14th December - SAA Juniors Excelling

Following excellent performances during the outdoor season of 2007, the following junior archers achieved the selection criteria for the Scottish Junior Squad. These archers were invited to attend squad.

Recurve Boys: Jack Stott, Frankie Keenan, Jamie Paton, Joe Keenan and Calum Lennon.
Recurve Girls: Hannah Stewart, Heather Gordon and Roederer Lyne
Compound Boys: Fraser Young, and Alex Blake
Compound Girl: Emily Blake

The Junior Squad will train at 2 residential weekends at Largs and 3 1 day events at Cluny Clays.

13th December - Compound News from Down South and Down Under

Congratulations to Claudine

Even though Claudine has gone to live south of the border you'll all be pleased to know that Claudine Jennings (Edinburgh University Alumni) has been selected for the Great Britain compound squad. This is an excellent achievement and we look forward to following Claudine's progress in the years to come.

Andy in OZ

Andy Ward is enjoying the start of his year in Australia and has sent in a report and Wishes us all A Merry Christmas

Rocked up at the Sydney Olympic Archery Centre after a few days in Australia just looking for a place to shoot and use a bow press. I was looking for bar jobs around Sydney at the time but I thought I might ask if they needed a little help, by then end of the day I’d help coach two come ‘n’ try classes and a corporate group. I’ve now become a firm fixture in the target shop; we do regular come ‘n’ try classes, beginner’s classes, corporate group and private coaching, in addition to running a small scale archery shop. My prime duties are to fletch hundreds of arrows a week, making layer foam bosses and coaching and maintaining all things compound. Its good fun and providing me with coaching experience past Edinburgh Fresher week and Novice Coaching. Next Weekend we will be holding an archery clinic to provide more experienced archers with some more intense training techniques, mental approaches and equipment tuning.

My shooting is strong; I’ve done a few competitions, unfortunately working in archery I find little time off at weekends to go to shoot. After a trip up to Brisbane for a Double FITA Star I’ve only managed to head to two QREs in Sydney. After some height 1360’s in Brisbane and Erina, headed to Warrinah, just west of Dee Why beach up from Manly on the northern beaches. Overcast, humid, and likely to rain but still with height expectations of the days score, a good long metric left me on the home straight, finally a 1380, which can hopefully be claimed as a Scottish record.

In the New Year I’ll be heading out to New Zealand For the Continental Qualifier, and hopeful bump up my world ranking after over a year clear from internationals after our trip to India. Then late January I’ll be heading down to Canberra for the Australia Day tournament for big prize money and a chance to go against Australia’s big names.

4th December - Hannah is British Junior Champion

On Saturday 1st December we set off to take part in the Home Nations event which takes place during the Junior indoor championships.

This year we had Jack Stott, Jamie Paton, Hannah Stewart and Eilidh Gregory for the recurve team and Fraser Young and Emily Blake for the compounds.

After a long journey down we met up with some familiar faces, both senior and junior, in the bar – strictly soft stuff I can report.

The Home Nations event takes place in the first session on Sunday morning and it was obvious that the two newcomers on the team were a bit nervous, which was only natural, but once the shooting got underway the girls seemed to settle down.

It was a fairly even contest between the four countries to begin with, with only about thirty points between the top and bottom at one stage. Gradually Wales crept up though and finished first, with N. Ireland second, Scotland third and England fourth.

Wales                         3308
Northern Ireland         3290
Scotland                     3257
England fourth            3236

We set off for home after the Home Nations presentation was made, as there were another two sessions to follow before the final presentations were made. With a nine hour journey ahead of us, we could not wait to see if any of our youngsters had won trophies or medals unfortunately.

Good news travels fast however, and not long after we had dropped off Hannah and Jamie, we received a text from Hannah to tell us she had been the overall winner of the girls recurves.
 
Hannah is now the new British Junior Ladies Recurve Champion. Well done Hannah !!

Other placings for the team members were

Jamie Paton        13th  in his section
Jack Stott           11th equal
Eilidh Gregory     9th
Fraser Young       6th
Emily Blake        11th

Elaine Gordon

4th December - Bob's Blog

For those of you who don't visit the SAA Discussion Board you'll be unaware that our GNAS National Director Bob McGonigle is running a Blog http://dirscotland.blogspot.com highlighting some of his activities and thoughts on GNAS and other sporting matters during each week. For those of you unfamiliar with blogging this one is in a simple format with each new weekly posting being added at the top of the page, and you've got three weeks of musing to catch up on so get going!!

