With the Outdoor season progressing our archers have shown early improvement in their skills, with three club members Andrea Whittle, Clair Crook and Clive Jarrett achieving their 252 awards at varying distances 40, 50 and 80 yards respectively.  It has also been a busy competitive month for the Crook family with Harriet Crook claiming a bronze medal at the Cleve Junior Metric Tournament, whilst Clair Crook came away with a Silver medal at the Redruth Archers “Double 720” and a Bronze medal at the Black and Gold Archers “Hereford” Round.  Clair also attained a black rose award for scoring over 900 points for her Hereford round, during a UK Record Status event.

On the 14th May the club hosted a Have-A-Go session to celebrate “Start Archery Week”.  The event was attended by 8 budding archers of all ages.  The weather was fine and an enjoyable morning was had by our coaches and their new students. 

Looking ahead: 8 archers will be representing South Wansdyke Archery Club at the upcoming Somerset County Championship, this event is being held in the grounds of Dunster Castle on Sunday 12^th June.  A fitting venue. The club will also be present at the St Mary’s, Writhlington, school fayre on the 2^nd July.  Do come along and speak with club members and have a go at something new.

The arrival of April signifies the true start to the outdoor archery season and some South Wansdyke Archers jumped straight into competitive shooting.  Sunday 10^th April saw Clive Jarrett and David Aldridge compete with 14 other recurve archers in an Albion (a 36 arrows shot at each distance 80, 60 and 50 yards), hosted by Bath Archers.  Clive Jarrett received a bronze medal, with David placed forth.  The pair were back in action at Bath Archers on Saturday 30^th April to compete in a Double WA70m (144 arrows shot over a 70m distance).  Clive repeated his third place with 1040 out of a possible 1440 points.  David picked up 5^thplace with 1019 points.

April was a busy month for two of our ladies, Sophie Young and Harriet Crook.  Competing across Essex and the Midlands.  Sophie Young picked up a silver medal at West Essex, but it culminated in competition at a National level, in The Archery GB National Tour (stage 1) over the weekend of the 30^th April.  Saturdays saw a qualification WA70m (72 arrows at 70m) leading into a head-to-head knockout.  In the senior women completion, which included recent GB World cup gold medallists, Sophie qualified 29^th to set up a meeting with 4^th ranked Sobieraj Malgorzata from Aire Valley Archers, where she lost 2-6 in sets.  In the Under 18 category, Harriet also qualified for the knockout stage where she met eventual 3^rd placed Emelia Hughes.  Sunday was a double WA70m with Sophie 21^st and Harriet 14^th overall.  An honourable mention should go to one of their support team, Clair Crook, who herself picked up a bronze medal at West Essex.

Closer to home, club archers have been enjoying the fine weather and have been progressing in personal achievement awards.  Andrea Whittle was successful in attaining her 252 award at 40 yards, the award is aimed at improved accuracy at increased distances.  Simon and Andrea Whittle attained consistent results to attain 2^nd and 3^rd class archer classification respectively and will aim to progress higher in the classification levels as the season progresses.

The club were delighted to welcome back six of our beginner’s course attendees as new club members.  They shot their first full scoring rounds, which count towards the attainment of their handicap.

Finally, 14^th May see the beginning of “Start Archery Week” and the club will be hosting a Have-A-Go session for anyone interested in trying the sport.  This will take place on the morning of 14^th May.  Booking is essential, please see our website, https://southwansdykearchers.co.uk/ or Facebook page for more details.

2021-22 has seen a busy and successful winter season for South Wansdyke Archery Club.

In November the club presented a strong showing at the Somerset Country Archery Association (SCAA) Indoor Championships.  Clair Crook, placed 4^th, was named SCAA Champion for ladies compound archery.  Clive Jarrett, 6^th, was SCAA runner up for men’s recurve archery and as a result has been called up to County Level training for the first time.  Janet Ross was 3^rd and SCAA runner up for ladies recurve.  Sophie Young and Harriet Crook were placed 1^st overall and SCAA Champions at U18 and U16 respectively.  The Senior and Junior teams both crowned Indoor Champions.

At the 47^th Grand Western Archery Society Indoor Championships, Clive Jarrett demonstrated composure to score 526 out of a possible 600 shooting at a 40cm target 18 metres away.  This ensured 6^th place.

Harriet Crook and Sophie Young continued to attend Lilleshall National Sports Centre to participate in Archery GB’s National Age Group Academy.  This is part of the national performance pathway to identify, nurture and prepare athletes to realise their potential as Performance Archers.  Sophie also attends the Conversion Academy as a stepping stone for young archers into senior international competitors.  Harriet  gained the ArcheryGB recognised status of Junior Master Bowman – U16.

Throughout the winter the club has been competing in the Somerset County Postal Leagues, scores have been submitted by members who have completed a “Portsmouth” round (60cm target face at 18m distance) indoors and/or a “Frostbite” round (80cm target face at 30m distance) outdoors.  Teams comprise four senior or three junior archers.  In all, thirteen members submitted scores to contribute to the club’s final league position for each discipline.  South Wansdyke were crowned both Senior and Junior Champions in the indoor Portsmouth league with strong representation from Mark Smith, Andy Young, Sophie Young and Clive Jarrett for the Seniors and Sophie Young, Harriet Crook and Charlotte Whittle for the Juniors.  In the Frostbite League the Senior Team were placed 2^nd overall and the Juniors 3^rd.

During February and March the club hosted 12 beginners, aged between 8 and 60.  The clubs Archery GB qualified coaches developed the new archers skills.  A further beginner’s session will be held in the Autumn.  If you are interested, please visit our courses page on the website.

The club now looks forward to the summer outdoor season

Clive and David took part in the 2022 Bath Albion, which hadn’t been run for two years because of Covid, and after a very enjoyable shoot with bright sunshine for most of the day, Clive finished in Third, winning the Bronze medal with a score of 794 and 38 golds. David finished fourth with a score of 772 and 41 golds which was a personal best for the Albion round.

I thought the evening was off to a bad start when the bar had no cider for my shandy.

However the lager was ok and the evening progressed with Sophie’s music to break the silence, my singing distracting Clair, Simon finding he scored twice as many without his new clicker as with and Clive adjusting his bracing height each end.

However I think we all enjoyed ourselves and the best thing was, by the end of the evening we had all talked Charlotte into entering the Somerset Indoor competition as part of team South Wansdyke with Harriett and Sophie.

Five archers from South Wansdyke Archery Club competed in the 2021 Battle of Britain Archery Tournament at Burnham Company of Archers. It was perfect shooting weather, and was a really enjoyable and well organised competition. It was a WA 1440 round, shot over around six hours with breaks in between each shooting distance.

Sophie came third overall in the Ladies Recurve with a score of 1154, and was the highest scoring Ladies Somerset Archer at the competition. Harriet came fifth overall with a score of 1031.

Andy came ninth overall in the Gents Recurve with a score of 1049, and David came tenth with a score of 1007.

Clair, shooting her new Compound bow, scored 1137, and came fifth in the Ladies Compound.

The full results are available here.