Joining a club

[karamajo]

As a novice, I'd appreciate any comments on the subject of joining a club.

My nearest is an hours drive away and the beginners courses are few and far between - none available until next year it would appear. It seems that it is a pre-requisite to take a beginners course before being accepted into a club. I can join the GNAS directly, but will I be able to compete if I'm not a member of any club? I've emailed the GNAS to ask this, but haven't had a response as yet.

At the moment, I'm doing very nicely and I'm very happy with my progress. I'm shooting up to 100 yards and scoring very well. I have a nice set up in a field on the farm here, with no safety issues as the nearest neighbors are over a mile away. I have a full sized boss and proper target faces, and the advice of a friend who is an experienced archer.

If competing means having to join a club and spend a couple of hours a week for 6 weeks commuting to take a beginners course, then it isn't worth it for me. It just adds to expense and takes valuable time up. My thinking was that I could go to a few tournaments to spectate and then take part when I am confident enough to do so, as an individual rather than a club member.

I realise this may come across as being rather arrogant, but it is not meant that way. I come to archery after 35 years of rifle and pistol shooting in a professional capacity and now I'm retired I want to give this a real go, but it seems that there are lots of hoops to jump through before getting into the inner circle (no pun intended).

I'm just at the stage where I have to weigh up the pros and cons of continuing, which I'm very keen to do, but don't fancy having to spend a lot of time travelling. If there's no other choice, then I'll ditch my plans and take up darts :-)

Any comments would be appreciated.

Ian

[TJ Mason]

You can join the GNAS directly, though it's more expensive than joining through a club. I think there are only 35 people in the country who are currently affiliated directly to the GNAS. You'll then be able to enter tournaments, though you won't be able to try for County or Regional prizes and teams since your GNAS affiliation won't include affiliation to a county or region.

One option is just to go to a club and tell them that you used to do archery a long time ago and recently returned to it. They probably won't then require you to do a beginners course. A bit naughty, but it sounds like it would be harmless in your case.

[pelican]

Any chance you could contact this club, asking to be put in contact with the coach there. If you explained your situation, you may be able to arrange for just one session in order to be evaluated by the coach who can reassure themselves you are not a nutter who has bought their own kit, but are a responsible person. This is what our club does if someone comes along saying they have shot before. As an example, we recently had an Australian archer, a young woman working in Edinburgh, contact us, who wants to shoot whilst she's here, so she came out one Friday and spent time with one of our coaches for a session as above. She didn't have a current Australian membership like GNAS, so she couldn't be a guest, which was why we wanted to reassure ourselves of her competence. She was quite happy with this.

If this was possible for you, then you could join the club, even if you didn't go every week because of the travelling, it's still nice to meet up with other archers. You could always mention you are keen to compete, most clubs can never have enough competitive archers.

Because insurance & GNAS membership is tied up with club membership, I really don't know if the club part is necessary, so good luck hearing from GNAS.

Fingers crossed, good luck.

[karamajo]

Ahh....good ideas, I'll see where I get with it. I've absolutely no objection to being 'evaluated' and would love to compete at club level, if I can do most of my practise at home. I'll do as you suggest and see what happens. Thanks!

[cliveanne]

Sounds like you've got the space...Ask the club to come to you