Maintenance and More

Last Saturday was a scheduled club maintenance day and plenty of members turned up at midday to help out before the usual, scheduled, Saturday afternoon round. The job list included:

• repaint lines & colour markings (Imperial=Red; Metric=Yellow - I think!)
• drill legs on bosses
• repack bosses
• strimming under targets
• tidy storage containers
• tidy clubhouse
• repair arrows

Of course, the early arrivals got to choose their jobs, while those who arrived later got the remainder.  My first job was drilling the legs of the target frames so that they could be pegged down, reducing the risk of movement when arrows are being pulled.  Some of the bosses had already been drilled, but there were plenty that had not.  The next job was repacking the bosses that are constructed from layers of high-density foam, which tend to become mis-shapen due to the impact and pulling of arrows.  This was one of the more bizarre tasks, which involved lying the boss face down on the ground and then jumping up and down on it.  The last of my tasks was using a petrol brush-cutter to cut the grass under the targets and other places, where the lawnmower cannot easily reach.  The greater part of this task was getting the thing started!

I don't have any photos of me drilling, jumping up and down or strimming, but here is one of Alan repainting the white lines (which were mostly straight).

After a packed lunch we got down to a Warwick.  Most of the experienced archers shot a standard Warwick (60Yds/50yds), with some shooting a Short Warwick (50yds/40yds).  I pushed myself further than the previous week and moved up to a Junior Warwick (40yds/30yds).  The step-up in distance from 30yds to 40yds was similar to the move from 20yds to 30yds and I didn't find it too daunting, although I did have more misses.  I also seemed to make less stupid errors this time. I will start a separate page to record my scores, once I have had them verified by the club Records Officer.  However an online calculator suggests that my current handicap is around the 80 mark.  Of course, I will need to shoot a few more rounds to get an official handicap.

No Sunday shooting for me this time as I was out all day shadowing a group of scouts around Headley Common, making sure they didn't get too lost during a Challenge Hike competition.