Work has taken over again this week and for that reason I apologise for the late posting of this message.
However, last weekend was yet another great weekend for Archers of Raunds with yet more personal achievements. For a small club, it is truly amazing how our archers continue to push themselves towards new goals and to achieve them.
The successes from last weekend include Shane Brown, who was shooting at the Evesham Archery Club with illustrious company (Naomi Folkard and Larry Godfrey) on site shooting the Worcester Indoor County Championships. Shooting a FITA 18 (Triple Face) Shane shot a 363 in the Senior Gents category and set a brand new AoR club Record for the round.
At the club, we were scheduled to shoot a FITA 25 and Martin Davis posted a personal best with a nice 477 and Mick Bowerman pushed his personal best score to 481. Lauren Phillips shot the round for the first time and established an AoR Ladies U18 club record with a 344 and a score that she knows she can improve on.
Having shot a 399 last week, Imogen Neville opted to shoot another Portsmouth round in an attempt to break the 400 barrier. Shooting with Ruby Paul, both girls settled into some serious competitive shooting and Imogen obliterated her previous personal best and smashed through the 400 and 450 barriers to post an amazing 471 (remember that she has only been shooting a few short months.
Ruby recently upgraded to one of the clubs aluminium risers and with arrows borrowed from Steve (thanks Steve) she settled down scored an impressive 397 and she’ll now be wanting to find those extra few points to break that 400 barrier.
And finally, I can’t ignore a huge personal achievement from Louis this weekend. Those of you that were shooting with him on Saturday, and who know him, will know how hard it must have been to pick himself up to shoot on Sunday at a new distance and immediately following a less than easy Saturday practice session. I know that he was pushed (encouraged) by several people, not least Leza but he dug deep and was rewarded with a solid performance and one end where he packed the gold with arrows. It was great to see that smile again and for Louis to be set for the week.
For me, this whole posting underlines the best of archery. If it can take just one person each week who is in a bad place and help to put them into a good place then everything is worthwhile. If several people can set themselves personal challenges and then achieve those in a friendly and unpressurized environment, then that is even better. Archery is the perfect sport for this and I’d recommend it to anyone who needs a low pressure personal target (goal) based challenge. Now I guess I really ought to get back to shooting sometime soon.
Congratulations to all of you and please keep those personal achievements coming as we head outdoors in just a couple of weeks time.