ARCH - Re: ANST - Archery Question

Eadric Anstapa eadric at barley.scabrewer.com
Mon Jun 5 21:12:56 PDT 2000


----- Original Message -----
From: "Pug Bainter" <pug at pug.net>
Subject: Re: ARCH - Re: ANST - Archery Question
>
> Gilli, the largest problem, from talking to many archers and non-archers,
> is the attitude of the archers in this Kingdom.
>
> When someone approaches the archery range, they are ignored and spurned.
> It is generally only those that are truly dedicated in shooting archery
> that stay around. Most others will only make one or two attempts at
> watching or getting involved before they give up and go on to other
> endeavors. After someone has proved themself by actually shooting archery
> more than once, they are accepted by the rest of the community with
> open arms.

This certainly isn't what I have experienced.

I just returned to the Society this past fall after about a 6 year absence
while carreer took precedence and even before I never did any SCA Archery.
In fact, it had been about 15 years since I had picked up a bow back in my
Boy Scout days.  It sure was easy to get involved in archery here.  Archery
practice is on a Saturday and the entire Canton is encouraged to attend and
share in a pot-luck picnic.  Since I have been attending there have been AT
LEAST twice as many people as there are archers.  Practice really is a
Canton activity and a much of a social experience as an archery practice.

At Midsummer Faire this past weekend anybody who wanted to shoot, did shoot
and was encouraged and invited to shoot. When there where a bunch of kids
hanging around the range with little, light bows Talmon and Iaen quckly set
up 10 and 20 yard targets for the kids.

I think if anything the big thing that holds people back is the cost.  It is
hard to get setup and ready to shoot for less than $100 (counting bow and
arrows).  Many people are reluctant to lend their bows to an unknown or
novice and even more reluctant to lend arrows since the arrows are much more
likely to get torn up when they don't hit the target.  This means to really
get people involved someone (perhaps the local group) has to be willing to
have loaner equipment available and not mind if arrows get torn up or lost.

Perhaps, another obstacle is that the archery range is often at a remote
part of the event site for safety reasons and perhaps the "out of site = out
of mind" axiom is being proven true. Maybe if there were more events where
archery was part of the mainstream or part of the overall competion there
might be a broader base of support.

Just some thoughts,

Eadric

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