Gordano Valley Archers

The club has now been recognised as a host venue for this years Archery Interchange Ironman Challenge for the Bristol area. This will be 6 or 7 dozen arrows at 30 meters to be shot no matter what the weather.

GNAS Rules of shooting apply. Registration open to GNAS affiliated archers only*.

No refunds will be made for cancellations on or after the 5th December 2008. Payment: Online through PayPal to: sales@archery-interchange.com
OR direct cheque via the shop through PayPal, payable to D. Renton, AIUK 46 Studholme Avenue, Penwortham, Lancashire PR1 9PA
When registering please do not forget to include your AIUK Username.

Awards: Medals will be awarded to the highest overall scoring archers of each classification.

Note that this is set as a limit of 24 and I have 7 already confirmed! This is going to be used as our first official "open" tournament, so if you decide not to shoot , any support, offers of help will be appreciated.

The GVA Christmas meal will be taking place on.... Friday December 5th, 7.30 at The Albion, Portishead. To all those who have expressed an interest, please confirm your attendance this Sunday. A £5-00 deposit per person (non refundable) is required to book your place. Please provide deposit to Wendy. She will also have copies of the menu available to indicate your selection. Children under 18 are welcomed by the Albion, but need to have vacated the premises by 22:00 hrs to comply with the Albion's licensing terms. Hope you can make it.

GVA is currently 4th in the frostbite league (see October news) out of 13 teams, after first round of shooting. Congrats to all who have made the effort!

Now that the website up and running, I am going to try to keep it very active, with updates for members about when shoots are on, news, etc. I ask that if you have any news, photos, information that you'd like to be included or suggestions for changes to the site, you can contact me by email. My email address is in the contacts list, here.

FROSTBITE LEAGUE: The club has entered the frostbite postal league for this winter and need members to shoot once per month to be able to enter this league. We need a minimum of 4 hardy souls to shoot before the beginners course. This is 3 dozen arrows at 30 yards. The top 4 scores (2 unadjusted and 2 handicap) are entered into the league table. This means anyone on the nominate day could be in the team. If we get 8 people we can enter an a + b team.

This should really be an any weather shoot as it is for the hardy folk amongst us. The proposal is to meet at 9am, set up and shoot prior to the beginners course. Going forward, this shoot will be on the first Sunday of the month (this at least gives us time to re-organise should it be really bad weather). I suggest warm clothes, boots and waterproof's for this weekend as early indications are for light rain :-) This is open to all full members of the club of any age.

Early notice of xmas fun shoot: It has been proposed to do an archery darts competition in December with an American lunch. This would be on Sunday December 21st. More details to follow soon.

ATTENTION ALL MEMBERS! The 2008 club championships will be held on September 14th. The contest will start at 11am (make sure you arrive promptly to help set up the range) and will consist of a full 12 dozen arrows. The shoot will be followed by a barbeque, the winners will be announced on the day, and trophies will be handed out at the AGM on Sunday 28 September. I hope the majority of our members wil be able to make it to the shoot, it should be a great day!

Congratulations to Dave Nicholson for winning a first visitors medal for a National round at Exeter on 04/05/08!

In the past month or so, several new records have been achieved. Congratulations go to the following archers:

Nicky Solomon (round: Short Junior National - score 263) (round: Bristol III - score 795*) (round: Short Warwick - score 394*)
Emily Taylor (round: National - score 254)
Paul Maines (round: York - score 580*) (round: New Western - score 396*) (round: New Warwick - score 189*)
Tim Mustin-Twells (round: FITA70 - score 401*)

Tuesday 1 January saw our archers not only taking the chance to shooting outdoors to regain their classifications, but also competeting in our club championships. See our competitions page for more details of the event.

Special congratulations go to Denise Burgess, who set a club record in the ladies under 18 category for a Junior Warwick and to Simon Hall, a returner to the sport, who having just completed the beginners' course, bought himself an intermediate bow, shot it outdoors for the first time and scored a second class National.

This has been an interesting year for the club. The start of the year saw overall membership down on the previous year but with the support of the “old guard” and a dedicated committee this has begun to change quite dramatically.

Senior membership at the end of the year was up by 6 new seniors and more remarkably junior membership had risen to 37 with 3 new members to join us in the new year. The future of the club is looking good. Not just in terms of increased numbers but in the enthusiasm and talent of the young archers.

The club has run the Association for Archery in Schools (AAS) scheme since it was established in 2004. Since this time we have seen a number of young archers achieve the required standard for the white badge. However, in this year we have had awarded 13 white, 6 blue and 2 red badges. The red standard is a real milestone and has been achieved by Emily Taylor and Chris Maines.

Congratulations to all those who have achieved a standard this year. I look forward to awarding many more in 2008.

During the year the seniors have been busy with Tim Mustin Twell achieving his third class after only 7 weeks following a return to the sport after a 30 year rest. Mike Solomon is also to be congratulated on achieving both his third and second class badges this year as a new starter to the sport.

