Wand Magic

Following the first double-session weekend, when it seemed everyone was grouping all their arrows in the gold (one picture at the end of this post, more to follow soon), the beginners group headed outside this afternoon and tried shooting at a 'wand' placed 50 yards way - three times further than than the furthest they'd shot so far.

 The Wand is the white upright line just to the left of the cellphone transmitter mast

 

It took a few attempts to work out what to do, but on about the fourth end Chris got a hit - but it bounced out. But it wasn't long before he did it again.

And another three ends and both Lindsey and Rory did it too

The Wand is tricky and cruel, sometimes it looks as if the arrow must have passed right through, it can be right behind, and still missed. The ground around the wand was thick with arrows. Then Dan got TWO hits in the same end

 You'll see  there's an arrow near his foot, touching the wand but still not scoring. It was one of Annie's, and she missed by a hairsbreadth...

Then on the next end, Dan did it again....

 And he hadn't finished because the did the same on following end

In the first two sessions it wasn't long before the gold was taking a real hammering, starting with Keith and soon followed by Lindsey and Fergus

If you click on any of the images, they should open up fullsize in a gallery

Loads of Records - and Trophies

Continuing the Barebow theme...
Doug won the Gents Barebow segment of  the Eastbourne Rose Tournament with a huge personal best score, which was also his third qualifying Master Bowman score, so he'll be at the UK Masters next Summer. Clearly a club record, and well on the way to the County Record.
Michaela travelled up to Oxford and broke the county Ladies Barebow record for the Ladies FITA round, and also two of the Distances too.
Liz shot her first Barebow Clout at Southampton, and boosted the Sussex Ladies Records for the single and double AND won a Purple Tassel Award with a score of 176 - that's the highest grade of Tassel.
A pretty successful weekend - well done!
Postscript - 2 weekends later...
 At Warlingham the nasty following wind knocked plenty of points off, but everyone took a medal home...
Graham Skinner was 2nd Surrey County Longbow;
Graham Brown was top barebow Gent, both all-comers and visitors, with what was a singular score under the weather conditions (G.Skinner's score was also singular); Jon Stafford was 2nd Visitir and Rod Brown 3rd;
Liz Bowyer easily won the Ladies Barebow and came close to a purple-award score with 170, beating two of the top lady recurve clout shooters, and second only to the 2011 National recurve Champion.