Good luck to Andrea who will compete in the AGB National Series at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham on Saturday.

WAC archers enjoyed success at this year’s Andoba Double WA1440 which took place last weekend.

With some of the most beautiful cut-glass trophies in the sport available to 1^st to 4^th placed archers, Andrea and Eleanor took home stunning bowls for their 1^st place Ladies Compound and Ladies Recurve respectively. Andrea was also part of the winning WAC Compound Team along with team mates Jane and Matt. Louisa was presented with a glass medal for her place as 1^stJunior Girl.

Also forming the WAC team over the two days of wonderful archery were Mark Preston, Candy Schofield and Paul Jay and thanks go to Helen and all of the Andoba organisers and work party for another great event!

Eleanor has travelled back from the European Youth Champs in Romania clutching an Individual silver and Women’s Team bronze medal to add to her Mixed Team silver from Hungary in May. Shooting a strong score of 639 in the 60m 720 qualification round left her in 6^th place out of the 51 cadet girls from 22 countries and, when added to her UK National Record score of 645 from the first leg qualifiers, meant that she ended up with an overall silver medal!

With her team mates of Eva Henderson-Hirst and Alyssia Tromans-Ansell the girls were ranked 5^thgoing into the Knock-out rounds of the Women’s Team competition and started with a comfortable 5-1 win against the hosts Romania. This pitted them against the No 4 seeds Poland who they saw off 6-2 to meet the No 1 seeds Italy. Italy proved the stronger match and so the girls found themselves in the Bronze medal match against Spain. Their determination to win showed as they stormed past the No 2 seeds 6-0 to send each girl home with a well-deserved GB Bronze medal (and a group hug from Patrick Huston)!

Congratulations to Eleanor and Louisa Piper who were both Double National Champions at the JNOC this weekend!

Louisa won the U14 Girl Recurve on both Saturday (Metric 4) and Sunday (Bristol 4) and Eleanor shot a Ladies Fita on the Saturday and Hereford on the Sunday to win Overall National Champion on both days too. In fact, although she didn’t realise it at the time, her Hereford score was also her first ever GMB!

Congratulations also go to James Woodgate and Jessica Hammond who both finished comfortably in the top half of their age groups. A special mention goes to Jessica who, on her very first JNOC, received an AGB Gold Medal as her debut score tipped SCAS into first place in Saturday’s Regional competition.

Louisa, as well as being being in the winning SCAS team, debuted for England who also won the Home Nations on the Saturday. The winners all received their awards from Lord Paramount Patrick Huston before he set off on his own quest for medals in Rio!

Well done everyone!

It’s apparently summer (?!) so that means that it must be time for the AGB Summer Metrics!

So if you’re a junior why not shoot a Short Metric for your age group (remember to shoot it on a 80cm face) during July or August, have your score sheet signed by an adult and pop it in the kitchen before Sept 1^st? Who knows you too could add to the Woking Juniors who made the list last year…

Huge congratulations to all the Woking Archers that took part in the Surrey Outdoor Championships at the Rivernook Open Tournament

The results are now published with some great results for our archers.

Surrey Championship individual result highlights
1st place – Ladies Compound – Jane Lawrence Tuck
1st place – Gents Barebow – Angus Wilson
2nd place – Gents Compound – Harvey Davies
3rd place – Gents Compound – Matt Tuck
3rd place – Ladies Recurve – Louise Davies

Having only completed his first year Uni exams on Friday afternoon Chris headed to Lilleshall for his first BUCS outdoor event representing Warwick Uni, a little tired and somewhat short on practise due to exams. He came a close third individually, with only 10 points between him and first and a close pack of archers on his tail, only missing a GMB score by a couple of points!

He even managed to successfully rendezvous with his overnight accommodation at lunchtime – a 3 man tent and sleeping bag very kindly delivered by Nell and Louisa who were also in Lilleshall for the weekend for the Junior Selection Shoot on the adjacent field.

Yesterday evening Louisa and Eleanor, along with Lloyd Brown (AGB Head of Coaching & Athlete Development), went to Kensington Palace to help SportsAid celebrate their 40^th anniversary. SportsAid wanted to bring the event to life with sporting demonstrations held during the drinks reception for their invited guests who then went on to attend a special anniversary dinner in the State Rooms at Kensington Palace where HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, SportsAid’s patron, made a short speech on the importance of SportsAid and the upcoming Rio Olympic Games.

After the demonstrations all of the athletes joined HRH The Duchess in the Sunken Garden for a group photo and it was here that both the girls managed to speak with The Duchess directly. Having tried archery on her recent royal tour to Bhutan she said that that she had thought archery was fairly easy up until then but it was actually much harder than it looked! She also asked the girls if they ever hit their arm with the bow string as it really hurts…

Eleanor said that she and Louisa were thrilled to be asked to demonstrate archery at SportsAid’s 40^th Anniversary as SportsAid’s support was crucial to their archery.

Louisa said that, apart from meeting HRH The Duchess, one of the high points of the evening was showing Christine Ohuruogu (Olympic Medalist) how to shoot using her bow!

WAC Juniors made the 2016 Surrey Junior Championships a year to remember with a medal haul that included 6 Golds, 1 Bronze, 2 Overall Individual Surrey Champions and the Surrey Club Pair’s Cup!

Congratulations to all of the winners (and to the helpers and organisers that made it all possible):

Surrey Overall Boy/Girl Compound Champion – Alex Davies
Surrey Overall Girl Recurve Champion – Louisa Piper
Butterfield Cup for Surrey Club Pair – Jessica Hammond/Louisa Piper
Metric 5 Girl Compound Gold – Abi Embury
Metric 4 Girl Compound Gold – Alex Davies
Metric 5 Girl Recurve Gold – Jessica Hammond
Metric 4 Girl Recurve Gold – Louisa Piper
Metric 4 Boy Recurve Gold – Sam Davies
Metric 3 Girl Recurve Bronze – Manon Bristow
Metric 2 Boy Recurve Gold – James Woodgate
Metric 2 Boy Recurve 4th – Leo Gamble
Metric 2 Boy Recurve 5th – Andrew Searle

Excellent weather conditions also meant two National Record claims: one for Jacob Caine – Metric 3 Compound 1401 and one for WAC’s very own Louisa Piper – Metric 4 Recurve 1375!

It was a great day out for the Junior Team. Teams were drawn out of a hat! A Team (Jess Alex Ed James) B team (Manon Sam Leo Andrew). Despite a chilly wind to start with, the odd blister, a bit of sunburn and other minor injuries, the order of the day was fun, laughter and great camaraderie. James led a fine warm up.

To add to the excitement a police helicopter circled overhead and following the arrival of several police cars and dog vans, a wanted man was arrested on the next field. The A team were in bronze medal position after the first two distances but overtaken by Guildford A after the third distance. The B team won and came home with the Don Hollick trophy which was designed and made by Eleanor last year. Keeping with tradition the judges obligingly photo bombed the team photo at the end! Well done to all juniors who took part. You did yourselves and your club proud. Many thanks to our friends at Chessington for such an enjoyable event and to Mark and Candy for their efficient scoring.

PS James did share the doughnuts with the others!