I have managed to find time to get the results sorted, and you can download a copy here. We have had to correct the golds on couple of scoresheets, as 9s had been counted. I know they are the same colour on the target, but for scoring purposes only 10s count as golds.

We had a bit of a mishap whilst setting out on the Saturday evening, and it appears I got my sums wrong when working out how many target faces we needed and we were a few short on both rounds. Thankfully Jimmy Sandoe had some WA18s in stock and arranged for Anthony Aplin to bring some Worcester faces from Redruth club’s stock. Thank you gentlemen for helping us out!

The next thing to test us was a family turning up whose entry forms hadn’t arrived for some reason. We managed to fit them in, thanks to AOTW member Jon for dropping out of the shoot. Apart from that, everything went pretty well and as far as we know everyone enjoyed the experience. Thanks to all the club members who helped out – without you it wouldn’t happen.

Our next beginners’ course will start on Sunday 17th February. After that sessions follow on 24th February and the 10th and 17th March. We have to skip a week on 3rd March as the hall is booked. Each session will start at 2pm and will last about 2 hours. We will go a bit longer on the first session, though, as it always takes a little time at the start to get everyone set up with equipment. We will give everyone a little longer to get some decent shooting in.

We will provide all the equipment you need, and will get you hitting the target safely at gradually increasing distance. We will also show you the different kinds of bow used by our members.

See here for more details and to book a place. If you have any questions, contact Marcus at marcus@archersofthewest.co.uk or via our Facebook page.

Archers of the West’s next open tournament is our Valentine’s Shoot, which will be held at Pool Academy on Sunday 10th February. Click here for an entry form.

We generally run this as two different rounds, and this time we will have a WA18 in the morning followed by a Worcester in the afternoon. A WA18 is 5 dozen arrows shot at 18m at a 40cm target face. If you are used to a Portsmouth, 18m is a few inches shorter than 20 yards, so most of you should be able to use your normal indoor sight mark.this is 60cm in diameter. The target two-thirds the size, though, which does focus the attention. This does make it harder to get a high score, but everyone is in it together.

You will note from the entry form that entry for juniors is free, as long as you come from another club. Devon and Cornwall Archery Society this year is supporting junior entries from central funds in an effort encourage more juniors to travel to other clubs and join in the competitions.

That was a good, if packed, weekend. It started at 11am on Saturday picking up the trailer, loading it at the rugby club, then shooting at Ludgvan, then packing targets etc. into vans, driving it all to Pool and setting it all up. The redesigned stands for the foam bosses worked well, although a little tweaking will improve them still further.

We had been warned by the school that the heating wasn’t working, but when we got there we found that one heater was actually running, and with an extra couple of heaters that Paul brought in it actually wasn’t uncomfortable. We had a couple of last minute no-shows due to illness and injury, and we wish them a speedy recovery, but we were pretty close to full.

Once under way the shooting went very smoothly, with John Nunn looking after the proceedings as judge. We know there were a number of people there as their first competition, and as far as we could tell, they and the more experienced archers all enjoyed the experience.

The handicap award was won by Haydn Bridge from Redruth Archers as he managed the biggest improvement on the morning score. The winners of the awards for the total combined scores are listed in the full results list, which can be downloaded here.

Thank you to everyone who contributed, by setting up, donating raffle prizes, driving vans, booking the hall and all the myriad other things that need to be done for an event like this.

We’ll be doing it all over again for the next one on 10th February, but I’m not thinking about that just yet…

Once again a circus is visiting Hayle Rugby Club and will be putting their Big Top in the top field. This means we will not be shooting on Tuesday 28th or Thursday 30th August. These events raise money for the rugby club and so help keep the fees to a minimum, so we don’t begrudge the occasional break from shooting. We will be shooting as normal next week, until the end of September. We will then be moving indoors.

For may years we have done a series of clout shoots through the summer season. They are only at 100yards rather than the usual maximum of 180yards. This is all we can fit in our field, but it is a nice way to spend an evening as an alternative to the standard targets. The relatively short distance put it within reach of everyone, regardless of bow weight.

So, what’s a ‘clout’, anyway? The term comes from an old variant of the word “cloth”, and refers to a small flag which is placed in the ground. We aim to land our arrows in the ground as close to the flag as possible, and scores are awarded accordingly. A whole round is three dozen arrows, shot in ends of six.

This summer, weather permitting, we shall hold a clout on a Tuesday once a month at Hayle Rugby Club, on the following dates:

24th April
22nd May
26th June *edit: changed from the 19th as a few people are away at Dunster Week*
24th July
21st August
18th September

We aim to start at 5:30pm and will do a double round if the light holds out long enough.

Archers from other clubs are very welcome to come and join us for these events. Please note, though, that because this is a shared sports field we don’t allow all-carbon arrows to be used, for the simple reason they are hard to find with a metal detector. Wooden arrows are OK, mainly because they fly slower so tend to stick up in the ground and are easier to find.