Thinning Shooting lines

Raven's_Eye

Active member
Ironman
I've been seeing a number of shoots having to be cancelled due to lack of entries and those that have been on there has been a number of empty spaces on the targets.

I was wondering why people aren't attending shoots as much anymore?

Price of entry, cost of travel, length of shoot?

Just curious really to hear the communities views.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
Perhaps it's lifestyle changes, partly.
From what I remember of the 80's 90's the same people were at all the shoots I attended; with the occasional newer archer. Those regular attenders are now out of archery for age related reasons.
The lifestyle of many newer archers is quite different from that of the previous generation. Busier lives in some ways, more things to fit in. And travel can be a pain because of increased traffic wherever you go. Archery, for some, is just one of the pastimes they dabble in... I see very few who will make strings or assemble arrows. Their interest in archery seems to be "shallow" compared to that of the archers who were around when I started. Shooting rounds is as far as many want to go. Some of our better archers, seem very interested, then you find they already do other sports and those take priority. Archery is something they do when their main sport is not happening.
 
D

Deleted member 7654

Guest
I think there is often a school holiday and family holiday dip in some activities.
Del
 
D

Deleted member 7654

Guest
I think there is often a school holiday and family holiday dip in some activities.
Del
 

bimble

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ahhh, this old topic... whilst numbers for this year aren't in yet, over the last few years the numbers of people attending competitions has gone up. The difference is, I suspect, is what shoots people are going to. Both how well they are run, what rounds they are and clashes with other shoots. A shoot local to our club lost the 15-20 archers from our club after moving their shoot forward a week so it clashed with our club champs.

That an advertising shoots to local clubs so people know your shoot is on.
 

bimble

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ahhh, this old topic... whilst numbers for this year aren't in yet, over the last few years the numbers of people attending competitions has gone up. The difference is, I suspect, is what shoots people are going to. Both how well they are run, what rounds they are and clashes with other shoots. A shoot local to our club lost the 15-20 archers from our club after moving their shoot forward a week so it clashed with our club champs.

That an advertising shoots to local clubs so people know your shoot is on.
 

KidCurry

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There seems to be more tournaments available to archers these days, or at least easier accessibility to tournaments. In the 90s I had to search out high level and record status. Today they seem to be everywhere and easy to enter online. It maybe tournament going archers are more thinly spread.
 

Aleatorian

Member
From personal experience this year, I opted to shoot Metric Rounds only, mainly as I required UKRS/WRS shoots for the classification I was aiming for as well as National Ranking Scores. forgoing the vast majority of Western and its variants in the Yorkshire area.
Personally for what I want to achieve, the other rounds just don't cut it, and I do need to build in some downtime, which is generally when the other shoots are on.

I think it's a bit of what KidCurry has stated, with regards to availability/accessability and personal goals.
 

bimble

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There seems to be more tournaments available to archers these days, or at least easier accessibility to tournaments.
That is an interesting point. I remember looking at the calendar for Archery Australia a couple of years ago, and even though they had Star 1440's all year round, they didn't have more weekends in which they were happening than we did. Despite the fact we limit our to only half the year.
 

ben tarrow

Well-known member
From having quite a few competitive types 10 years ago, our club now has a lot of casual members and quite a high %age of newbies/novices who just arent ready to go to comps yet. The low attendances do mean that more organisers are having to accommodate a wider range, with shorter rounds (fewer arrows and shorter distances) which has to be a good thing for some
 

dvd8n

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The SAA did a survey on why people don't attend competitions and the results went up on the website recently.

It's just a data dump of the results with (unfortunately) no interpretation but it's still worth a look.

If you go to the SAA website and search for survey you'll find it easily enough.
 

Berk

New member
The SAA did a survey on why people don't attend competitions and the results went up on the website recently.

It's just a data dump of the results with (unfortunately) no interpretation but it's still worth a look.

