It has been great to see first hand the increase in attention that archery has received over the summer. No one can say that the 2012 Olympics was not good for sport in the UK and anyone still doubting the effect on Archery should simply check the ArcheryGB link copied below.
To quote from ArcheryGB’s page “The sport is at number five in this year’s top trending sports in Google’s annual zeitgeist report, a figure supported by the sharp rise in Archery GB’s Twitter followers – now well over 4-thousand – and the level of traffic to our website. Traffic to the Archery GB website is up this year, and an average of 4,500 people read the web pages every day – soaring to 20,000 a day during the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics!”
This heightened interest in our sport has resulted in over subscribed beginners courses across the country and not least here in East Northants. AoR’s beginners courses have been running back to back over the summer and will continue to do just that into March 2013 and no doubt into the summer of 2013. Better still, with the club struggling for members I was potentially looking down the barrel of a gun when I took over as Chairman just eight months ago and now we have over 50 shooting members and the number is growing monthly. Let’s not forget that this has mainly been down to the clubs coaching staff, strong committee and the massive benefit of the Sport England Grant that has enabled the club to invest in new beginners kit to enhance peoples initial archery experience.
So everything is rosy and good in the archery world??
Well, yes, for the moment!!
Whilst we will continue to do what we can at the ground roots club level, it will be interesting to see how the powers that be at county level around the UK and at national level will work and invest in the sport and local clubs to build on the success that was 2012.