Bridge Woods Field Archery Club

Newsletter

From the Chairman

I am delighted to report that I have good news on a number of fronts.
We have a new and even better wood. I still have a few final details to sort out and a licence agreement to sign but we are 95% of the way towards agreeing terms to use part of Berry Court Woods, a privately owned 50 acre wood just the other side of Lodge Hill Camp at Chattenden no more than a mile away from Beacon Hill. The landowner is a nice guy and wants us there, we will have access to more space than we have at the moment, and we can have access on more days of the week. I hope to get this all signed up and agreed before the end of the month.
The slightly less good news is that we are very likely to be given notice to quit Beacon Hill Woods come March. This means that March will be a very busy month making the move. We will need at least one workday each weekend, possibly two while we dismantle our current course and facilities and plan and build on the new grounds. This may well limit shooting during March, but I hope that you will understand that this is unavoidable. I will do my best to organise things so that some shooting is possible. I am quite happy for members who come and help on a workday to shoot after the work is done and the course declared safe. I will turn away any who turn up unwilling to help but wanting to shoot. We need you to do your bit, please understand that until we have done the work you will not be able to shoot. We will not be able to complete the work in short time unless the majority of members turn up, so come and do your bit..
As we will at times have a critical need to contact members at short notice to ask for help, I would urge all of you to give us your email address. If you do not currently receive your newsletter by email we do not have an email address for you. Please send me an email at markdesignhill@aol.com. This will be an enormous help at this time so that we can quickly and easily keep in contact with the majority of members.

I will be organising an outing to our new wood in the next few weeks, so we can walk the area together and so you can see what our new home will be like. This will be subject to agreement with the woodland owner and due to the short notice will be published by email. If you want to come, give us your email!

We have extended club membership until the end of March. This has a number of benefits. It has got us through the period of uncertainty about the club's future when members were not sure if the club would continue, or whether the new grounds would be close enough to them. It coincides with NFAS memberships so avoiding a 3 month mismatch. It also moves payment three months away from Xmas, which cannot be a bad thing!
We had a fairly good turn out at the AGM a month or so ago. It would have been nice to see more of you there, especially as some issues of great importance to the club were discussed. We now have over 210 members, making us one of the largest clubs in NFAS. I am very glad to have seen the club grow as it has since I became Chairman. A growing club is a healthy club. As we have such a lot of members it is difficult to know everyone but it is good to see so many enthusiastic archers enjoying themselves in our sport.
I would like to thank Penny for all the hard work she has done in the past for BWFAC. As a one-woman whirlwind, Penny has been actively involved in almost every aspect of the club for many years. Quite a few of us would not be members of BWFAC without the work she has done as Secretary, Coach and many other things. Though she has stepped down from her committee role to spend more time on her horse archery interests I am sure that we will see her and hear her at the club from time to time.
I would like to thank Lisa for her stint as Treasurer. Lisa kept our finances in good order and was a welcome addition to the committee. She is now involved in a challenging barn conversion in Norfolk and has thus stepped down from the committee. I wish her and Barry well for their barn project.
I would like to thank Bruce for all the work he has done as our Field Officer. In his quiet way Bruce has managed his small team and ensured that the course, targets and faces are available for us to shoot. I hope that it is as easy to keep the horses for your horse archery in the right place as it was with our pegs and targets!
There are a number of new faces I am happy to welcome onto the committee. Welcome to Martyn Bould, who bravely stepped forward to be our club secretary. Thank you to Alan White for volunteering to be our Treasurer. Thank you to Colin Nicol for agreeing to be our Field Officer. Thank you to Colin Hockley for offering his help as Membership Secretary. Thank you to Kevin Kitchener for agreeing to continue as our Coaching Organiser, Safety Officer and First Aid Officer, and thank you to Peter Broad for continuing as Ordinary Committee Member. I know that we, as a team have an challenging task ahead of us in organising the move to new grounds, but I know that we can and will do this as a team, with the help and support of you, our members.

             Mark Hill

From the secretary

Hello everyone, my name is Martyn Bould and as you have guessed from the heading I am the new Club Secretary voted in at the AGM in January.

I have now taken over from Penny to who I wish the very best of luck in her horse archery venture with Bruce down in Ashford.

I have been an archer since 2004 after being asked to do a G.N.A.S Leaders course at Buckmore Scout Camp site, (I was at the time an active scout leader with the 21^st Medway Scout Group.) so that the archery team could expand and teach have a go archery not only to scouts but other youth groups. Since Buckmore closed I have been running archery at Hope Hill scout camp site in Meopham.

Having joined BWFAC at the end of 2006, I have been keen to learn more about archery and I now shoot BB, hunter and this year longbow.

As you most probably have heard we will be moving from our present site to a new site this year, so there will be a lot of work going on preparing for the move.

I will at the club most Sundays but if you need to contact me, here are some numbers;

Home 01634 400026, 1800-2100hrs

Mobile 07843624625 Please Text only as I drive for a living, but I will call back as soon as possible or in the evening.   

                             Martyn Bould.

Ordinary committee member

As you have read in Mark and Martyn’s sections of the new letter there is a lot of work to do in a short space of time and we need a commitment from you the club members to help with the large task ahead of us moving to our new club grounds.

The immediate work required on our existing ground is to remove as much rubbish as possible, especially with our new landlord coming to visit our existing club site on February 17th. We need to make a good impression, in particular our ability to look after the course and grounds.

There will be a lot of work to do to make the move happen. The club hut and toilets will need to be dismantled and further details of when help is required will be published at the club hut. Ultimately the targets on the existing course will need to be moved to our new grounds. The new club grounds will need to be cleared of undergrowth to allow access for the club hut, toilets and the new shooting course.

As Mark has said the new ground is larger than our existing wood and there is a lot work to do before we can start shooting, just moving targets to there new positions will require a lot of work and many hands will make light work.

Don’t just leave for others to do, we all have an obligation to help in this task.

If you have any time to spare in the week contact Colin Nicol on 01634 573952 or email at colinhnicol@blueyonder.co.uk He can advise you on what needs doing, every little will help. Main work days will be organised in the near future and details will circulated.           

                            Peter Broad

Old targets

You may have noticed that there is a pile of old target bosses at the entrance to target 15, just by the old storage area. If you would like to take one of these to use at home please see Colin Nicol (see above for contact details) or one of the committee members, those that are left will be dismantled and disposed of.

Site updated by Alan White on 16/2/08