One day in the life of Gwynedd Bowmen
The day started with a strange noise at 05:15, my alarm on a Sunday morning, switched off quickly to avoid the grief from "her indoors". Shower, shave fill the flask throw down a cup of coffee and fire up the motor leaving "Chez Nous" at 05:45 (for those of you with a modicum of interest, yes it was still dark). Shoot 3 miles down the road avoiding all manner of wildlife to collect 2 bleary eyed individuals clearly in a state of shock as their response to my cheery "good morning" was a grunt. Add two more sets of gear to the boot and set off again at 06:00.
22 miles down the road we collect another not quite so bleary eyed archer and another set of gear goes in to the boot followed by a few drops of go go juice in the tank (at 78.9p per litre for diesel ESSO clearly were not going to make much money out of this archer). Must be cheaper down the road and the warning light is not on yet. Set off again at 06:30 and another 20 miles down the road stop to collect a Judge and another set of gear goes in the boot.
Now fully loaded with 5 chairs, 5 bivvy's, 4 Bows, unknown quantities of arrows, 2 sets of wet weather gear (some people never trust the forecasters), enough sandwiches and flasks to feed an army and of course 5 people the journey can start in earnest at 06:55.
By 07:00 one rear passenger had found the handle to recline his seat and was already en-route to the land of nod, 2 passengers had never met the car before so had to have an introduction to the various gadgets and storage boxes but by 07:30 the conversation changed to the normal "who's stupid idea was this", "are we there yet" and in true Gwynedd Bowmen style "how many raffle prizes are we going to win".
55 miles further on I find that "must be cheaper down the road" filling station and pull in. Whilst I am putting copious quantities of best diesel (at 75.9p per litre it must be good) into the tank to settle the dust my stalwart passengers had staggered into the filling station where the smell of freshly made coffee stirred them into life and they proceeded to empty the shelves of Lucozade Sport and every type of snack food known to man. Back in to the motor and the last leg of the journey a massive 2.8 miles was completed with our arrival at the shooting ground at 08:10, plenty of time to set up camp ready for sighters at 09:15. Knowing there were 3 more club members to arrive bivvies were strategically placed to ensure we could all pitch camp together. We are after all a club, we enter on the same entry form, pay with one cheque, travel, set up, warm up, wind up and fill up together, AS A CLUB.
Today's competition is a record status Double American at Croesoswallt Archers and sighters commence on schedule at 09:15. At the end of the first distance the conversation goes on the lines of Wayne's beating Karl but Steve's beating the pair of them, Nigel's beating Richard and they are both beating John, Val's had an iffy start but getting better. Who's leading overall "what amongst us?", "no overall", I don't know was the common reply. At the end of the second distance the conversation was much the same except that someone remarked that they had not seen any raffle tickets yet. At the end of the mornings competition the conversation was again remarkably similar except that Karl was now beating Wayne (who was tuning his bow whilst shooting the competition) and Val's bad day had apparently stopped getting worse but wasn't actually getting better. Steve was quite smug as he was ahead of the young guns for once. Nigel was having equipment problems, John had shot quite close to his PB and Richard was Richard. Still no sign of Raffle tickets though. None of us were on the leader board, but as none of us expected to be no one was too disappointed.
Lunch was taken al fresco as the weather was being extremely kind to us, and followed by meeting old friends from other clubs, catching up with the latest gossip and generally socialising only to be spoiled by some prat in a green jacket saying "only another seven and a half dozen to go then and we start shooting in 5 minutes".
Those of you who have shot a Double American will be familiar with the phenomena that your arrows increase in length the more times you shoot them and that gravity has a stronger effect on both bow and arrows as the day progresses and will also believe me when I say that the 15th dozen is the hardest you will ever shoot. The results amongst ourselves remained constant until the final end when Steve had a miss at 40yards (unbelievable I know) and let Karl beat him by 8 points on the day. Raffle tickets had by now been purchased so there was still a level of optimism in the camp despite none of us appearing on the leader board. Camp was struck in very short order, rubbish was collected (including all the cigarette ends from the grass) and deposited in the bin provided, the cars were packed and everyone adjourned to the bar for a long cold drink, the presentations, AND THE RAFFLE.
At the end of the day a very tired group of Gwynedd Bowmen went away with 5 raffle prizes, and awards for the worst White and the 25th score along with many happy memories, new friends made and old friendships rekindled. We travelled the 102.8 mile journey home in convoy stopping off at a Happy Indigestion on the way where we took great delight in ordering as a group and paying individually (it really winds up the waitress). She did get her own back though as Karl's vegetarian chilli burger arrived complete with 1/2lb of beef, I am sure you can imagine the way that conversation went, his replacement was fine though. Over dinner the conversation went from the days competition through to the Sushi Masters knife graveyard in Japan passing through archery, cars, bikes and the practicality of utensil design on the way. The bill was of course disputed (they had actually charged us for Karl's undesirable beef), after lengthy discussion the matter was settled, a suitable tip (stay single) left and the journey home recommenced. The day finished for me after dropping off 1 Judge and 2 archers on the way at 10:22 some 17 hours, 151/2 dozen arrows and 206 miles after that damned alarm woke me up.
Did we enjoy it, you bet we did, would we do it again, you bet we will, are we crackers, no comment. We now eagerly await the official results to assess our prowess against the rest of the world as we know it.
For those of you who do not know us we are Gwynedd Bowmen, our home is the Isle of Anglesey at the end of either the A5 or the A55 in North Wales. We have around 30 Seniors and a dozen or so Juniors, we are a happy bunch who offer visiting archers a warm welcome. Club nights are somewhat informal with the exception of safety which is paramount, we do not suffer fools gladly and operate a total ban on prima donnas, after all WE ARE A CLUB.
P.S. The shortest distance we travel to external competitions is 74 miles each way so travel to Croesoswallt at 103 miles each way is by no means exceptional. I cannot believe there are many other clubs prepared to travel that sort of distance en bloc EVERY TIME they enter a competition.
Stephen Rowe - September 2003