Thursday 30 May 2013

Soaring In The Sunshine

Hail and well met once more friends, time for another peek through the Raven's eyes.

Its been a good month this month, first saw a new PB at our Jubilee Cup Handicap shoot, wasn't good enough to win the cup. But still a good achievement for the day. I would also like to congratulate Shaun Allan for setting a new club record, almost double my PB so I have a bit of catching up to do.

Next weekend saw in our World record statue double FITA star shoot, the 1st at our new home in Knutsford. Though I was only able to help out on the first day, I'm happy to say it went very well despite the constant rain, but being archers, a bit of rain doesn't bother us too much. Coupled by the fact we're in England so we're used to it, just builds character. It was also nice to see so many of our members new and old braving the weather to help the event run smoothly. One of the biggest successes of the day was the food stall, with Wayne as our weekend chef, Tracy & Megan Shaw as our brew ladies and the masses of cakes brought by different members , including those from my good lady.
 
Our monthly medal shoot came next, and once more a new PB for a Warwick was set, but yet it wasn't good enough to win either the longbow medal or the handicap medal. So more practise is needed. It was a very nice evening though nice and warm, sunny and calm, the only downside was as it began to cool, out came the biting insects, wasn't long before I felt something on my arm to see one of the little buggers taking a drink, it was soon squashed.
 
Next was our Phoenix handicap, where I didn't shoot a PB, but wasn't far off. Again it was a lovely day, warm, sunny, little wind. But two more records were set one by Tracy Shaw, and one by Angus Reynolds, so well done the both of you.
 
Last shoot of this month was my first ever clout shoot. This was at Burton Bridge and was a great day out and a whole new experience. For those that don't know a clout (or least a gents) is shooting at a flag in the ground 180yds away, unfortunately none of my arrows were reaching that range, so slight disappointment, but it was nice to really arch and let arrows fly and see how far they would go. Also it inspires to make new set of arrows. I have a low profile fletching cutter, which I can try and this time not whip my fletchings on. So can try to build a tapering jig, which can lead to tapering and barrelling. Ah the joys of arrow making, I really need to set up a small workshop.
 
 

The phrase of the day, during the clout was,"I shot an arrow into the air, where it lands I do not care."

One thing I have noticed over the past year at these open shoots, is that clubs seem to have little bits of quirky kit, for example Chantry bowmen, have goblets for their lunch time drinks, Kettering bowmen have little shot sized tankards for a lunch time tipple. It would be good I think to introduce something like this, though I think we need to start organising some on mass shoots.

Next month sees our first (and hopefully annual) open longbow shoot, all depends how this one goes I suppose. Though we are planning a little surprise for the boar hunt, which I'll tell you about in the next post.

For now I shall leave you with a quote from Milan E. Elott,

"Archer does not get difficult or hard to understand until the arrow misses."