Sunday 14th December 2003 - Santa Shoot - Corus, Shotton
Oh what a day we had,
06:30 Alarm goes off, slinging it down and blowing a gale, no choice but to get up as Gwynedd Bowmen are away to Shotton for the annual Santa Shoot followed by the AGM of the North Wales Archery Society. After an uneventful journey we arrived at Corus shooting ground at 08:35 to find the gates locked and an air of desolation surrounding the place, hasty checks of target lists confirmed we had the correct day so sat back and awaited the arrival of the field party.
The weather was dismal to say the least and we all took some encouraging to get out of the warmth of our automobiles to set up camp, eventually we braved the elements and by the time sighters arrived the rain had all but stopped and the wind was dying down. Wet weather gear was still the order of the day if only to keep out the bitingly cold wind which as usual at Deeside could not decide in which direction or with what strength it was going to blow. (That was my excuse anyway). Scores were hardly discussed at the lunch break as everyone was clearly having a hard time, the exception being Karl who was shooting quite well.
(Instead it was time for the now traditional 'guess what hot food is in the flask' game. Between us there was baked beans, tomato soup and the piesta resistance - meatballs in gravy!! [Ed]).
The digi camera came out and pics were taken for inclusion on the web site, Gareth supplied the mince pies and Val the choccie biccies then lo and behold it was time to shoot another 3 dozen.
Jackets came off and the shooting went the same way as the weather, a major improvement, with 6 gold ends appearing on the score sheets at last (yes even for me) and then the final competition of 2003 was all over. Camp was struck in very quick time as we were all looking forward to a pint in the clubhouse, imagine our distress when we found the bar closed as nobody had remembered to ask for an extension. C'est la vie (or c'est la guerre) we still had the awards and raffle to look forward to.
Yet again Gwynedd Bowmen were amongst the winners with Karl Houston again taking the Gents Recurve and John Bamber the Gents Compound.
10 points covered the reminder of us so we were all reasonably happy, (including Val Bamber placing second in the Ladies Recurve [Ed]).
We are also pleased to announce that we kept up the clubs long standing tradition by scooping 9 prizes in the raffle.
Little did we know that the best was yet to come.
The North Wales AGM followed the shoot but as a full report will appear in the next Newsletter I will not bore you with the details here. The major items affecting Gwynedd Bowmen were that our own Val Bamber was elected Chairman of NWAS and yours truly re elected as Secretary, the annual awards were announced with Rhys Jones winning Junior Gentleman Archer of the Year and the best one of the lot Gwynedd Bowmen winning the Deeside Western League.
For those of you unfamiliar with this competition it is based on the average scores of archers from the various clubs who compete in competitions within North Wales which are then converted via the handicap tables to "Western" scores. The club with the highest overall average being the winners.
I always said that we would one day become a force to be reckoned with, is this the dawn of that day??
Stephen Rowe