Allington Castle Archers Nocking Point May 2012 Dates for your diary Sunday 6 th Jelly bow Clout shoot 1:00 for 1:30 Sunday 13 th Mid Kent League away 10:30am Saturday 19 th Improver s workshop Sunday 20 th Kent Longbow- Vigo Saturday 26 th Beginners course Sunday 27 th ACA Chairman s Cup 10:00am
Secretary s Sidelines Two weeks ago the coaches ran a Beginner s Course. There were six candidates and they all completed the course and enjoyed themselves. Last week two returned to the Club and joined before starting shooting in earnest using Club equipment until they have purchased their own. If you have any equipment for sale, bring it along or put an advert in the Club Newsletter via Geoff Barker (Main details are bow: - make, length, poundage and arrow length) Captains Corner The Kent invitation shoot was held on Sunday, 8 th April at Vigo. Our club was well represented, with 10 members shooting. The names you will recognise:- Clive Jeffery Ken Bearman David Corke 4 th compound PB 5 th compound 6 th compound The new members are:- Simon Banks and Michael Clark. If you meet them on the shooting line please make them welcome. The new members list is now up to date and ready for distribution. If we meet on the field ask me for one Deryck Leach Karen Maytum Chris Bearman Barry Maytum Wayne Powell 7 th compound 2nd compound 1st recurve 5 th recurve recurve SIR THOMAS WYATT tournament is on the weekend of 23rd/24 th June. I need your help please, so can you let me know when you will be available during the weekend. Full details next month s newsletter. The school secretary phoned me on FRIDAY 27th to say that the boot fair was cancelled due to the poor weather and will be next Saturday May 5 th I expressed my displeasure on your behalf. Check your emails during the week for confirmation. (further update: Saturday is clear for us to shoot but don t expect a parking place in the top car park as that is where the Boot Fair is. Get there before 11:00am and park in the lower car park and leave after 1:00pm) Here s hoping for a sunny May. Colin Alf Kershaw Geoff Barker 3rd longbow 4 th longbow Clive, Karen and Chris deserve special mention in that Clive did another personal best again. That s two in 4 days. After those frustrating years as a recurve Clive, the compounder, has got out. Karen second ladies compound and Chris managed 1 st in ladies recurve, sweet revenge. Very well done archers. That in some way puts right what happened last year, Kent not sending out invites to ACA archers. There is one thing still not right - the Barebow s seem to have been forgotten. Neil has had a word and is being included. Well it is KAA, isn t it. Psycho archery scheme A few things to consider, 1. Do you need 10 s to get that 1 st class or that Bowman score? NO - then why try to place and keep the sight ring perfectly centred on the cross on the target. This is not possible; no archer in the world can position and hold the sight perfectly still on the cross. Even the best in the Olympics cannot do this. So why try. This may sound daft but if you consider the arrow scores of 7 and 5 as good, and you score no less than 5 throughout a round then you will be surprised at your overall
score. If as you aim you see a red/gold in your sight ring then if everything else feels OK, relax your draw hand and follow through. If your group is centrally on the target by the law of averages about 1/5 th of them will hit in the gold, 1/3 rd in the red, the rest in the blue. You work out what that score is over one dozen arrows. The answer is 79- that s equivalent to a 31 h/c at 100yds, a 37 h/c at 80 yds, which is a good Bowman score for a round recurve. 2. Why is timing so important in archery The timing through a shot is very important to the accuracy of the arrow. In the time it takes to very accurately centre the sight ring and hold it, the rest of the shot is going wrong. Either collapsing or creeping, by the time you loose the arrow your form has gone to pot. So if you cannot get the preparation correct, with the sight ring floating around red/gold and in approx. 3 to 5 seconds then it is not going to be a good arrow. You can see this on the shooting line every day, archers struggling to control a shot, the old adage IF IT DOESN T FEELS RIGHT, COME DOWN start again, is never truer. For a longbow the accuracy of aiming in shooting the longbow is inversely proportional to the arrow score, an alternative way of putting it is, the longer at full draw the less control you have over the shot. For the newer archer Mid Kent League Summer outdoor The MKL is a Kent wide tournament that is run during the outdoor season, April to September. There are no entry forms, all Members are eligible to shoot. The matches are on the second Sunday of the month and three are Home and three Away. See the ACA Calendar of dates. On the home matches all club members can, and we would hope, shoot. On away matches it is not so simple as some clubs cannot accommodate more than 12 visitors, so the League organisers have set that as the limit. This away Group has to be chosen with the following in mind. There are two events in one match. First there is the Pure Score group and the second