It is with the deepest sadness that we inform the county of the passing of Christine Marshall.
Chris, a long time member of WOAC, and also an NCAS committee member in several roles over the years, passed away in the early hours of this morning. She will be dearly missed by club and county.
Our condolences go out to John, Karen and the Marshall family. John posted on the WOAC Facebook page earlier today to say āPerhaps, when you are able, you could shoot an arrow in her memoryā.
Hello everyone,
As you know when I organised the NCAS charity shoot in 2019 I told you all that I would repeat the madness in 2021.
My aim, if the pandemic allows, is another dawn to dusk shoot as we had great fun and the sessions allowed people to do as much or as little they wanted.
This year we will be raising money for Cransley Hospice (dear to the hearts of many in the county for care of members of our archery family), again the East Midlands Air Ambulance (as we spent the money we raised on an emergency at an archery field in the county) and Young Minds which is a charity aimed at supporting children and young peopleās mental health.
So I would like you to firstly, take a look at your calendars in 2021 and I would like to set the date for the end of June – let me know if there are any issues that I might need to avoid. Also, if the pandemic prevents it as the dawn to dusk format please have a think of ideas if we need to do something a little different.
Wishing you all a healthy 2021 and hope to see us all back out shooting soon.
Helen Sharpe
Wellingborough Open Archery Club
Hello,
I would like to take the opportunity to introduce myself though I do know some of you.
My name is Rose Sharpe and I am the new NCAS junior representative.
Who am I?
I am a member of Wellingborough Open Archery Club and the junior ambassador at Aim4sport.
I started shooting in 2017 and enjoy shooting competitions. I am proud to have been able to represent the county on a number of occasions and I train regularly to let me do that to my best ability and for the last 2 years I have been on the National Talent Development Programme.
I know some of you but I am pretty sure there are some juniors in the county I have never met.
Why did I choose to be your junior representative?
I became aware that as my brother was stepping down from the role and no one had come forward that the role would be empty.
I think itās important that we have a way to make our opinions heard within the county meetings and felt it was important someone did the role.
But to do that, I need your help.
I canāt represent you if you donāt let me know what you want talking about.
So the first thing I did was ask the committee how I could communicate with you better.
As juniors we canāt all provide an email address as safeguarding is always the most important thing. At the moment we have to hope the adults see things and pass them on but everyone is busy and things get missed.
So the county have agreed that I can produce a newsletter and they will have it checked, printed and posted to allow you to get it directly.
To be honest itās nice to get a little something in the post too.
So what I need you and your adult to do is drop a message to Pat Jones as county secretary to confirm that your adult is happy for us to send you my newsletters, if those who donāt want one let her know too that would also be great as then we donāt have to worry that you didnāt get this message we know you saw it and donāt want to receive one.
So thatās who I am, I hope to meet you all soon as we try and get a little normal back with 2020 having been a strange year.
And if you can just ask your adult to message Pat at: secretary@ncasarchery.org.uk
To let us know if you would or would not be happy to receive post from me.
If you could let her have your postal address too that would be great.
See you all soon
Rose Sharpe
“Just want to say thank you to Wellingborough OAC for opening its range for the county last Sunday 11th October, to give archers in the county a chance to have a go at the Postal 2020 shoot!
It was great to catch up with those that attended and the weather was great. Again a special thank you to the team Paul, Peter & Helen and those that I canāt remember the names of.”
Martin Ross
County Team Captain
Having returned the club and members to shooting in May one of the biggest issues we have faced has been mental health.
The fear and uncertainty that has come with the pandemic and the unknown situation it has created.
The stress of lockdown followed by the new stress as lockdown was eased and how we try and live in this new normal.
Having restricted numbers and social distancing has been especially hard for the juniors who haven’t been to school, seen friends or family and now with the booking system couldn’t really shoot with their club friends either.
As club safeguarding officer seeing the toll that this has all taken is hard and as someone who suffers with mental health and knows what archery brings me to help with that I felt it was important to look into ways that we, as a club might be able to help.
Spending some time talking with my husband, Paul Sharpe, who as a club coach ordinarily supports the juniors, I then reached out to Gaynor Hutchinson who is a senior coach at Aim4sport and this is where many of our juniors go for different levels of coaching.
A plan was agreed and we have now held two monthly sessions at the club with Gaynor, Paul and myself to allow the juniors to attend coaching sessions with their peers and relax with parents encouraged to leave them and come back later.
We are seeing most improve, relax, communication has definitely improved and so many more smiles!!!
As part of this they wanted a competition, most compete regularly under ordinary with a number pulling on their county shirts.
With this in mind we arranged a 720 for the 23/8/20 thanks to the return to competition being released.
However, at the last minute, due to local events it appeared we would have to cancel as the sports ground that includes the WOAC field has been barricaded.
Gaynor, Dave and their club members stepped in to offer the range at aim4sport for the event to go ahead.
Yesterday saw 8 of the juniors on the shooting line take part in their first competition since February.
With the Aim4sport club members moving over and sacrificing their distance shooting to allow them to take the main range.
As with any competition there were smiles and frowns but even those who were not happy with their scores were thrilled to be on the line.
I cannot express enough the pride in seeing those juniors step up yesterday, remembering how they first walked into the field in May and our gratitude to everyone at aim4sport for sharing their facilities to allow the juniors to have their event.
Having always believed that relationships can be created to help us all within our sport and most certainly that the spirit of pulling together is key to the current circumstances – this has most definitely been proven this weekend.
Helen Sharpe
Wellingborough Open Archery Club
