, sooner rather than later preferably.

[SVL]

I am often surprised at how few archery articles appear in the National UK papers. However, I am keeping my local papers well up to date.
times and star workington lake district, workington news sport, west cumbria news, lake district news
The paper edition had some good photographs to acompany the article, which was the third article in the last six weeks...... and I have more ready to send.
It is turning out to be great PR as our next beginners course is full before it has even been advertised.
If you want archery in the papers ..... start local.

[grantwomack]

The problem is that GNAS would probably have little benefit to employing a full-time publicity officer. Bringing archery successes into light would perhaps mean more archers joining, therefore more fees... but I can certainly think of another one or two positions that would be much more useful than a publicity officer at the moment...

[martin]

Its not suprising at all. As far as anyone with no exposure to archery is concerned,its a boring minority sport.

Sorry to burst everyones bubble but archery is pretty low in the "reportable sport food chain" even with head to heads etc.

[grimsby archer]

I guess I can sympathise with Peter Jones (GNAS PR) a bit. The media is a fickle beast. I am my club's PRo (as well as secretary, coach, webmaster, tournament organiser, etc - you get the picture) I write very regular (some one sneezes at my club, I write about it) articles for my local newspaper, the Grimsby Telegraph. Sometimes they print, sometimes not. There doesnt seem to be any criteria.
A few years ago, our cable tv had a local tv station (ch7) and we invited them to make a program about us. The "program" became 2 miniseries with me personally presenting one of them. They were surprisingly successful and brought us lots of new members. Funnily enough, Ch7 had very low street cred, so most people wouldnt admit to seeing us on there, until you kind of slipped it into the conversation and tripped them up.
Now Ch7 has been "absorbed" by the local "institute" and their priorities have changed somewhat.
It would be great to see archery feature a lot more in the media, but we are a minority sport. Remember how popular curling was (for 10 minutes) Consider that you dont see much squash or water polo in the papers.
GNAS has a great (?) website, but we hardly get any great publicity or reports on there either. Where are the top archer profiles, the upto the minute squad reports, the nitty gritty of the archery world?
Perhaps Peter Jones could report on what he does do, whether it is successful or not, just to give us all an idea of what goes on.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by grimsby archer

I guess I can sympathise with Peter Jones (GNAS PR) a bit. The media is a fickle beast.

As one who earn's his crust in printing and publishing, I do agree with you. But, and this is what really gets me, winning 6 Olympic slots is a big deal in any sport and it ought to get some recognition.

One of the major issues among those archers competing a the top level is the difficulty in obtaining any meaningful sponsorship (and I'm not talking about a sackful of free nocks, or vanes etc here). What makes the biggest difference to any potential sponsor is increased sales or, at the very least, the likelihood of increased sales though media coverage and exposure. If the sport at the very highest level gets no exposure - beyond the pretty simplistic (and often inaccurate) reports on the governing body's own web site - what chance is there that any potential sponsor will be even remotely interested?

There are a lot of talented archers out there working very hard to get their hands on one of those Olympic places. Support - financial and otherwise - is a huge help. Getting publicity and attracting sponsors becomes a (very positive) self-fulfilling prophecy: more publicity means more sponsorship, means more publicity (as sponsors try to get their investement to work for them), means more public interest, means more participants, means more revenue, means greater public awareness at all levels, means more publicity... You get the idea.

There are 40,000 archers in the UK. How many rowers? How many triple-jumpers?

If the GNAS want archery to be taken seriously and properly funded, they need to make waves. Getting our best archers noticed is the easiest way to do so.

I for one would be very interested to see exactly how much info was disseminated during the World Champs, and to whom.

Adam

[grantwomack]

Originally Posted by grimsby archer

GNAS has a great (?) website, but we hardly get any great publicity or reports on there either. Where are the top archer profiles, the upto the minute squad reports, the nitty gritty of the archery world?

I posted about this a couple of week ago. Gary Carr said there are problems with their own access to the GNAS website. Maybe we'll see a Performance Unit website set up in the near future. But how much demand would it have outside of the immediate archer community?

[hypertigger]

Originally Posted by big_bloke_with_a_stylist

Its not suprising at all. As far as anyone with no exposure to archery is concerned,its a boring minority sport.

Sorry to burst everyones bubble but archery is pretty low in the "reportable sport food chain" even with head to heads etc.

have to agree there...
my ex, who was very supportive (still is) came with me to some competitions, and all he did was read... wasn't terribly interesting for him to watch, even though he is interested in sports