If you go to the SAA website and search for survey you'll find it easily enough.
Who are the SAA? I've had a quick google and found a few options from South Asian Arts, to South African Airways and even Sex Addicts Anonymous...
 

dvd8n

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Who are the SAA? I've had a quick google and found a few options from South Asian Arts, to South African Airways and even Sex Addicts Anonymous...
Erm .............. the Scottish Archery Association :rolleyes:
 

jerryRTD

Well-known member
In my club there are a lot more bare bow social archers. they are not really interested competitions.
 

Corax67

Well-known member
I opened the latest Kent Archery Assiciation newsletter this morning and saw an editorial piece along these very lines. Bob Gawler on behalf of the organisers had written concerning the demise of the William Somner Tournament, an annual event that had run for 60 years but last year (61) had to be cancelled due to AGB receiving the record status request on a Bank Holiday & deeming it too late. It was decided that this year (62) would not be run at all.

The most poignant paragraph was the one that said "I don't think the William Somner Tournament can ever be revived as it was an imperial round and now unfortunately all new archers only want to do metric rounds. Even our Juniors coaches encourage them to only shoot metric. It is sad but imperial rounds are dying out."

Thankfully our club still shoots imperial rounds as we love the variety it affords if an archer has more or less time to spend on a Saturday morning on the line but we are foremost a club of 'casual' archers rather than competition driven archers so it suits us really well. Of course this does sometimes mean that we struggle to get big teams together for MKL monthly matches but we get by.

Yesterday we shot the last MKL outdoor of this season and fielded a team of 6 - not so much because of any lack of desire to shoot but rather because it was a Saturday (usually shoot them on Sunday's) and most of our guys & gals could not commit to a whole day of archery due to family commitments.

Maybe the thinning lines are symptomatic of this too - archery may be moving towards a recreational bias rather than a competitive focus it has previously experienced but is that such a bad thing?



Karl
 

geoffretired

Supporter
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Maybe the thinning lines are symptomatic of this too - archery may be moving towards a recreational bias rather than a competitive focus it has previously experienced but is that such a bad thing?
Archery is continued by archers getting on the shooting line and shooting arrows. Archers straddle the line for their own reasons; and turn up to shoot when it pleases them to be there. What their reasons are varies from archer to archer.
I believe that the best a club can do is not discourage them by "getting in their way" but rather; allowing their ways whenever possible. The thing I try to do is help archers when shooting seems to become a struggle for them; I run sessions to"get in and help" before the struggles become too difficult to overcome.
I knew some clubs that were run to be an extension of the major players on the committee. That worked well enough when new members joined who were like minded. Eventually all clubs change, as the membership changes. To my way of thinking, looking ahead is something that needs doing rather than looking back at how things were; and trying to recapture those times.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
Maybe the thinning lines are symptomatic of this too - archery may be moving towards a recreational bias rather than a competitive focus it has previously experienced but is that such a bad thing?
Archery is continued by archers getting on the shooting line and shooting arrows. Archers straddle the line for their own reasons; and turn up to shoot when it pleases them to be there. What their reasons are varies from archer to archer.
I believe that the best a club can do is not discourage them by "getting in their way" but rather; allowing their ways whenever possible. The thing I try to do is help archers when shooting seems to become a struggle for them; I run sessions to"get in and help" before the struggles become too difficult to overcome.
I knew some clubs that were run to be an extension of the major players on the committee. That worked well enough when new members joined who were like minded. Eventually all clubs change, as the membership changes. To my way of thinking, looking ahead is something that needs doing rather than looking back at how things were; and trying to recapture those times.
 

Kernowlad

Supporter
Supporter
My take as a fairly new archer with a son who has also got into it - we both very much enjoy it but I wonder if maybe the whole day shoots are a bit much?
A couple of hours is fun - but six hours (no shorter rounds were available) started to feel like more of an endurance test. What sounded like a lot of fun turned out to be almost a bit much for my keen 8 year old and me; no issues digging in and getting on with sports - I do triathlons, trail races, long surfs, etc but it just needed to have the option of maybe a shorter round or two.

Like surfing - I used to be able to surf four hours or more; now I need a break every two hours to eat and rest a bit.

I think Corax's post is very accurate; it has to be fun.
 
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