WINTER POSTAL LEAGUE

The indoor season is now in full swing which brings the start of the Winter Postal League shoot. We have two teams entered this year, each will comprise of 3 archers, so come and shoot and if you score in the top 6 your score will help us hopefully achieve top of our league this season (come on Arundown!!!!!)

Proposed dates for the Portsmouth shoots are as follows:

28th November 2010
19th December 2010
23rd January 2011
20th February 2011
27th March 2011

I hope you can all come and support the shoot, looking forward to taking your scores!!

Liz

Summer Selby League Final Results

The results are in for the Summer Postal League and Arundown faired pretty well.

Arundown A came third behind Bowmen of Gower A and Clophill A. Arundown B came second behind Harlequin A.

Many thanks to everyone who participated this year, stay posted for detials of the Winter Portsmouth League... dates to be announced.

National Clout Championships at Bradford

Here are some pictures from the GNAS Clout Championships on 16th October, and also some from the Leicester and Rutland Metric Clout the following day.
Some of the pictures will enlarge if you click on them

Bradford - Saturday

Andrew Neal of Northern Counties introduces the Lady Paramount

Graham and Jon wait for Assembly to begin

Three kinds of Bow  -  Long-, Recurve-, and Rain-

Still, the Lady P found something to laugh at

Unlike some of the archers...

We weren't the only archers to trek up from Sussex, Josh and Richard Britton were there too. Hope to see them out and about next year.

For the Presentations, Liz put on the traditional ankle-length green dress

And presented the trophies. Winners included charming little lads like Tom Wooley...

And then there was David Burnett...

Jon won the Silver Salver for the best clout of the whole tournament, which meant best of all the arrows shot, by all kinds of bow

Liz was runner up in the Ladies Recurve competition by a margin of just seven points...

and she received an engraved goblet and a bottle of wine from her nemesis Tracey Cross, who will be next year's Lady Paramount

The Third-place Lady was 17 year old Maddy Meatyard shooting the full Ladies Distance. Watch this space...

We were comprehensively binned by the Stalybridge team, who are right back on form

Sunday - Rutland
Graham and Jon opted to shoot 185 metres, which is a tad more than 200 yards. Jon was the only recurve shooting this distance, but there were three other Longbows beside Graham, all from Kettering, including Dave Burnett and Russ Duffin (both appear in the GNAS Champs pictures above, Dave in the Awards ceremony and Russ with the Rainbow), and also Henry Sherrey who shoots a terrifying warbow.

Graham was a bit more sensible 

 There was also a colourful longbow archer on the ladies line, a student from Loughborough

Finally - the results. Liz first Lady Recurve, Rod first Gent Barebow. And Liz topped it all by scoring her first Six-Clout-End, and will receive a badge from GNAS. This is a new badge for FITA-sized clouts, and has only been awarded from this year. It is doable, but only a few succeed, unlike the GNAS six clout badge which only one person in the entire western arm of the Galaxy has achieved, and that was using a Compound.

Here it is on his hat...

Clout Training Weekend

The weather stayed good for our 2010 Clout Road Trip, with Rod, Graham, Jon and me heading off the Alton Towers for a day of...fun!?

Arriving at 1pm, our first stop was Air, a rollercoaster that gives you the feeling of weightlessness. With all of us surviving this first ride, a quick lunch stop and then off to 13, the newest rollercoaster at the park. A good ride with an excellent twist...

We then quickly joined the queue for Rita, which does 1-100km/ph in 2.5 seconds. The waits were quite long for the rides, waiting on average a little over an hour. So we all stood and laughed a bit at the poor people sat at the front of the ride who insisted on looking like they weren't phased with there hands up ready to go. They looked slightly different when the ride started though! As did we, see lovely and flattering picture below (although Jon strangely seemed to have the appearance of someone riding the teapots on every ride we went on!!).



With time running out we had a last ditch attempt to squeeze one more in and went for Oblivion, the vertical drop rollercoaster, and there was no queue! I must admit that when we were stopped at the top waiting for the inevitable drop, I realised I had reached my limit for the day and was quite pleased when we emerged out the other side.

So a fun packed adrenaline filled day was followed by a chilled out shoot the next day at Bowflights in Birmingham.

Ideas please for the 2011 Arundown road trip......

