It was great to revive Maidenhead Archers tradition of Fun Shoots after the long COVID-induced hiatus. A great day was had by all and the standard of shooting was excellent.
Each archer had to nominate what score they were going to hit. Any score over would mean they would be eliminated.
As always on a fun shoot it’s not as easy as it might seem. We had variable shooting lines at 15, 20 and 25 yards, scoring on a large face being reversed, inner gold 1, outer white 10. To keep them on their toes, the position of the archers as to which targets they were shooting at were also rotated. And it goes without saying penalty points were awarded for any digressions.
Congratulations to Simon Gilbey for receiving penalty points without even being there, having failed to give Clive, the shoot organiser, a sticker for the car park. Iain Brand stepped forward and gave him a sticker, but this smacked too much of bribery so Iain received a warning notice for his efforts. This proved appropriate as later he was unable to understand moving clockwise two targets, attempting to explain to the judge that it was anticlockwise that we were all moving. A thoroughly-deserved penalty was issued.
Of course further penalties arose for the likes of archers not having their equipment behind the waiting line and any other serious, or not so serious, misdemeanour.
Shooting 36 arrows on ten zone scoring could have an archer selecting a score of 36 or 360 but none were brave enough to go to such extremes. Typically Iain chose 349, brave or what!
The final scores were very very close, except Iain who was 118 short of his target. However he didn’t come last as five archers shot over their allocation but only by a maximum of 5 points. The other eight competing archers came within one point of the exact score, with two tying on zero.
And so we moved to the thrilling shoot off between Mary and Darrel, 3 arrows at 15yards to score 18 or less. A brilliant win by Mary! 2-points under with Darrel two points over.
The afternoon rounded off with a meal at the Bear (Wetherspoon’s) – super day and thanks to Clive and all those who helped organise it.