At our AGM on Thursday Allan South and Colin Levy finally managed to stand down from their respective Committee posts of Secretary and Treasurer.  Dave Martel voiced our sincere thanks for the many, many years of hard work that both have put in for the club, looking after its’ members and finances across some changing and sometimes challenging times. The club is in a good place at the moment and it is in no small part due to their leadership and governance.

As well as their roles on the Committee both have played a key part in the introduction of new archers to the club and sport, starting at our beginners courses and continuing through coaching and support both at Manor Park and indoors at the Dome. We are sure they will continue to support the club and members, but without the responsibility which they have both shouldered so well.

I am sure that members not present at the meeting will want to express their own  appreciation at club shooting sessions.

The 1st Vintage Recurve Challenge was competed for at the SCOA annual Sheriff’s Western shoot, using bows from the 80’s and aluminium arrows. Only two archers competed this year, Paul Clay and Peter Webb. But it does look likely that there will be quite a few more archers joining in the fun for next years challenge!

Paul was shooting a Yamaha EX Alpha with ceramic limbs, Yamaha sight, AGF stabilisers and Easton X7 arrows with 4 inch feathers. Peter was shooting a Hoyt Gold Medalist with carbon limbs, AGF sight, Arten stabilisers/TFC’s and Easton X7 arrows with 2 1/4 inch spin wings.

The day started with a moderate breeze and Paul took a commanding lead early on, scoring 100 for the first dozen, he was even leading the main recurve event. Peter had made a few errors and only managed 76 for the first dozen. As the day went on the wind got tricky and Peter fought back to close the gap.

Going into the last end Paul had a 2 point lead and shot a strong 50 for his last six arrows, but some how Peter managed to shoot his only 6 gold end of the day, scoring 54, to take the win by a 2 point margin!

It was great fun to be shooting the old bows but very hard work, modern bows are definitely easier to shoot!

Please be aware that we will now be hosting our Open Nationals and the CWAA Novice championships on the 21st July 2019 at Manor Park rather than  at RGS the Grange.

The event will also have two sessions. Revised event details MA Open with CWAA Novices 2019 Entry ManorP v3a

Yesterday in blazing sunshine and 32 degree temperatures Evesham hosted the latest episode of our longstanding match.  As always the atmosphere was incredibly friendly with Archers helping each other regardless of their club.

The match was settled on a combination of straight scores (3 Compound, 3 Recurve, 1 Longbow and 1 Junior with the addition of the best 5 handicap adjusted scores from each team). The last bit is important as it is the ingredient which really does make this a match where Archers of all levels of experience have an opportunity to make their contribution to the match result.

The Compound matches are always top notch and this year was no exception, Jacquie Holmes of Evesham showed why she was last years National Series ladies champion, by shooting 96/96 golds. Our own Dave Martel and Kathi Thompson and Evesham’s Tom Hennessy and Sarah Trout are regular sparing partners.  Arron had a peep site issue early on which provided an extra challenge in claiming our 3rd scoring place ahead of Jeff. Jeff don’t follow so many of my arrows out of the gold next time.  Evesham had strength in depth too, with Peter shooting 800 and Linda Haines, better known as a Recurve Archer of some distinction, but now a convert to the dark side, smashing her PB with a 798, with the help of some Martel words of wisdom.

Both teams had Recurve archers on County duties at Lillishall,  which allowed others to shine, Team Hurst had a great day for Malvern with both Beulah and Kevin contributing to both Straight scores and handicap adjusted scores. Thanks also to Dan Webb for our best adult Recurve score and Sonja for the best adult handicap adjusted score. I just managed to edge Laura for the 3rd Recurve place, though not with a score I want to remember.

Mac Crisp took our Longbow place and beat Stuart. Fang was not far behind Mac and ahead of Allan on this occasion.

I’ve already mentioned that Beulah had a good day and she managed to maintain focus despite shooting alone on her boss. We were delighted to see Ben and Annie tackling their first competitions, both can be very proud of how they represent us, lots of things learnt to take forward to other competitions in the future.  Ben really got his eye in at 20 yards and had the highest Handicap adjusted score of the day as a result.  Shooting with Ben and Annie was Frejia from Evesham who had the highest Junior score of the day, she scored for the target and set a great example of sportsmanship.

Some of our team had to depart soon after the match so missed out on the buffet and having their photo taken with the trophy. We still need to look to our current and perhaps the next generation of Juniors to get back on level par with Evesham who have a commanding lead in match results, but this is the first match which has not gone with home advantage for the last few years, so perhaps the tide has turned.

Thank you to our hosts Evesham and well done Malvern.