Cheshire Cat-astrophe (Weather-Wise)

This bank holiday weekend treat was the second visit to Neston Archers at Clatterbridge in Cheshire. Last year we trekked there for the very first Metric Tassel award shoot, and this time we were in the Wirral for the very first Tri-Clout Weekend, which had cunningly been timed to catch the first real gales of Autumn. We arrived on Friday evening after a six hour drive and were immediately invited to join Dicky and Roz Summers and Ian Hawke from Hampshire for a barbecue supper - bliss! They were lending Liz a tent, which had already been pitched, and after tucking Rod's tiny tent between two others for protection (there was already a bit of punch in the breeze) we were all set up for the night. During the night the wind grew stronger and there were some quite heavy showers too.
SATURDAY: The first event of the meeting was a 2-way GNAS clout, shooting first with the wind, and then back into it. The wind also increased in strength through the day, so it was a particularly tricky shoot. The kind of weather that defeats longbows as they often can't reach the distance on the up-wind leg, and would you believe it, Liz had picked this day to do her first-ever longbow Clout.

But, using Vlad The Trusty Longbow, not only did she manage to score a few points into the wind unlike most of the contestants, she also built up a very useful score downwind, and ended up in a very strong second place behind Roz Summers, and picking up the first of three medals and a Patron's award (a nice £10 voucher for kit) won over the weekend.

The Cheshire County Clout Table is covered with a new Green Cloth - and among the badges sewn to it is one of  ours.

Now you may think the strong wind and the occasional rain spoilt the day, but it really didn't. We togged up in waterproofs and carried on regardless.

Saturday night was very windy indeed, and some of the tents in the encampment started to flap around quite violently. All the same, they all held together (the ground was very solid and great for holding tent-pegs) and even more surprisingly none of the archers bivvy tents that had been set-up the previous evening blew away overnight.
SUNDAY was the Cheshire County Championships and Open Shoot Day, the round a one-way GNAS Clout. The wind wasn't finished yet, and it developed into probably the strongest I've ever shot in (no need to stop the shoot as there was no danger of the targets blowing over! - not over, but one of the Clout flags did blow away). The pop-up tents were lying down like wheat before the wind...

and the bacon-butty kitchen had to scatter and re-group in the Neston Club Shipping Container when their Gazebo and awning suffered irreparable structural damage.

Liz was second in the Ladies Recurve Open category, three points behind the winner. Rod was third in the Gents barebow.
By the end of Sunday the sky had cleared and it started to get rather cold. Fortunately the wind moderated too, and by Monday morning the wind was reasonable and the sky a gorgeous blue, which is how it was for the rest of the day.

MONDAY: This time the round was a FITA Clout, the distances almost the same as the GNAS distances, but the scoring area considerably larger. Liz was using the Eolla in the Ladies recurve category at 125 metres

and Rod shooting barebow at 165 metres

Another good day for Liz, but once again not quite the gold medal, she shot a personal best (and County Record) to tie with the winner on total score, but was beaten on Clouts.
And that was it - apart from the sheer terror of driving round a corner on the way home and coming face to face with the Uber Meerkat of Nantwich

2010 ARUNDOWN ROAD TRIP!!

An idea has been hatched for a road trip for any of our archers who may be interested...

The plan is to go for some archery training at Alton Towers on Saturday 4th September and then, using all our training, go to a fun clout shoot at Bowflights club in Birmingham. Then return home on Sunday evening.

Itinerary would be as follows:

Saturday 4th September:
- Leave early morning to arrive at Alton Towers for 11am
- Fun packed day of childish mahem followed by...
- Pub Grub and Overnight stay in TravelLodge in Birmingham

Sunday 5th September:
- Clout shoot at Bowflights
- Drive back home

Cost would be approximately £90 including petrol.

Anyone interested? Please email Liz as soon as possible as to keep costs down and to make sure we get rooms we need to book this weekend.

Everyone welcome, I guarantee a brilliant weekend, and lets face it, a club photo on Oblivion would be so good!!!!!

lizbowyer@ntlworld.com

Promoted! Arundown win at Hurst Green

Just as England were crashing out of the World Cup as expected, Arundown was bucking the trend by winning the 3-way Decider for the Albion League 4th Division against High Weald and Crawley with a score of 3003. Probably helped a little by the County Match against Essex as three of Crawley's best had been selected. But mostly because there were very few compounds in the opposing teams so the recurve scores stood a chance of being competitive. The team was made up of Jon (786), Alex (768), Graham (762) and Liz (687), with Alex and Liz getting Personal bests.
The only down side about being promoted is we won't be shooting in the League at this ground and against these people again. Those of you who weren't there missed something really good, not only was the weather superb, also the field, the company, and above all the catering, were magnificent.
High Weald are offering to host a friendly shoot later in the Summer - my advice is make sure you get to it!

Another good weekend 13th June

Well done Alex for a great second place in the Ditchling Windsor

A Busy Weekend 5th & 6th June

Several notable achievements this weekend:
Target: Heath is Top Compound at the Crawley Western Shoot
Clout: Sussex Champions: Liz Lady Recurve, Emily Junior Lady Barebow, Graham Gent Longbow, Jon Gent Recurve.
Southern Counties: Liz Lady Recurve Champion - A Hat-Trick; Rod 3rd in Gents recurve 3 points behind Champion

SUMMER SELBY POSTAL LEAGUE

The Summer Postal League has begun with the first shot already held last Sunday - thanks for those who came, especially with the lack of information from me beforehand!