Many new club records have been set (and broken) this year with perhaps the most fiercely being the senior Warwick. A record held by 3 archers since July 2006 – remarkably all 3 scored 324 on the same day! It eventually was broken in November 2007 by yours truly – but I have been assured it will not last long!

The club has benefited enormously this year from the continued work of Dave Nicholson who qualified as an Archery Leader in September and is actively assisting with the coaching at the club. Unfortunately we lost Nick Purdy this year who is also an Archery Leader. Nick is working in Norfolk at present as he pursues his career in sports development. We all wish Nick well and he does continue to support the club when he returns home on annual leave. Hurry back Nick, the store room is getting messy again!

Thanks go to Emily Taylor for agreeing to take on the upkeep of the website – any interesting stories you would like to see appear please do let Emily have them. Her email address is in our list of contacts.

Finally…….. On the 1 January 2008 we held our club championship. Better late than never but over last year either the weather, holidays or illness defeated us so what better way than to start the new year! Weather was good and the archery competitive. It was a good turn out (many I suspect there to try and move some of that turkey) and we were able to compete in every category except the junior ladies (which is a target to improve for this year – no pun intended). I was particularly encouraged by the junior archers whose conduct was exemplary and with the very high standard of archery the club really does have a good future. On the day everyone improved their handicap so the marker has been set for us all.

I would like to thank all the Committee for their hard work; much hard work goes on behind the scenes to enable us to shoot – no more so than by our secretary, Ann Taylor who keeps us all in check and yet does not even shoot. I would also like to thank every member for their continued support. I look forward to seeing you all over the coming year. May your arrows fly straight and hit true.

2006

September

Many thanks to all those who helped with and took part in our second club championship tournament, which was held on 6 August. It was a very successful day, enjoyed by all. We would like to thank those members of the club who worked so hard to make the championship happen, and everyone who has worked hard throughout the years to make the club such a success. Special thanks go to Paul Maines, Nick Purdy, Ginnene Pegg and Dave Nicholson. Thank you for all your hard work.

January

Sunday 1 January saw our hardy souls shooting outdoors on the first available occasion to regain their classifications. We were very lucky with the weather, which was mild, still and sunny. Everyone who was attempting a classification score succeeded.

Those of us who could make it came back for another go on 2 January, again obtaining the classification scores we needed. This time Denise set a new club record for the ladies under 18 Junior National.

2005

This, our first full year, has proved to be eventful and most of all very successful. Many clubs would envy the progress we have made and envy us the bright future we appear to have.

First class - Emily Pegg.
Second class - Nick Purdy, Christopher Maines, Max Nicholson, Amy Pegg, Emily Pegg and Paul Maines.
Third class - Nick Purdy, Christopher Maines, Amy Pegg, Emily Pegg, Max Nicholson, Hugo Johnston, Ashlee Hopkins.
E (indoor) class - Sheena McCullagh.

Red badge - Amy Pegg, Emily Pegg.
Blue badge - Christopher Maines, Denise Burgess, Amy Pegg, Emily Pegg, Sam Pearson.
White badge - Christopher Maines, Denise Burgess, Amy Pegg, Emily Pegg, Sam Pearson, Hannah Porter, Daniel Porter.

Such achievement within a club (and particularly in its first year) is remarkable. Congratulations to all those who have obtained these standards. Let's see who can join them in 2006.

The spirit within the club is fantastic and this was never more evident than at our First Club Championship held in August this year. It was a great day out, good shooting and good food. Thank go to everyone for that day, not just the archers but the parents and grandparents who came to support and help. The sense of a family club was very clear to see.

The success of the club can also be measured in how often we have been asked to hold exhibitions and have a go sessions. All have added to the growing name of the GVA.

Finally we would like to thank those members of the club who work on behalf of us all to make the club a success and enable us all to shoot. Namely to Paul Maines, Sheena McCullagh, Ginnene Pegg, Nick Purdy, Dave Nicholson and Ashlee Hopkins. Thank you for all your hard work which has helped the club achieve its position today.

2004

Sunday 14 November 2004 saw the birth of a new archery club in North Somerset. Four of the five founding members were present to try out the equipment before starting the after-school beginners' courses.

Due to various technical hitches (like the stands hadn't been assembled), we only had time to shoot a four dozen round and even then shot the last dozen or so with the headlights of one of our cars providing 'flood lighting'. This didn't affect the two who had previously shot at Exmouth Archers' Lunatic shoot, but had a disastrous affect on the scores of the other two present! Still, we all had a good time and, as we were all shooting in different classes, managed to bag a club record each (OK, only by default).

Notable achievements - The honour of being the first person to shoot an arrow in the club went to Christopher Maines (under 14s). The first ever gold (sighters) was claimed by Sheena McCullagh, who went on to shoot the first scoring gold as well in the first end. The award for first to land in the woodwork went to Paul Maines (back leg), followed within seconds by Sheena McCullagh. The best gold of the day went jointly to Paul Maines (hole was marked) and then, several ends later, by John McCullagh, who put his arrow in exactly the same hole (we're now thinking of calling him Robin)!

News

2006

September

January

2005

2004