Best gold – There will be no warning as to when this will be done. The club captain will suddenly tell everyone to leave all gold arrows in the target. The arrow closest to the center of the target will win the archer a medal.

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Sunday 14 September – After having been rained off the previous Sunday, we couldn't have asked for better weather – bright blue skies, warm enough for shorts, but not too hot, low humidity and a gentle breeze. 28 archers, around half the club, took part and shot in a variety of categories, several of them especially created simply to allow everyone who wanted to shoot to take part.

The results were:

National:

Photo gallery of National winners.

Short National:

Junior Gent's Under 16 recurve: 1 – Mark Lapham; 2 – David Nash.

Junior National:

Photo gallery of Junior National winners.

Short Junior National:

Photo gallery of Short Junior National winners.

Junior Burntwood National:

Photo gallery of Junior Burntwood National and Vic Williams winners and Lady Paramount.

Annual championship 2008 full results (PDF: 198.0 KB).

Many thanks to Steve Ludwell who took all the pictures above. The thumbnails are links to the full sized photographs.

That should have been the end of the proceedings, but none of our gents barebows had been able to shoot. During the following week they were all saying how disappointed they were to not have managed to be there. So, rather than leaving the trophy sitting in a box gathering dust for another 12 months, the three of them shot it out on Sunday 21 September.

The results were:

National:

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At the committee meeting on 7 February a new trophy was proposed and accepted, the Andy Friend Challenge Trophy, in honour of the work Andy has done for both clubs. As we wanted him to be able to present the trophy to the first ever winner, it was decided that for this year only, the Tournament would be moved forward and took place on Sunday 13 April.

The Easter competition should have taken place on 23 March. However, due to bad weather we had to cancel. As there was only three weeks between the two anyway, we decided to double up both competitions. Despite dire weather forecasts, 13 April proved to be a lovely day for shooting, warm and, for the most part, sunny.

The rounds shot were – National for all experienced adults; Junior National for beginner adults and Junior Gents; Short Junior National for Junior Ladies.

The results were:

Andy Friend Challenge Trophy – Frank Bath.

Gent's recurve: 1 – Sinclair Parkinson; 2 – Craig Thompson; 3 – Nic Vangorph; 4 – Ian Lassman; 5 – Andrew Francis; 6 – Andy Friend; 7 – Des Fullerton; 8 Trevor Lapham; 9 – Ben Mitchell (retired).

Gent's longbow: 1 – Frank Bath.

Ladies' recurve: 1 – Nicky Leeper.

Ladies' barebow: 1 – Sheena McCullagh.

Gent's beginner's recurve: 1 – Nick Griffin.

Junior Gent's Under 16 barebow: 1 – Doug Cretney.

Junior Gent's Under 14 barebow: 1 – Mark Dare.

Junior Gent's Under 14 recurve: 1 – Mark Lapham; 2 – Harry Francis.

Junior Ladies' recurve: 1 – Leah Griffin.

Midsummer 2008 full results (PDF: 130.0 KB).

Best Gold – longest distance: Ian Lassman.

Best Gold – shortest distance: Harry Francis.

Everyone who took part was awarded an Easter egg.

Easter Bonnet competition – with only four entries (Frank having managed to forget his and Steve having been called in to work), everyone received an egg. The four were, Kath Friend (Andy's mum), Leah Griffin, Trevor Lapham and Sheena McCullagh.

The day ended with the traditional B-B-Q and the awards being presented by the Lady Paramount Jules Millin (Andy's partner).

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Golden Phoenix Archers are taking part in the Somerset County postal Frostbite competition over the winter. The results for October to December are in the 2007 section. For January onwards, as the results come in each month, they will be posted here.

• January – 1090. Monthly ranking seventh. Overall ranking fourth.
• February – 1289. Monthly ranking seventh. Overall ranking fifth.
• March – 996. Monthly ranking eighth. Final ranking seventh.

For the full rankings, results, etc, see the Somerset County Archery Association web site. From the left hand menu select 'Postals', then scroll down the screen.

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Jelly bow

The good people of Coastal Archers have thrown down the gauntlet in the name of charity.

Are we up for the jelly bow challenge? Can we gather together 10 good people and true? Are we prepared to defend our honour in this exacting tourney? For God and for valour, for the children of Wraxall hospice and the crack of a good night out?

And what, you may ask, is a jelly bow. It's a beginner's one piece fibreglass affair with a draw weight of between 15 and 20 lbs and yes, we will be shooting a National with them, so it will be more like a clout shoot. If you want to know more, see the Autumn 2007 Archery UK page 29.

The jelly bow challenge has it's own unique rules. Rule 7 'Cheating is allowed'. Apparently last year this included, but was not limited to, sabotaging/hiding the opponents bows, scoring 10s for 9s and not having a single miss all night. Rules change during the course of the evening and although the rules say how the winners will be decided, that was last year, this year it may be different and we may not know until the very end of the tourney itself.

Why were we challenged? Apparently Andy and Sheena met the organisers at the Exmouth Lunatic shoot when they were dressed as a tiger and penguin respectively and in subsequent emails, Coastal Archers decided we had the right sense of humour.

And that last clause just about says it all as to the level of the evening.

Jelly bow challenge wording

We were issued with a scroll which readers:

To see the challenge scroll itself:

• PDF of Jelly bow challenge scroll: contains only an image and link back to this section (659.0 KB).
• Word version of Jelly bow challenge scroll: contains only an image (278 KB).

Jelly bow result

As a decided twist on last year, the winner was the team with the greatest number of whites and was won by Wellington Bowmen. For more on our individual exploits see the June section of the news 2008 page. There is also a reports on the Burnham-on-Sea.com website and at one point there was also an article on the Weston and Somerset Mercury website. We also made it onto Coastal Archers does Gladiator on YouTube.

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If you are looking for details of competitions to take part in during the year, try these two sites:

Gloucestershire Archery Society Events Calendar. It covers a much wider area than Gloucestershire, for example it has some Exmouth Archers competitions listed.
Somerset County Archery Association. Select 'Tournaments' from the left hand links (you may need to scroll down).

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© Bristol Bowmen and Golden Phoenix Archers