Success for County Junior at NIMES
Huge congratulations to Penny Healey, a member of Bowbrook Archers, SAS, and WMAS, who, at the age of twelve, has won GOLD in the Recurve Youth Girls category. Fifteen points clear of the runner up, she won GB's first Gold of the event in Nimes, France.
Well done, Penny.
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Report on the Junior Training afternoon on 10 November 2018
Nine Junior Archers gathered at Eaton Manor to take part in the start of this year’s junior squad training. It was quite a good turnout but anybody who missed this day is welcome to come along next time. This year all the archers are going to have personal coaches and mainly do their individual development work with their personal coach. Time was spent at the beginning of the session in talking to the archers, their parents and the coaches who were there to try and match archers to coaches. Going forward, on squad session days we will focus on preparation for competition, team shooting and dealing with development issues where the archer’s personal coach would like a second opinion.
We spent some time talking about the need to do some regular shooting or training every day. Archers who do not put some effort into their sport by training regularly and practising with a clear purpose in mind will make limited progress. Therefore we talked about how each archer could fit this into their normal day. The overall message was do what you can and little and often is much better than a long session every week or two. It was recommended that archers should try and shoot at least 3 times a week and on the days they cannot shoot do something else archery related.
We had a run through of the theraband training exercises which are shown on the attached sheet. These are exercises that are used by the Romanian National Archery Development Squad. If done properly they train both stamina and strength. They also help strengthen the rotator cuff muscles which are important in shooting and need to be protected from injury. Because they are low impact exercises they are also safe for younger athletes to do on a regular basis. Adults are welcome to try the exercises as well. As the body gets used to the resistance of the theraband you are using either increase the number of repetitions or better still increase the resistance by using a stronger band.
The next squad session will take place in January. There will be a charge of £5.00 a head for this session to pay for the venue hire. I am looking to book the venue over the next few days and then I will post the dates on the website.
Tim
WMAS Champions
Shropshire Junior Archery
Recently 15 Shropshire Junior Archers competed in the West Midland Archery Society Regional intercounty Shoot at King Edward V1 School in Handsworth Birmingham.
Shropshire won the competition and retained the trophy beating teams from Warwickshire-Staffordshire-Worcestershire and Herefordshire all the squad of 15 shot well but at the end only the top 8 scores made the team to lift the trophy.
The shoot also incorporated WMAS v East Midland AS which WMAS won having 4 Shropshire archers in their team.
The Shropshire team consisted of archers aged from 10 years to 17 years and all of them represented the County their clubs and the Sport brilliantly wearing their shirts with pride.
The squad :
Rhian Costall, Megan Costall, Leah Ferriday, Nathan Ferriday, Jessica Hulse, Katie Tonkinson, Lauren Rawlings, Luke Yates, Penny Healey, Robbie Gillman, Toby Wiggin, Tom Wiggin, Katie Mundy-Gill, Violet Walker and Lewis Bodkin.
If you are interested in trying archery go to the Shropshire Archery Society web site and you will find details of all the clubs in Shropshire. The sport caters for all abilities and ages and all the clubs have a junior section.
Ray Fisher
Shropshire Junior Team Manager
Email: rayfisher129@gmail.com
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County Coaching for Juniors
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Open to all juniors (up to 18) who want to improve their archery.
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All bow styles are welcome.
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Archers will need to have their own personal equipment including a minimum of 6 arrows. There will be an emphasis of working towards or taking part in competition and archers should be able to show evidence of having shot at least three rounds.
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Archers need to be accompanied by an adult.
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It is desirable that the junior should have a personal coach. Where this is not possible efforts will be made to pair the junior with a personal coach.
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The sessions will aim to support the work with the personal coach to achieve continuity of coaching.
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They will take place bi-monthly at Eaton Manor. The sessions will be subsidised by the County but a small charge on the day will be taken to help cover costs.
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Sessions run between 1:30 and 4:30.