19th November 2007 - Exciting Development at Edinburgh University

The future is bright for Edinburgh University Archery Club (EUAC) as Edinburgh University have announced their intention to develop a state of the art archery facility located beneath the existing archery range. The development costing £700,000 will be part of a £5 million extension of the Centre for Sport and Exercise (CSE) at the Pleasance.

Each range will accommodate approximately 7 archers on the line with maximum shooting distances of 40m in one range and 30m in the other. They will be kitted out with the archer in mind and will be wheelchair accessible. The ranges are in fact old brewery cellars, located underneath the existing EUAC range. The cellars were last used as air shelters during WWII and are similar to many cellars throughout Edinburgh and some of which are used as tourist attractions.

The existing EUAC range has shooting distances of 18m and 24m and allows a maximum of 5 archers to be shooting on the line at any time the development will more than double the current capacity. The new ranges will be a huge boost to the club which last year picked up the Recurve Club Trophy From the National Outdoor and Indoor Target Championships as well as BUSA Indoor and Outdoor Team Trophies.

The CSE already has some of the best strength and conditioning facilities in Scotland and with the new development this will make the facility world class. Also benefiting from the extension is FASIC the sports injury clinic making the CSE the perfect home for elite archers and squad training days. Discussions are underway with the SAA to investigate the options for allowing archers from outside the University to make use of the new facility and it is hoped that the new facility, which will be finished in 2010, can be utilised by top archers from all over Scotland and beyond.

Denis Johnstone
Edinburgh University Archery Club
archery@holyrood.ed.ac.uk
http://archery.eusu.ed.ac.uk

September

Smoothies v Wrinklies

Banchory 15 September 2007

To finish off the outdoor season, the juniors challenged the seniors to a special event. The seniors would compete against them, but at the junior distances.  Comments varied from “ That could be fun ” to “ That could be embarrassing “ The competition was soon being called Smoothies v Wrinklies instead of the Juniors v Seniors, and this title stuck.

Eleven people in each age group were invited,  however, only seven pairs were able to accept. This, unfortunately, was reduced to six on the day as Frankie Keenan was unable to attend due to injury.

The pairs were
Fraser Young and Brian Strachan
Jamie Paton and James Laing
Heather Gordon and Murray Elliot
Hannah Stewart and Alan Wood
Jack Stott and Hazel Elliot / Peter Lennon
Calum Lennon and Malcolm Alexander

Overseeing the proceedings and ensuring fair play were Bill Gilchrist and Bill MacKay.

The day started overcast, damp and chilly, but with everyone in good spirits, hopeful that it would brighten up. Hopes were dashed when the rain came on. However, after a few ends the sun did try to join us and it warmed up slightly, and we were enjoying the shoot. After the first distance Hazel Elliot had to retire due to injury but Peter Lennon stepped into her place.

By lunchtime it was persistent drizzle and everyone was glad of a break and some food. During lunch Bill MacKay announced there would be a team head to head for some more fun. This went ahead with the spectators ( parents) encouraging their Smoothies and the Wrinklies encouraging each other ! Good fun had by all.

Then it was back to the more serious bit and the rain got heavier and heavier. Eventually the judges asked if the archers wanted to call off the shoot, and it was agreed to finish after that distance two more ends. Wet kit was packed away seems to be quite common this year and a hot cuppa and chocolate biscuits were provided until the scores were tallied up.
Bill Gilchrist had kindly offered to donate the prizes, and acted as our Patron.

One Smoothie, Jack Stott beat his Wrinklie opponent(s) Hazel Elliot & Peter Lennon.
The other pairings were all Wrinklie wins, but it was quite a close fight.
The winners received medals and the runners up got a sweetie dummy ! The winning team were presented with a Quaich.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the experience and would be keen to repeat it.

Better luck next time Smoothies.

Junior v Senior Challenge

Further news of the junior v senior challenge.

As some of you may have heard, there is a challenge match between invited junior and senior archers ( or as a judge has called it Smoothies v Wrinklies) at Banchory this coming Saturday 15th September. The Wrinklies, sorry seniors, will be shooting the junior distances, and the winners will be the TEAM with the highest points, it`s not individual scores which count. 11 juniors and 11 seniors were originally invited, however only 7 in each age group were able to accept.

The Smoothies are Fraser Young, Hannah Stewart, Heather Gordon, Jamie Paton, Jack Stott, Calum Lennon and Frankie Keenan. The Wrinklies are ( sorry girls, you are not as wrinkly as others ! ) James Laing, Murray Elliot, Hazel Elliot, Alan Wood, Brian Strachan,Malcolm Alexander. Lorna Provan unfortunately has to work, shame, so will miss the fun. We are waiting to hear if the invitation will be accepted by someone else.