The Postal League will run for five months, with one round being shot every month. The round is a Short Metric (3 dozen at 50m and 3 dozen at 30m on a 80cm target face). Arundown have entered an A and B team, with three archers in each team, top six scores will be used. Dates of the shoots are shown below so any archers wishing to take part, please come along. Start time will be 10.15am, please assemble at 9.45am to help with setting up.

- 20th June 2010
- 25th July 2010
- 8th or 22nd August 2010 (depending on archer availability)
- 5th or 19th September 2010 (depending on archer availability)

I look forward to seeing you!

NEWHAVEN WESTERN TOURNAMENT

An Arundown archer was the winner of the Gents Recurve class - Jon Stafford carried off the winners shield with a Personal Best score of 782. Alex Blows scored a very commendable 713 and finished 9th, and in the Compound Unlimited class Heath Saxby's 807 was very much in the same ball-park as the 1084 York he scored a couple of weekends back, and put him in 11th place. Andy Gent (17th) and John Nolan (18th) were close together at 554 and 553.
The weather held although it looked like it was about to rain most of the shoot.

March Postal Results

A fantastic turnout for our last indoor Postal shoot of the season, and although we had quite a hill to climb to beat Aquarius, we certainly didn't go down without a fight!!!

With an average of 555 needed to beat our opponents and stand any chance of a division win, it was a close run match, but our efforts were not quite enough. Aquarius scored 2774 and we scored 2739, but it was our best score of the league so I think we did Arundown proud!

This month's scores were split as follows:

Hamish Matheson : 555
Russell French : 548
Graham Brown : 548
Alex Blows : 544
Simon Beech : 544

Thank you to everyone who took part, I hope you all enjoyed it and are looking forward to the Selby league which will be starting in May, dates will be announced.

K2 Indoor Shoot

click on the pictures to view them larger

Marc, John, Liz, Heath, Simon and Jon competed in the Sussex / Southern Counties Regional Championships at the K2 centre in Crawley. They all shot a single Portsmouth round, and then Simon shot another Portsmouth before joining Liz, Heath and Jon to shoot in the FITA 18-metre Club Team Shoot - when he began to wonder whether it had been such a great idea to do three rounds back to back. Although his score suffered compared with his normal performance, the team aggregate was almost certainly better than any other combination of members would have totalled at the moment.

The team total was 2017, made up of Heath - 515, Jon - 514, Liz - 508, Simon - 480 which are evidently all Personal Bests! I should explain, it was the first time either Heath or Simon had shot the round, and Jon calls the FITA18 his Round of Doom because apart from this time he's always been below par. As for Liz, this is probably the best she's ever shot indoors, and the same may be true for Heath too (compound bow scores are handicapped by using the 'inner ten-ring'). The fifth member of the team was John who took the scores - and I noticed Andy Galley from Crawley, now one of the regulars at our shoots, stuck with the team through the shoot helping to pull Heath's compound arrows from the very hard bosses.

This was the second Regional Champs at the K2, and for the third year both the SCAS and the Sussex Indoor shoots have increased the number of entrants, this is now a seriously major event with nearly 400 entrants, and SCAS are committed to continuing there. It's great to have such a good shoot on our doorstep, even if some of us get involved with running the show.

Rob was a Field Captain again, and Rod was taking photos through the day and helped on the change-overs and lost most of the skin off his fingers trying to pull Heath's arrows.

RESULTS:
Name    -  Southern Counties - Sussex County
Liz    (Recurve)      -       10   -   4
Jon   (Recurve)      -       21   -  5
Heath   (Compound)  -   23  - 13 
Simon   (Recurve)  -      41   -  15
John   (Recurve)      -     55   -  20
Marc   (Recurve)      -    63   -  26
TEAM     -    10  -  8

February Postal League Results

After word circulated about our competitors (Deben A.C.) having a team member scoring 592, there really was nothing to worry about - as we won our match 2684 to 2347! Well done all!!

Our scores for February were split as follows:

Will Martin : 545
Liz Bowyer : 538
Hamish Matheson : 538
Graham Brown : 538
Alex Blows : 525

We need to pull out all the stops in March as we are up against our biggest competitors - Aquarius Archers....

WORCESTER TOURNAMENT PICTURES

Well... you all endured the cold, and a surprising number said they'd enjoyed themselves.
Thanks for being such good company, and please come again.

Click on the pictures to view them larger