Disappearing beginners

[john rowland]

Originally Posted by phil_r_58

And sadly, so shortsighted of the elitists. I once asked my mate Mike, why he spent so much time with the beginners and improvers, when he could be practising. His thoughts ?

• Helping others gave him a sense of satisfaction

• He felt less guilty about missing course clearing days, when he was encouraging new members to stay, so was helping the club in other ways.

• As with Erika's spot on reply, encouraging other good archers in the club up the ladder pushed him higher, he got tough competition even on practise days.

• When he was looking for sponsorship, it did not go unnoticed by sponsors, that not only was he top shot, people could approach him, and bought equipment he recommended. He could promote equipment, not just shoot it.

• The killer thought ? When the day came he was getting too old, he could rightly say that not only was he unbeatable, but his students would also be unbeatable and deny his rivals the top spot. And they did !!

But then again, he was not an elitist, You don't have to be elitist to be World champ.

All this was of course discussed over several pints of real ale.

ahhhhh
real ale brain food John

[flamingbladerider]

Sounds like a true archer of the sport. Not many of them type of people about, but hopefully we can strive towards that goal !!!!!!!!!!

[john rowland]

Originally Posted by ruthmc

There was an idea floated at our club for a buddy system, but unfortunately it never came to anything because the experienced archers essentially divided themselves into two camps, both of which said "No".

Camp 1 (myself included ) believed that we were not good enough archers ourselves to be able to help anybody else.

Camp 2 decided that they were not prepared to give up any of their own shooting time as they were training for tournaments, rankings, etc.

This just left the coaches and assistants, and they couldn't do it because they were too busy running the beginners courses!

I haven't been able to figure out a way around it yet, although I have a few ideas.... mainly around boosting the confidence of the archers who have a lot more to offer than they believe they do

This has long been a bone of contention , no matter how many promises i get all come to nought , i am a couch on Sundays i train learners and the children leaving me no time to follow up the new people i have trained , so i thought up a differant way to do follow ups and teach good bow efficiantcy plus tuning, i have set aside three hours on Saturday morning specificly for that and it works well , i am more relaxed because there is no pressure with a small number of archers its possible to give good advice and reasurance that they are doing well , John