is the Handicap group, the 12 away club members are not the ACA MKL Team, The actual team select themselves on the day by either shooting a top pure score or out shooting their handicaps or both. The teams consist of 4 archers, no more than 2 compounds OR 2 juniors and 2 recurve seniors. The overall score for the teams are the top 4 Pure scores = Pure score team. For the Handicap team the top 4 handicap scores including allowances = the Handicap team As there are two teams the club members invited to away matches have to be a balance between archers who put in high scores, and a group of archers who are likely to out score their handicaps. Before the match day the opposing club Captain needs to know how many, their names, their handicaps and what rounds to be shot. Therefore a list of this away group needs to be compiled and sent to each away club captain about 4-5 days before the match. Also the league has classification rules. These are: - 1st class and above archers must shoot their longest distance rounds, Gents the St.George and Ladies the Albion. 2nd class archers can shoot one distance down IE Gents the Albion and Ladies the Windsor 3rd class archers can shoot two distances down IE Gents the Windsor and Ladies the Short Windsor. For Juniors the same applies. This encourages all archers, no matter what their level, to shoot a MKL match. The St. Georges Day shoot on the 22 nd April was lucky with the weather. The results are up on the website. Thank you all for making this a good days shoot. The MKL scores for April are on our website, see how you and we did. Thanks to those that shot, the handicap team was Dan Heasman, Clive Jeffery, Steve Mills, and Chris Punton. The Pure Score team was Dan Heasman, Steve Mils, Roger Oehl and Sue Williams. Dan clipped his handicap, Sue Williams out shot her
handicap too. We are 5 th in the Pure Score and 2 nd in the Handicap. Safety point When the rope is up between the lower gate by the playground and the play equipment at the end of the shooting line, it is there for a reason SAFETY. This means there are two fields on the shooting line, one close to the playground. Arrows do stray and can end up in the area by the seats and trees. Please do not ignore the rope. It is not an inconvenience it is required to keep YOU safe. Please be aware, be safe. Geoff B From Roger *************************** ******************** The ACA Improver's course has started, six archers signed up and attended their first session on Saturday April 7th. Each archer has established a season goal and has one or two specific areas to work on to help achieve that goal. The session covered the basic set up and centre lining of the bow and we discussed the importance of taking measurements and recording them once the bow is correctly set up. These measurements are used as a reference to help keep the bow set up and alignment as consistent as possible. Checking these measurements every-time the bow is assembled is an essential part of good and consistent shooting. The next step, each archer shot a few ends and areas for improvement were identified and agreed between the archers and coaches. The improvements should be recorded and track to see progress at the next session. Each practice session is used to help reinforce the improvement areas for the archers. Feedback from the session was encouraging. The coaches will discuss any additional improvements at the next sub-committee meeting to help improve the overall experience for our archers. My thanks go to all those who supported this initiative. Regards Clive Twig and Stick ******************** The Battle of Poitiers was fought between the Kingdoms of England and France on 19 September 1356 near Poitiers, France, resulting in the second of the three great English victories of the Hundred Years' War. Poitiers was another battle where the Longbow was decisive; it would seem the French did not learn from their previous mistakes, 10 years earlier at Crecy. In August 1356, Edward The Black Prince was going north from Aquitaine with a scorch earth policy, destroying everything in his path to relieve English garrisons in central France. He had reached Tours but was unable to take the castle and burn it because of the wet weather (it seems to rain a lot in France during this period), the delay allowed King John II of France to travel south with a large army to eliminate The Black Prince, on hearing this Edward retreated south. The French met the English near Poitiers, Edward, because of his experience at Crecy, was in a strongly defensive position, in a plain surrounded by natural obstacles, such as a stream on the left and woods to his back. The luggage wagons, with a great amount of plunder, remained along the old Roman road, the main route from Poitiers to Bordeaux, to give protection to his weak right side. All his men dismounted and were organized in two, or perhaps three units, with longbow men placed in a V- formation on both flanks and a small cavalry unit, hidden in woods at the rear. The attacking French forces were divided in four parts. At the front were around 300 elite knights with German pike men, followed by 3 groups of infantry. See in map below.
