Paul Rendall with his three-gold End

The first session of the inaugural Orkney Archers beginners course was held on Thursday the 7th of February.

As there has been an exciting increase in the interest in the sport of archery in recent months, the Club has started to run what will hopefully become a series of courses to promote archery as an activity for all ages and abilities and encourage new talent to join the club.

The course comprises of six sessions at two hours each and over the six weeks, the beginners will learn how to shoot safely, develop their shooting skills as well as learn a little about the history of the sport and the club such as our experiences at the Island Games. We have a full complement of 12 beginner archers both junior and senior and a mixture of some who had never picked up a bow before to some who may have tried it at school.

Everyone had a fantastic time and there was a good sense of camaraderie (and some competition already!) developing in the group. After a brief introduction to archery including a talk about the different types of archery we take part in the club such as competition recurve and compound archery and longbows, horsebows and the different arrows that go with them, the beginners spent one-on-one time with the club members mentoring them, teaching them how to shoot.

By the end of the night, all archers were hitting the targets consistently and some were even getting some great groups in the gold!

It has been an exciting few months for the club with the establishment of a junior club so that they could benefit from more committed coaching from the seniors and running the beginner course. Anna Laird has become the first archer in Orkney to complete the Level 1 coach training course and will be working hard with our juniors and beginners to keep archery an exciting and fun sport and help to nurture future talent for such events like the Island Games and beyond. Perhaps there may be Commonwealth or Olympic golds in the future for Orkney?

Club member Robert Craigie with rare Robin Hood

Also in exiting news, the club had it’s first “Robin Hood” at the St Andrews Hall at one of the Wednesday night club shoots. Member Robert Craigie managed the very rare occasion of shooting the back of another one of his arrows. It makes for a very interesting trophy despite the unfortunate demise of at least one arrow.

Robert Craigies Robin Hood

The Orkney Archers meet every Wednesday night and will be running further beginner classes later in the year for anyone interested in trying out the sport.

You can find out more on the Facebook page: Orkney Archery Club

Orkney Archers First Beginners Course