Chairmans View

View from the Chair - by your County Chairman - Mike Spare

1st November 2011

Where do I start this month? Such a lot I would like to say.

As the outdoor season draws to a close I would like to thank you all for making it a very enjoyable season and particularly for supporting the events organised by the County, I think, in the region of 200 archers took part in one event or another. I was really pleased to see a large proportion of new archers taking part and new clubs being formed and joining the Society. I hope you have had a very positive experience and will come back for more next year (perhaps shooting longer distances).

On behalf of all of us I would like to recognise the work that the organisers of these events put in, to enable us all to benefit from their work. As a County we now have 5 events involving County Teams; three League shoots, the Oregon Challenge, the Golden Arrow, the County FITA, and the County Championships. All of these shoots were well supported and very successful. We also hosted the Sydney Bond tournament on behalf of EMAS, and held winter coaching sessions. That is a lot of work and many hours spent on a voluntary basis on our behalf.

At every opportunity this year I have been sounding off encouraging you all to shoot longer distances and take part in County qualifying events next year. In order to give you the opportunity to improve your skills we are again putting on a County Coaching course this winter. I spoke to Marrio last night and for the first time ever we have had to close the course as it is full!!! We have reached the maximum capacity of both the Hall and number of coaches available. Thank you all very much for supporting this venture. (We need more coaches are you interested?)

The large number of those attending this year will mean a lot of preparation work. To that end we held our first coaching conference for many years at Southwell last week. It was a very positive experience and general agreement was reached on how to organise coaching in the County.

As you can see from all the above we are getting our act together, and working as a team to make a very successful County. I am over the moon and thank you all for the support I have received this year.

If you would like to make your views known, all county meetings are open meetings. The next one is the AGM so please come and make your views known, or just come and listen to see what is going on.

The meeting is on

28th November 2011 8pm

The Barn, Ye Olde Bridge Inn, Oxton

NG25 0SE

COUNTY TRAINING SESSIONS 2011-12

Hi every one,

I was part of a meeting of senior coaches who were involved last year to see how we can improve on last year’s successful sessions. We are full of ideas but need to know quite quickly how many of you wish to attend and what level you are at in order to put these ideas into practice. We need this information urgently so that we can book the appropriate accommodation and plan the sessions.

For those seniors in the improvers section (those who have just started to shoot 60yds men or 50yds ladies or wish to be shooting that distance soon and want to improve) we intend to allocate you an experienced coach who will be with you for the entire course. As well as improving your technique they will check your equipment and ensure you know how to tune it. We will be setting goals for you and helping you achieve them.

For those of you who are more experienced we will be allocating you a more experienced coach, to work with you. You will have the opportunity to use slow motion video to help you analyse and understand more fully your individual technique.

It is hoped that Simon Scott will be at the sessions for the compound archers.

This year Lesley Grey will be involved in the sessions as the Junior Team Representative and Manager. If enough juniors show an interest we may be able have a separate junior section for all the juniors together. They will have their own coaches, where as well as shooting, we will be having shorter individual sessions with team building games, shooting games, team head to heads etc. Although not a coach Lesley has been a Master Bowman Recurve, and a Grand Master Bowman Compound being ranked no 2 in the Country at one time. She is well worth listening to!

I am really looking forward to this year and hope to see you at the sessions. I can assure you that as coaches we all wish to deliver a top draw well planned course; at £30:00 the sessions are exceptional value for money (all the coaches give their time freely for your benefit).

I need your support. Please get together in groups at your club and come as a group, or as an individual, I can assure you, you will be made welcome and make new friends during the sessions.

Please let Mario know if you are interested in coming. It is important you do that now in order we can make the final arrangements and do all we want to. No money is involved at this stage.

E mail Mario at homeandgardens@yahoo.com and say that you would like to come, even better one of you send a group of names to him.

Please reply within the next 2 weeks to ensure we can arrange the best course possible.

Mike Spare

Chair

A View From the Chair

How the County Chairman sees Nottinghamshire Archery Society

August 2011

The Tri Counties, a FITA, which is contested annually between Derbyshire, Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire, was held at Burton Bridge on Sunday 7 August. The conditions were mixed and included heavy rain showers and wind.

I would like to congratulate all those who took part in the event. I really think these results are a great foundation for the team to build on for events to come. Despite the rain and wind there were some superb individual performances and all archers worked as a team and did their best.

Bernie is back to his best, ignoring the weather conditions, his injured elbow, and his drive back from Belgium where he is working at the moment, he scored 1333 only 2 points off the County record and came second overall.

John Lane was our top recurve archer putting in a great score of 1206, a higher score than those archers ranked nationally in the top 20 who were also at the shoot. John also put in the second highest score.

The Longbow archers achieved the highest team placing, coming second overall. They were led by Steve Gamble who put in a County distance record.

As well as those mentioned others in the team also put in sterling performances forming a strong foundation we can build on.

We have the potential of putting together a winning team. So what do we need?

The answer is simple; back up for our best archers. We can all play our part in making a successful team.

As a County we are running training courses for archers of all standards throughout the indoor season. Mario will be sending details to all club secretaries soon. Get involved, improve your archery and make new friends on the course.

Take part in the league and other competitive shoots.

If you are new to archery or have been reluctant to go to a shoot, come in a group or just make it known that you are new to competitions I can assure you from experience that you will welcomed and help from more experienced archers will be forthcoming.

Those of you, who are already shooting at 60 yards at your club, push the targets back a bit to 80 and then 100 yards (men only). You probably won’t get all golds and reds, but you will enjoy the challenge and then wish to test yourself against other archers.

There were several new archers who have made the team this year, you can give them a run for their money next year, just enter 2 of the 4 qualifying tournaments, all held within the County, and give it a try. With just a bit of effort and readily available coaching you can be part of a winning team.

Finally I have made it known very publicly that I would not be standing for Chairman this year, I was expecting to hand over to Chris Joyce, and have recently started that handover period by handing more and more over to Chris. Unfortunately Chris has not got over his recent illness as quickly as expected and has asked me to continue as Chairman for one more year whilst he remains as Vice Chair. I am of course willing to stand again to help Chris, and if elected I will start again to take a more active role in the affairs of the County. I will do my best with your help and the assistance of my fellow officers to encourage and help more archers to come to, and enjoy shooting at competitions and longer distances.

Mike Spare,

Chairman