As we are now in to 2017, I thought it would be good to look back at all the achievements the club had in 2016. It proved to be an exciting and successful year for the club. Below are a few notable highlights.
As a club, we won our first HAA Recurve Summer League match when we hosted Green Dragon in May. This started off a series of good performances which ultimately allowed us to claim fourth place in the league. Our recurve teams also found success in the Selby Postal League. Royston Heath A claimed a hard fought victory in Division 10 where as Royston Heath B were undefeated in Division 17.
We hosted three club competitions during the year. We started out with a Charity WA900 shoot where we raised £85 for Home-Start Royston and South Cambridgeshire. This donation was increased by Johnson Matthey through their employee fundraising matching scheme, which increased the total raised to a respectable £170. Congratulations to Michael, Fraser, Paul, Yvonne and Yvonne for winning their respective categories. We also hosted our 2nd Annual Tag Team Frostbite in which pairs of archers team up by randomly drawing names out of a hat. Archers shot the frostbite round with their best three arrows counting towards their team score. It proved to be a close affair with Jack and John coming out on top. Our final event of the year was our 2nd Annual St. Nicholas Handicap shoot. Once again we had a good turn out from the club and several PBs were shot during what turns out to be a fairly mild December day. Congratulations to Bob who was declared the winner.
There were also several notable achievements at competitions out with club target days. Firstly at the Green Dragon Windsor, Jack and Phil took first place in the Gents Recurve and Compound competitions respectively. As well as individual success both recurve (Jack, Michael, Paul and Jamie) and compound (Phil and William) teams finished a very credible second. In the case of the compounds only three points separated them from first place. We also had archers succeed at the HAA County Western in September.Both Michael and Peter claimed victory in the 1st Class Gents recurve and compound categories and with that were names County Western Champions for 2016.
At the end of the summer, the club moved to a new indoor venue at Melbourne Village College. The hall gives the club access to a full 20 yard range which allows members to shoot a wide variety of AGB and World Archery rounds. Attendance at our Thursday evening shoots has also increased and we are very please people are making use of our newly acquired facility. Long may it continue.
Royston Heath took on a continental flavour during October as we welcomed archers from the Royston’s twinned town in Germany, Großalmerode. At the end of the shoot a lovely trophy was presented to the club to use as a reward for the archer with the most improved handicap during the calendar year. In 2016 this was award to Gary who’s handicap improved from 80 to 51. All going well, we hope to make the return trip in October 2017.
Finally, there were a huge number of personal achievements throughout the year. Members earned many new classifications as well as shooting PBs and records both outdoors and indoors. Congratulations to all our members for their efforts during 2016 and good luck in achieving your goals in 2017.