GNAS Policy for Disabled Archers

[jojo]

Just curious as to whether anyone has come accross this problem before.

I have been involved in the running of our club for a number of years. Our club is not registered as a club that can cater for disabled archers. A few years ago a partially blind child and his parent turned up at the club wanting to shoot, apparantly the child had done archery before and was very keen, like I say we were/are not registered for people with disabilities, however the most experienced archers in the club chose to give the child coaching for the evening, one of the issues that worried us at the time was, we moved the target up to about 5m in front of the shooting line, the child could not see the target colours, so we moved the target within 2m of the shooting line and the child could just make out the gold, ok so the coaching started and it became very apparent that the child had the potential to be very dangerous on the line both to himself and to other archers as the arrow fell off the rest and he couldnt see the rest to put arrow back on. So at this point I being in charge at that time had to stop the child from shooting, needless to say the child was extremely upset and left the shooting range.

Now the fun begins, we didnt hear any more about that night until a few years later we heard through the grapevine that our club was being heavily critisised by our local area association, yet no one official approached us.

Apparently and Ive not yet had this confirmed, if a club is approached by a disabled member of the public and the club are not registered for disabled, then GNAS will provide a specially trained coach for that disabled person, all the club need do is provide a safe shooting range, if after the six weeks grace period and the said person wishes to carry on in archery then GNAS will maintain the coach at the club or the person and coach will move to another club which can cater for people with disibilities.

Have any of you come accross this type of issue before and what are your experiences of it. Just curious as our club cant be the only one in the UK to have had this happen.

[stever]

Our club is a registered disabled club and we are lucky that our head coach is registered to train disabled people. 3 of us have just finnished our level 1 and are now looking at training for VIP and disabled, cant find anything within GNAS, we are told to approach 'specialist' organisations. This we are doing will let you know how we go on.

[Bald Eagle]

A few years ago I was lucky enough to be involved in making a video with Visually Impaired Archers. We covered all aspects of disability, tactile sights, rules and regs etc etc. Information can be obtained from Mrs Kath Hall, Durham and Northumberland County Coaching Organiser. See D.N.A.A. website

[stever]

Not available now, they are 'rethinking it'

[SVL]

Originally Posted by stever

Not available now, they are 'rethinking it'

I actually have a copy of this which I am willing to loan out if needed.

Actually have taught VIP archers and it is no different to teaching an archer with no vision problems. I think you should not look at the disability but what the archer can do and work from there.