Well what a perfect day, I’m sure all of you who managed to attend would agree!
We started setting up at about 4.30am and the shoot got underway at about 6.15am. Angie Bray and James Mason started the shoot with both of them symbolically shooting at a Cancer Research target, it was the ideal way to start the day and I must say Angie’s shot was fantastic.
We had 17 target bosses up and all of them were being used from the off, with over 30 archers there from the beginning, more archers arrived throughout the day to take part. In addition lots of old and new friends turned up throughout the day to say hello, see how we were doing, help out and donate further funds. Bacon rolls, burgers and hot dogs were served throughout the day together with a rather nice range of home made cakes that had been donated to the event. Both archers and visitors were extremely generous in their donations for the food, I saw one person donate £20 for a hot dog for example. The weather was fantastic, a little bit windy which is ideal as it gave us all the excuses for bad shots and lovely and sunny, although it did leave us all a bit red in the face by the end of the day.
Lots of archers took part for at least part of the day, some shot as teams for the whole duration, we would love to mention all of these people by name but haven’t the space here, and a hard core of individuals managed to literally shoot from Dawn to Dusk, these people deserve a role of honor: Martin Ross, Alex Ross, Andrew Lockwood, Luke Jeffery, Tom Taylor, Dave Quemby, Bob Kaminski, Dean Edwards, Kate Baker, Morgan Baker, Millie Baker, Jeremy Beasley, Jennifer Beasley, Stuart Chappell, Mick Lovell, Dave Birch, Joe Burlington, Dave Williams and Glenn Taylor. Of all the archers mentioned a special comment must be made of the three juniors who shot the whole day, Alex 14, Morgan 11 and Millie only 9, they were about the only three who didn’t grumble and I think could have easily carried on for longer!
In addition to the archers we were backed up by some great people for the whole day, Heather Bayliss judged for the entire time, Geoff Denny helped set up & take down in addition to being the master of the metal detector looking for arrows and shot at least one round (yes shot!) and Allison and Jack Taylor cooked all of the food and made all the drink throughout the day (with a little help from their friends along the way).
We drew the day to a close (after shooting 3 Windsor Rounds and a short Warwick round, breaking county records along the way, a total of 354 arrows over 15 hours ,as much of our time was spent looking for arrows as shooting them), with the fantastic, hair on the back of the neck, sight of all the remaining archers collectively shooting at 2 Cancer Research targets. Followed by Angie and James shooting 2 final arrows into the Cancer Research logos, a fitting end to, as Angie said, “a perfect day”.
The scores are now available, thanks to Dean Edwards for their preparation.
We would like to thank a few individuals/clubs who made this event all possible: Andrew Lockwood managed the fund raising, Martin Ross, Ian Adkins and Long Buckby Archery Club for organizing the event, Dave Quemby, Rob Marshal & Bob Fricker, who not only shot but helped set up the day before, throughout the day and at the end (special thanks to NAC for the loan of their fantastic gazebo) and NCAS for their support. I know we haven’t mentioned every individual who helped but we did really appreciate everybody who contributed, take a look at the excellent pictures and you will see who was there.
We know that a massive amount of money has been raised and we will post a figure once we have a total, thank you to all who have made a donation, if you haven’t there is still time just visit our just giving page at https://www.justgiving.com/NCASArchery1
Finally I would like thank the one person who the whole event was about – Chris Mason, Chris touched all of our lives and it was testament to the effect he had on all of us that we wanted to be there to celebrate that we were privileged to have known him, and in some cases he even touched the lives of people who didn’t know him and they wanted to be there too. In return Chris rewarded us all with perfect weather for a perfect day, thank you my friend.
Glenn W Taylor
County Chairman
Photos from the day courtesy of Steve White and Dean Edwards
