Solstice Silliness

To celebrate the Shortest Day, Rob devised a cruel and unusually punishing Fun Shoot. The turn-out was really good for a Sunday morning just before Christmas, and we needed nine bosses in the hall. The first event was a simple matter of getting the lowest score - except the white area was reduced to four tiny triangles, and there were Hazards in the shape of target pins that worked a bit like the 'mushrooms' in Bar Billiards. You wouldn't think it was that easy to hit a target pin, would you? Hit one and you scored 10 points, and getting an arrow outside the paper also scored ten. Arrrgh!
Longbow, Traditional, and Barebow archers (except for Doug, Rob isn't stupid) had their scores factored down to handicap the recurves, and it was Graham Skinner (Longbow) who got the lowest score of the day.
The other event was only open to instinctive archers, so a lot of the recurvers stripped off their sights and stabilisers and blasted away with the primitive folk. This time we had to spike a Bauble, and as soon as it was announced that the prizes for this feat would be Chocolate, Jane Barnes (Longbow) immediately nailed the first Bauble of the day, no problem.
As usual, click on pictures (thanks, Darren and Nick) to view them fullsize.
Dave seemed to think it was Halloween (or if not, why the red devil's Horns?)

The Curse of Robin Hood

In a fraction of a second of mindless wanton destruction, Lee, one of the beginners in the Beginners Course that finished on Saturday, turned two perfectly useful arrows into one useless Javelin. It's just as well this kind of thing doesn't happen very often.

We've run four Beginners Courses this Summer, two on Friday evenings and two on Saturdays. Once again we've been extremely impressed by the talent and skill of the participants, but we've only got pictures from the Saturday sessions, probably because they were held in a better-lit hall, and outdoors part of the time. So here are some pictures of some notable moments : All-Gold Ends by Kris and Campbell (there were others that weren't photographed) and lots of Hits on the 'Wand' which was set at 60 yards - and even the Juniors were threatening the Wand with some very near misses indeed. Jeff was the star with four hits.  
As usual, Click on any picture to blow it up full-size in a sort of Gallery show

Albion League Decider - 6th September

Our League Division was settled by a 3 way shoot between Hastings, Crawley and ourselves, hosted by Crawley Archers at Hazelwick School. The weather was unusually kind, which may have 'thrown' the two seaside clubs, being more used to a stiff sea-breeze when shooting. Another reason that Crawley came out on top was that they fielded five Compound bows, and two were in their team. It didn't help us that their top scorer had represented GB at the Olympics about five times...
But, we were not the lowest scoring team, we came home in second place which was largely thanks to Duggie shooting  a new County Barebow record as well as picking up 180 handicap points, ending ahead of everyone, including Pauline Swift with her Compound. Iain put in an excellent 826, the highest recurve Albion score of the day, with Liz and Graham giving good support adding up to a team score of 3143, well past the 3000 barrier.
Final Scores were Crawley 3218, Arundown 3143 and Hastings 3069

In the two other Sussex Leagues shot at the same time, Andy was the sole Longbow on the field, and clocked up a Personal Best Albion of 342. Three of our Juniors shot in the Junior League, Marc scored 858, Lance scored 523 and Max scored 427. Novice member Mike shot a very creditable 602 Junior Windsor

Family Feats

Marc Charlesworth had a great weekend at the Junior Nationals at Lilleshall, being part of the winning English team in the Home International, and coming sixth in the Bristol 2 Round in the UK Junior Championships.
Not to be outdone, his father Iain took the Recurve Bronze in the English National Field Championships at Fort Purbrook, while Marc was a creditable 2nd place in his age-group. It was their first-ever Field Tournament...

Winter League results... Summer League dates!

Results for the Winter postal league have now been published. Both A and B teams came a very respectable second in their divisions which is a great result! Arundown A were 25 points and one loss behind the division winners, with Iain Charlesworth coming out as top division man for February and March, and Marc Charlesworth top division boy for March.

Arundown B were 309 points and one loss behind the division winners, 100 points clear of third placed Burton Bridge Archers. Liz Bowyer was top division lady for March, and Marc Charlesworth was top division boy for March.

So a really good result for both teams. To view all the results go to www.bapostalleague.co.uk.

And now.... the Summer Postal League begins! I have setup all the dates which I believe are not going to clash with any shoots that people may be attending. Also, Longbow and Recurve teams will all be shooting on Sundays rather than splitting it between Friday evenings and Sunday. That way we can all shoot together, and there are plenty of brilliant longbow archers who can fly the flag for Arundown this year!

