© Companions of the Longbow

Companions Trophy

Half Jay pole

Quintaine

Deer Shoot

Siege Game

Lewis & Half Jay target

Shoot in progress

Shoot in progress

Companions Banquet

The Companions of the Longbow Anniversary Banquet at The Trout Inn, Lechlade, (25th April 2009) now has a start time of arrive for 6.30pm and eat at 7.00pm.  For those who’ve never been to one before (and to be fair this is only our third!) there’ll be medieval food, entertainment and the guest speaker.  This year the guest speaker is a bowyer Mark Stretton from DIY Archery who you may have seen a couple of times at one of our shoots or on the telly ...  Tickets go on sale soon!  Details have been updated in the Calendar.

T-Shirt Competition

Don’t forget the Companions of the Longbow T-shirt competition.  The club will be introducing a new T-shirt and we’re asking our members for suggestions for a slogan to go on it.  The T-shirt will be white with black writing and will have the Companions logo on it.  The T-shirt will be sold to the public as a souvenir so should have something along the lines of “I shot with the Companions”…

Entries should bear in mind that the T-shirt will be sold to children as well as adults so no X-rated stuff! The winning slogan will get a free T-shirt when they have been produced and entries can be submitted via e-mail (suggestions@companionsofthelongbow.co.uk).  Failing that just have a word with the nearest committee member next time you’re shooting … Good luck!

Companions Trophy Final

Last Saturday was the second Companions Trophy Final.  Run over not less than 6 months, our archers compete to qualify for the chance to shoot out in the final week’s competition.  The winner and second place of the final each get to hold a trophy for the next six months as well as medals for them and the runners up.  This second Companions Trophy final on Saturday saw eleven qualifying finalists compete over seven unique games to crown the second Companions Trophy winner.  So what were the games?

Well firstly there was a slight twist to the competition this year as each finalist was awarded an ace and a joker playing card.  These cards could played once at the start of any of the upcoming games and depending on which card played would result in the following; playing the joker card meant that for that game the archer would receive zero points but would enable him or her to effectively “skip” a game they did not like.  Playing the ace card meant that the archer received double points for that game depending on their game position.  The rules were that all cards had to be played by the last game (meaning that if they weren’t played by game number 7 then both the joker and ace had to be played at game number 7) and the points awarded for each game followed the same scoring as per the main qualifying rounds. i.e. 10 points for 1st place, 8 points for 2nd place, 6 points for 3rd place, 4 points for 4th place and 2 points for 5th place.

So the games were;

First Game: Poppinjay, or Half-Jay (because the pole was half height).  Each archer had six arrows to hit the stuffed toy held at the top of pole.

Second Game: Quintaine.  Here there were two spins and each spin each archer was allowed to shoot three times.  Of course the careful wording of “shoot three times” meant that if an archer had put two or more arrows on their string they could score quite a bit more than the six available points for shooting six arrows at the targets.  The targets themselves were not the straw butts per se but the shields attached to them.  The quintaine was also spun so that the targets were spinning away from the shooting line.

Third Game: Nearest the Bull.  Every archer starts with six arrows and after each round the number of archers remaining on the shooting line is the number of arrows furthest from the bullseye that are eliminated.  The game continues until the archers are whittled down to the lone surviving archer.

Fourth Game: Deer shoot.  Four pegs were set out to mark the “gates” between which archers could shoot no more than two arrows per gate.  The rules were that the archer had to walk along the gates and without stopping had to nock draw and loose arrows at the deer target.  If an archer stopped or was deemed to be shooting too slowly their round was declared over.  The scoring on the deer was 4 points for a heart shot, 3 points for an inner lung shot, 2 point for an outer lung shot and 1 point for any other shot on the deer.  This game was made harder by the fact that the final “gate” meant the archers had to walk and turn to face back on themselves to shoot. 

Fifth Game: Siege.  Every archer shot one marker arrow from a flat placed 122cm FITA target fixed to the ground behind the hay bales.  They then got a chance to shoot six arrows back to see if they could score hits on a target that was hidden behind the wall.

Six Game: Clout Shoot.  This was a shoot from around a hundred paces onto the flag pole.  The archer with an arrow closest to the pole gained the most points.

Seventh Game: Scoring.  Good old six arrows at an 80cm FITA target.  Scoring was 5 points for a gold, 4 for a red, 3 for a blue, 2 for a black and 1 for a white.  The archer with the highest score came first.

So how did we do?  Will firstly the Trophy qualifiers weren’t the only ones shooting last Saturday.  Those who failed to qualify for the main final were also competing against each other for a Prize of Dubious Worth.  So there’d be the qualifying winner shooting for the trophy and the non-qualifying winner shooting for the Prize of Dubious Worth (something that as past experience has shown us could be potentially truly horrific prize …)

Personally speaking from your friendly neighbourhood webmaster’s point of view, for each game there was the following notable moments …

The first game, the popinjay (or half-jay) Fred managed more than his fair share of on target shots (perhaps because regular readers may remember that Fred’s Archery Room 101 target was a toy frog too (see picture to the right))  For the second game the Quintaine, the second group that came up to the line had worked out that the wording meant they could shoot more than one arrow per “shoot”.  For the third game, nearest the bull, we shot on the opposite side of the hay bales and although we complain about the wind when it is windy, at least when we’re on the “normal” side of the bales it usually blows into our faces and not behind where it shows up whether you need a haircut because of long hair flapping in your eyes…  For the fourth game the deer shoot Dave A. a.k.a. Dangerous Dave is by far the quickest speed archer in the club, hands down.  I’ve tried holding two or three arrows in my bow hand while shooting as Dave does, but all I’ve managed to do is pinch my fingers after each shot (try it and see what I mean).  So how does Dave do it?  Also for this game there was Helen, who was told she had to keep walking but worked out that you could walk backwards as well as forwards on the course … The fifth game, the shooting at the hidden 122cm flat FITA target, both myself and Martin had plenty of time to chat at the far bottom of the field about what mugs we were for going full draw rather than sneaky three quarter draws like all the smart archers did.   The sixth game, the clout shoot, moment goes to Ade who managed either first or second place on a game he had the misfortune to play his joker card on (and thus “skip” that game for zero points).  Finally the last seventh game moment goes to Lewis, who seemed to finish every game by throwing his bow and his hands skyward to curse the God of archery …

So who won?  The top five places went as follows;

1st Mark

2nd Dave A. a.k.a. Dangerous Dave

3rd Martin

4th Ian

5th Andy

In a slight change to the advertised scores Andrew has sent me the results and says that unfortunately Martin and Ian’s places have to be amended to reflect the true 3rd and 4th places.  Therefore sadly Ian came 4th, not third, but happily Martin came 3rd not 4th.

It’s worth noting that Dave A. was shooting with a borrowed 50lb bow (lent by Ade) after his last one broke some time back, Martin has really only just come back from three months off shooting with back problems and it was Andy’s first weekend outside in the fresh air since his collapse at Christmas.  I’m sure Ian can come up with some equally inventive Archer’s Excuses too but personally I was shooting with tendonitis in my left hand and a bad haircut...

Finally the Prize of Dubious Worth went to Helen who was the highest scoring non-qualifying archer.  She won a gingerbread man baking kit.

For those who like the taste of competition remember there’s the President’s Shield shoot open to all members who are able to shoot on the day.  The day itself is Saturday 4th April 2009 where the winners of the Men’s and Women’s competitions will receive their trophies at the banquet on the 25th April.    

Winner mark & Second place Dave A.

3rd place Martin & 4th place Ian.

5th place Andy TB and finally the winner of the prize of Dubious Worth, Helen