This week you friendly neighbourhood webmaster didn't shoot due to a committee meeting scheduled for Saturday and so , because the main Companions Trophy has now finished and I run the Companions Challenge this means that this week's news has been written based on information generated from the meeting rather than the shoot. Don't worry though, next week's news I'll be back to writing about missed shots and how “rubbish” our archers are!

Upcoming Events for 2009

As things are confirmed they’ll be posted up in the Calendar page. We’re still in negotiation with some of the things that are planned but I can tell you that in no particular order the following will be happening in 2009;

Have-A-Go at Roves Farm over Easter—two day event similar to last year on the Easter Sunday and Monday.
Lighting the Bonfire At Roves in November—We’ll be trying to get some distance this year so lots for fire arrow practice needed.
Have-A-Go for Nick’s Stag Weekend At Roves—dates to follow but it’s in the Summer sometime.
Have-A-Go at Crecy—This one will be a big trip, your chance to go to France this Summer.
Possible Show & Have-A-Go at Sherwood—A weekend event similar to last year, pencilled in for sometime this Summer.
Have-A-Go and display at Margham Country Park—After last year’s success we’ve got a chance to shoot in the main arena. Planned is to get Le Chat dressed up as a knight and shoot him with blunts. How often will you get that opportunity?
President’s Shoot in April—up for grabs are the ladies and men’s trophies that will be awarded at the Anniversary Banquet.
Anniversary Banquet in April—A medieval feast with a guest speaker and entertainment.
Companions Trophy Final—Currently planned for sometime in February.
Range Captain Qualifications—April’ish. Your chance to shape how the club shoots!
Plus more Companions Challenges, possibly another League before Mark goes (although I’m looking for people to take this on and I’ll be happy to “train” you up and provide tonnes of advice).
So, as I said, these events will be confirmed (and added to!), they’ll be e-mailed to you and posted up on the Calendar page for easy reference.

Safety

We always discuss safety at meetings and after a brief discussion about the merits of warning our members not to wear open toed sandals after the coldest periods in many a Winter we decided to highlight the issues surrounding arrow collection.

As Safety Office I’ll be running through the arrow collection procedure again at least once per shoot over the next month or so. Arrow collection currently creates our club’s most often repeated concerns and that’s why we need to continually drill people on the correct way to collect them.

In addition to the usual (approach targets from the side, only two archers per target removing arrows, everyone else stand clear etc) we’ll also be trying to encourage our members to only collect their arrows from the person holding all the shot ones. This will be difficult as we’re a helpful bunch and it’ll be hard to resist passing back someone else’s arrows but at the moment concerns have been raised that we can have arrows being passed backwards and forwards in all directions with the associated increased risk of getting a jab in the face.

While we’ve not had anyone jabbed just yet we’re trying to pre-empt this and so your co-operation in limiting the amount of arrow passing will be appreciated. Basically please be patient with me over what might appear a rather pedantic new request!
And Finally ...

That’s all for this week.

And Finally

As always … got a suggestion or question for the club (or committee)?  Send it to suggestions@companionsofthelongbow.com or send them direct to any of the committee members e-mail address (see Contact Us page for these).   There’s also a Suggestions Box in the first shed at the Roundel.  It’s tucked in on the right hand side of the door, is blue and is marked “Suggestions Box”.