I'll be bringing print offs of the dates this Sunday, longbow archers have a fantastic opportunity to practice next Wednesday at our shoot with COAC!! Dates are below:

Sunday 25th May
Sunday 22nd June
Sunday 13th July
Sunday 17th August
Sunday 21st September

Looking forward to seeing you all, and posting some brilliant scores!

K2 - An 'Acceptable' Solution

This was quite a K2 for the Club. After Liz being Longbow Regional Champion last year, Doug has polished off his first 12 months shooting Barebow by becoming Regional Champion too. And of course the Sussex Indoor B/B champion at the same time, and winning the double round medal too. Liz wasn't quite on top form and came in as Second Lady Longbow in the Regional contest by a margin of only 16 points, but held on to her Sussex title. Marc was Sussex Junior Recurve Champion and Andy was 3rd Sussex Longbow, ahead of last year's second-placeman. Iain was on great form with 566 in the Portsmouth and 534 in the FITA 18.
As for our Indoor shooting buddies, Gavin - probably still affected by the eye injury he sustained just over a week ago - shot 585 in the Portsmouth but was beaten into second place by Gergo's 593, they swapped their order from the Nationals.  The Sussex Record for the Portsmouth Round is 592 set almost 25 years ago by Tommy Hodder, which is also Gavin's personal best, so Gergo was looking quietly delighted.  And Phil came third in the Barebow.
We entered three teams in the FITA18 session, and for the first time got among the Medals with Third Place in the Sussex-only Division. BUT this is a controversial result because the Team, Arundown Accidentals, included a substitute who isn't from Sussex. But what a Substitute, we got ourselves Tomasz Maliszewski who is an extremely useful archer over from Poland teaching at Winchester College, and trains their archery team. When I was handed the score sheets to read out for the medals, the team (Jenny, Liz, Tomasz and Jon) was there in third place, the results team hadn't spotted the substitution.
I guess we can keep quiet about this until the Objection comes in - then who cares if it does, because the next team in line waiting to move up is Arundown Acceptables - Marc, Iain, Martin and Craig.
Our other Team was Arundown Axeman, the only all-Barebow team in the hall, but you'd never have guessed from their Scores and placing. Max, shooting in his first-ever tournament broke the Junior 'Open' Record for the FITA18 round, and Graham, shooting barebow in a tournament for the first time scored a very creditable 420, only 22 behind Phil. Doug was out front with 502, 20 points off the County Record.

ACCIDENTALS

ACCEPTABLES

AXEMEN

Doug's perfect end on 40cm face

And another cracking 10-9-9 Group

Andy at Work

Look at the background

Liz photo-bombing

Well two can play at that game....

What's going on?

Cranial Amplification of course! Simon reckons the radio remote works better if you use your head as an aerial. In my case it's more like Cavity Resonance...

As usual, double-click on any picture to enlarge it

2014 Open Worcester Pictures

Hard to say what the highlight of the day was, the Gents Compound honours had to be split between TWO perfect rounds by Dave Wakeford and Steve Allen, and Steve Baldwin dug deep and kept in front of what must have been the highest scoring 'pelleton' ever to win the single round with a new Sussex County Barebow record. His double score was also a record, but Jason Meehan (from Surrey) nudged his way past to win, and then continued to win the Triple Round. Doug Hendrie was close behind with personal bests, and actually equalled the current Single-Round County Record. Gavin Sutherland was the Gents Recurve winner again, and this time his 297 single will count as a record - last time the same score was ineligible because it was shot on a 5-spot face. In the second round he did even better, scoring 298 for a double round Record of 595. Steve Bowie from Reigate improved impressively on his 2013 score to come in second with 283. Iorwouth Evans got off to a slow start in the first round, but got and better and better and ended with a sizzling 288 to win the Recurve Triple. Linda Palmer EQUALLED both her single and double Compound Records, and Ross Carr shoot a perfect round to follow his 299 first round, winning the Compound Double with 599. Petra Ginman continues to move upwards, and won the Ladies Recurve with 275. 'Our' Liz was in third place behind Gill Wood, with a PB of 263. Andy Vaughan was the lone Gent Longbow, shooting his first Worcester, and his score was only 14 points behind the very experienced Alan Smith's 2013 score, he must be very pleased.  And to make us all feel humble, Michaela Lake celebrated her first year as an Archer with two great County Ladies Barebow Records. The Juniors have some hard acts to follow and there are some Junior County Records from Will Martin and Bryony Pitman that may stand for some years, but Jodie Green got within ten points of the existing Double Record, and has three more years ahead to make it her own.

If you click on any of the photos below, they should open larger in a Gallery