times, 7 of them in the last 7 years. Well done you people The Albion Round [1950] (3 doz @ 80, 3 doz @ 60 & 3 doz @ 50 yards) was suggested as a counterpart to the gentlemen s St. George s Round by some ladies of the Royal Toxophilite Society. It was recommended for occasions when time did not permit a Hereford Round to be shot. The English faked flight on their left side, the French cavalry hastily attacked the archers but the English were expecting this. The archers attacked the cavalry, especially the horses because they had less armour, the result was devastating and the attack halted, the French were attacking and retreating at the same time, causing much confusion. (The fact it was very wet and muddy again helped) The main French infantry, about 4000 troops actually reached the English lines but had to retreat, other French troops were also retreating leaving the French King stranded in the middle of the battle. By now the English archers were seriously running out of arrows and started joining the English infantry in the battle. The French King withdrew his sons from the battle for their safety but at the same time, Edward, The Black Prince used his reserves and sent his cavalry (200 of them) around to attack the French flank and rear. This was decisive and the French began to flee but their King and many nobles were captured or killed. France was asked to pay a ransom equivalent to twice the country's yearly income to have the King returned, he was treated like royalty whilst a prisoner and was permitted to return to France to try to raise the required funds. Following some time in France, John subsequently handed himself back to the English, claiming to be unable to pay the ransom, and died a few months later. Finally, only one-fifth of the ransom was actually paid. Poitiers was a repeat of the battle of Crecy showing once again that a good defensive tactic can overcome a disadvantage in numbers. The Kent Longbow Championship is held at Vigo on the 20 th May. They do a double, one way National and it is run by the KAA. Our Captain wishes to get members of ACA to attend, he wants to retain the Kent Team Shield; we have won it 10 I must apologise for this as I only found out by searching for something else, there is a Popinjay shoot on the Isle of Sheppey. Held by Queenborough Archers on Monday 7 th May, registration 9-30 to 10-30, start at 11-00am and the cost is 9 adults. Blunts (arrows) must be used but are supplied, must show I.L.A.A. membership. A bit short notice, venue is Eastchurch Cricket Club. I have more info for those interested. I shot at a tournament at the Castle Moat & Folkestone Club in Sept11. I had a new tent to try out and was putting it up in rather windy conditions, much to the amusement of everybody watching, not really knowing how it went together, I was laughing as much as they were. (Mind you, I didn t get any help; I think they were enjoying it too much) It is in fact an out house tent and during a period of rain, I was sitting in it with the toes of my shoes showing from bottom of the tent to everybody s amusement. Someone even got a camera out whilst someone else was trying to tie my laces together. Archers love to enjoy themselves The British Longbow Society is holding their 3 rd South Eastern Spring Clout meeting on Sat 2 nd June. It will be a double Clout starting at 11-30am and includes sherry before first arrows and tea before prize giving. It will be organised by the West Kent Archery Society and held in Tonbridge. Anybody interested I can scan the entry form and send it to you. Don t forget you Longbow archers; the ACA Longbow Championships will be shot on the Sunday 3 rd June, starting at 2-00pm. We will be shooting a Western round. I was fortunate enough to get first place last year and was presented with the John Wright Longbow Trophy, I ve had it under lock & key since then, it is, without doubt, worth winning. Want to try something different???
A Wand Shoot is being organised by the Mole Valley Bowmen Archery club on Sun 20 th May at Therfield School, Dilston Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7NZ. (Geoff B clash with KAA Longbow) Shooting starts at 1-00pm and will cost 4; all bow types except Compound & Crossbow. 5 doz arrows will be shot at the wand, 6 feet high, 4 inches wide, Lords at 100 yds, Ladies at 80 yds and juniors at 60 yds. Apparently sufficient room to have family picnics, so sounds like a lovely, fun day out. I have an arrangement with Geoff as far as numbers are concerned let me know how many before shooting starts. Well it was 30 when he phoned and when I got there several had gone home and only around 20 remained for tea. On the other hand I took home enough cake for the next week! Jean I was at a tournament at ACA where Roger was cooking & supplying the usual copious amounts of food. Unusually, I had purchased a meat and potato pie, large chips, mushy peas & a jumbo sausage. I m not sure where he had appeared from but a poor homeless man was sitting there and said I've not eaten for two days. I told him, I wish I had your will power. Boom Boom Medieval Society are running a Roving Marks shoot on Sun 27 th May called The Hardy Roving Mark Shoot. This will be held at The Englefield Estate, Reading RG7 5ES. Many of these types of shoot are held at Estates, Manor houses, Castles, Big Houses with big gardens, most have loads of history etc; all have lovely gardens, what a wonderful way to spend a day doing what you enjoy The ILAA are again shooting in France on the 2 nd & 3 rd June, an At the Marks, At Speed and In the cloth of Gold. There is even a tour of an Archery Museum. It is just north of Paris about 2 hours from Calais at the Château de Mont l Evêque. Thought I would mention this early as it is early in June, don t forget, the French know you are coming. Whatever shooting you are doing this month, have fun. Alf ILAA is the International Longbow Archery Association. Social Secretary ******************** I provided teas for the first home MKL in April. Whilst it didn t rain it was definitely cool and very windy. Not good as the water for teas and coffees has to be boiled on camping gaz burners. Both burners blew out at least twice so I sat in my car to keep warm and got out several times to check that the burners were still alight.