Hopefully the weather will be kind to the seniors - nothing seems to bother the juniors unduly we have found. If you happen to be in the Banchory area on Saturday, come along and cheer on your favourite team.

August

Scottish Executive Performance Sports Summit

The Scottish Executive have invited the SAA to attend a Performance Sports Summit this month to discuss Scottish Representation on the International stage and possibly the Olympics. Bob Provan will attend and report back. View the Invitation (members' area - login required)

July

Two Lads go to Lord's

As part of the build up to the Olympic Archery event at the Lord's Venue, two of our finest gave a short archery demonstration on the pitch at Lords during the test match lunchbreak on the weekend of 21st/22nd July. They were introduced to Lord Coe and it is believed the wee lad is the youngest sportsperson to appear at Lords. This ten minute video is courtesy of Isobel Davidson

If the video doesn't appear above, click here to open the show in a new window: Archery Demonstration at Lord's (Adobe Flash required)

There will be another event there immediately after Dover on the morning of the 6th of August when GB, India and China will compete in a three way head to head Archery at Lord's. See also the GNAS website

Well done to ...

Well done to Claudine Jennings being the first SAA archer to get their 1250 (purple) Rose. She achieved this with a score of exactly 1250 in pretty bad rain at the Hereford in Maidstone and followed it the next day in 20mph winds with a 1244!

Also well done to Lana Needham(Links) and Emma Downie(EUAC) who will compete for Team GB at the Archery World Cup in Dover which takes place from 31st July to 5th August. Visit the Archery World Cup website to read about the recent Team GB exciting successes.

Junior Euronations Team Announcement

The Junior Euronations takes place this weekend 20th - 23rd July at Gormanstown College near Dublin. The Scottish team will be Joe Keenan, Jamie Paton,Hannah Stewart,Heather Gordon,Jack Stott and Calum Lennon for the recurves and Fraser Young and Leigh Christie for the compound team. As the Junior team have won all their competitions so far this year - Junior indoor champs Home Nations, 3 corner match at Thirsk, challenge match between SAA & N.Ireland at the senior champs and the Home Nations at the outdoor champs last weekend - we will be going for the grand slam. So cross your fingers for us and watch this space........

Junior Successes at Lilleshall Home Nations

Results Archers shot the round according to their age, or a longer distance round. The handicap level for each score was looked up in the tables for all the archers added together to give the total for each team.  The lowest total wins.

1st  Scotland        236

2nd N Ireland       276

3rd Wales            282

4th England         286

Senior Successes in Wales

The weather was fair with a challenging wind for the Euronation Tournament held at the University of Glamorgan on the campus at Pontypridd.

Andy Ward took the award for highest scoring Compound Gent and Lana Needham was the highest scoring Lady Recurve. The Scottish Compound Gents won the team award as did the Scottish Recurve Ladies. England took all the other awards. Full report soon.

Seniors Head off to Wales

The 2007 Senior Euronation Event is being held at the University of Glamorgan, Pontyprodd in Wales on the 7th and 8th of July. So on Friday the team sets of on a long train journey to the competition

Congratulations to Simon Needham, James Laing, Matt Nowicki, Alan Wood, Andrew Ward, Alistair Whittingham and Tim Keppie who comprise the gents teams, and to Emma Downie, Susan Maitland, Hazel Elliot, Lana Needham, Elayne McLean, Josie Herd and Muriel Kirkwood who form the ladies teams. Norrie McLean is Team Manager.

April

Scottish Juniors turn up the heat in Yorkshire

At The Northern Counties Inter Regional Junior event at Thirk on 28th April. The SAA Junior Recurve team came 1st and also won the Recurve Challenge Cup against the Northern Counties. Joe Keen was 1st Recurve Junior Gent and Fraser Young 1st Compound Junior Gent. It was hot and sunny all day. On Sunday everyone competes in an Open Fita 900. - Jim Gordon (Junior Team Manager)

February

Scots on British Team

A number of Scottish archers took part in a demanding day of selection at Lilleshall on the 28th January, all competing for a place to represent Britain at the 2007 World Indoor Championships in Izmir, Turkey on 13th – 18th March.

The selection procedure consisted of two Fita 18m rounds followed by Round Robin Head to Head against all the other invited archers in their class.

At the end of the day Lana Needham (Links) and Emma Downie (Edinburgh University) gained places on the Womens Recurve Team along with Naomi Folkard from England, and Hannah Stewart (Links) on the Junior Recurve Women team. Though Simon Needham (Gents Recurve) and Andy Ward (Gents Compound) missed out on places on th GB team , they were still good enough to be called to compete against the best in Britain for the places.

This is a terrific result for these archers and we wish them all the very best for Turkey.

Full news on this event can be found on the GNAS website