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Junior Squad Training
I would like to start by saying many thanks to Gavin and Liz for running the county junior squad for the last few years. They had done a very good job but the County Committee decided we wanted to do something else in 2018 to try and bring in more archers with different bow styles and change the emphasis of the sessions. The previous model for the sessions was successful and some of our better juniors have now gone on to the formal talent development programme to be coached by Lilleshall. However feedback from the Juniors suggested the County was very recurve orientated which we want to change. To do this, unlike previous squads, we are not looking to offer any detailed one to one coaching.
In talking to the juniors around the county many of them have told us that one of the things they really hate is that a coach will tell them to do one thing and then as soon as they speak to another coach they tell them to do something else. Everybody gets frustrated and nobody improves.
Therefore we are looking to base this year’s squad around the key relationship between the archer and their coach. I appreciate finding a suitable coach is not always easy and we will try and help with this but the onus is on the parent and junior to find a personal coach. In reality I have run squad sessions in the past and where you have reasonable numbers attending, the ability to find time for one to one coaching becomes severely limited. The only effective way for an archer to improve is to work with a personal coach, over a period of time, with a structured plan. This is best done outside a group environment.
Instead sessions will focus on monitoring archers’ progress against their development plan which they will have produced with their coach, on competition preparation and practice. We are trying to add in the elements that an archer struggles to practice when they typically shoot in a small club with few junior members.
At the moment I have only booked one session at Eaton Manor on 10 November and I will be running a discussion about these proposals. This session is free but there will be a charge for subsequent sessions to cover the cost of the venue hire and fuel costs for the coaches. In the past Shropshire Archery Society has provided a full subsidy and I hope the County will agree to continue some subsidy, but with the small numbers participating it is fairer to spread partly the cost across the people attending.
The first session is open to all county juniors, their parents and all county coaches. There is no need to book. Just turn up. It would be useful if the juniors could shoot three Portsmouth Rounds before they come and bring their scores with them. They should also bring their bows and a pen as there will be some paperwork to be done on the day. After the first session, if there is demand we will firm up some more dates and post them on the website.
Please contact me for further information timswane826@btinternet.com.
On the 16th September 2017 Shropshire took a team to Droitwich, Worcestershire to compete in the WMAS Junior Intercounty Competition.
As team manager I selected a team of 16 archers from different clubs to represent Shropshire.
At the end of the days shooting Shropshire lifted the Trophy.
I am writing this article to say how proud i am to be part of the team .
What a day I am so proud of you all, only six of you made the team for the Trophy but everyone of you was brilliant.
It was obvious to all that you enjoyed the day, the way you laughed, mixed and bonded as a team was noticed by the other team managers.
Your parents must be proud of you, your clubs should be proud of you and you represented Shropshire with style.
Kaitlyn Mary and Rhian claimed a Fita Star award but all of you need to check the web site below to see if you can claim an EAF Cross.
A mention for Holly Hulse who could not share the day because of being unwell on the morning of the shoot, i hope you are feeling better.
Regards Ray
The ArcheryGB outdoor Junior Championship
The ArcheryGB Junior National Outdoor Championships were held at Lilleshall on Saturday and Sunday the 2nd and 3rd of July. It was a very successful event with over 330 archers taking part from all over the UK. The Saturday was a metric event shooting 144 arrows. The weather was sunny but there was a cold wind. Sunday was an imperial distance shooting a Bristol round, the sun shone all day with a comfortable breeze.
Shropshire had a good turn out on both days with 13 archers taking part. There were a number of notable successes. Anja Rawlings shooting a longbow in the U12 events, came first on both days, scoring PBs on both occasions. These scores will hopefully contribute to a National Record. Penny Healey, shooting a recurve in the U12 event, came third in the metric round and joint first in the Bristol round. Charlotte Llewellyn-Smith, shooting a recurve in the U16 event, came first in the Bristol round. Becky Chilcott, shooting a barebow in the U16 event also came first in both metric and Bristol rounds with PBs on both days. Jacob Read came third in both the U 16 recurve events. Other archers from Shropshire include Hannah Blaxall, Lauren Rawlings, Callum Binnersley, Jessica Hulse, Holly Hulse, Rhian Costall, Daniel Bowen and Danny Bannister. They all shot well and achieved PBs. Well done to all of you.