[Ansteorra-archery] [Mm] How to increase TA, TW, and CA

Tue Jan 13 23:53:57 PST 2009

greetings

>1.        Start times.  I can't off the top of my head think of an event that actually started on time. 
see some of my previous posts , also , i've benn coniving with lawrence of the green woods, and that is a major part of it .
and breaking up the set up / inspection / start time is an excellent idea .
>2.       Get announced at court, even for non-titled events.
this isnt always doable , often , instead of calling me into court to announce the winners it becomes a " back page item " mentioned quickly after the 15 min of hearing how valliant and brave the heavy fighters were in their tourney .
>3.       Start adding a newcomer tournament, at least at some events
actually through better planning and time managment, we should be able to do multiple tourneys a day , title / champion grade shoot, and either a childs or novice grade shoot with time for a royal round after, we could also do , say if there was no title shoot , do a child shoot, a novice shoot, and  an ikac  on sat, and an ickac on sun morn.
>It isn't much fun as a new archer to shoot six arrows and be eliminated immediately,
depends , i still enter the royal huntsman , for the shear joy of shooting against other top flight archers, some of whom could swat me like a fly even when i was in top form , but every time , its to test my self against them , did i last even 1 arrow more ? did i maybe outshoot them in some small aspect of the overall shoot ? it gives me a goal to shoot for ( no pun intended ; )
>with no additional chance to shoot.
thats why open ranges and archery practice are your friends ; )
>This also removed the intimidation factor for newer archers who might not come out and shoot against the old pros.
but ya know , almost everyone of those " old pro's " would stop shooting in an instant to assist about anyone that asks??
and , all us " old pro's " started out  the same frustrated nubie ; )
>4.       Can we do court announced winners 
see above
>and small prize baskets for any competition or only titled competition?
ok, strait up, this may be one of the problems .
for children , an  arm guard or glove may be useful , same for novices , at the title winning level , archers usualy need archery supplies, shafts, points , etc . 
for the most part , most prizes , just get passed on to be someone elses prizes ,or thrown in a box , sorry i only have 2 arms so i can't wear all 7 bracers ,  i don't want to say how many nice period looking selfbows have been won by novice archers , and then shoved into a closet, or a garage . if your going to beg ,borrow, or buy a nice prize , make sure the recipient will use it ...
scrolls , nice scrolls , not water colored by your neice / nephew , etc . that can be framed give far more recognition than any prizes.
novice and child scrolls / prizes can be given in court, or on the range , prize shoots are normaly given on the range , but it would be better if in court. thing to remember , most people at event want to go party after court, so anything that extends court can be looked at badly , so for court presintations , please be accurate and speedy ; )
>5.       Have more joint baronial practices
as was started last fall , some of the groups in the north plan on doing a monthly or bimonthly ( depending on events and weather ) roving missile practice to all of the norther region baronies , as well as possibly other bordering groups . ( i even have an invite from a group in central mo = )

hope this helped ; )

be safe, be happy, have fun
arthur 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Shell Atwood 
  To: tex_yankee2004 at yahoo.com ; 'Archery within the Kingdom of Ansteorra' 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 2:33 PM
  Subject: Re: [Ansteorra-archery] [Mm] How to increase TA, TW, and CA

  This is one of the things I love about archery, that anyone can do it.  My mother and aunt came out one day, and despite numerous health conditions and recent surgeries, they shot and had a blast.  We can't all get onto the list field and take the physical damage, but for those that want to participate in a martial sport, archery is there for all.  I love seeing the kids up there shooting alongside experienced archers and our older members *cough* like Grandpa Vincenti.  

  We can't really do anything about the logistics - it takes a lot of space and that space is often on the outskirts of the camp.  There are some things we do control though. 

  1.        Start times.  I can't off the top of my head think of an event that actually started on time. Yeah, I know, SCA time and all that - but we need to remember that we are off in BFE and there's nothing for folks to do while they stand around waiting, unlike around the list field, and it isn't as though they can just pop off to their tent for a few minutes.  Instead of lumping inspection, setup and the shoot all into a 10 a.m. start time, we should separate that out like the fighters do.  Inspection and setup at 10a.m., shoot starts at 11.  The start time is what we advertise to spectators - and we start on time.  Setup can really suck for the marshal if there's no one to help out, further delaying us.  Instead of milling about, we need to get inspected and see what we can do to help out. 

  2.       Get announced at court, even for non-titled events.  Make sure the site herald knows about us, the start time and what we're doing, and keep him (or her) updated during the event so he'll keep heralding it.

  3.       Start adding a newcomer tournament, at least at some events.  It isn't much fun as a new archer to shoot six arrows and be eliminated immediately, with no additional chance to shoot.  And while there are often royal rounds or IKACs scheduled for later, the thrill of competition is still a draw, even if you can't hit the broadside of the barn.  This also removed the intimidation factor for newer archers who might not come out and shoot against the old pros.

  4.       Can we do court announced winners and small prize baskets for any competition or only titled competition?  If we can do it for every competition, we should.  If each archer in the barony made only one item to donate, we'd have prizes to hand out to the child, newbie and experienced archer at each event for a year.

  5.       Have more joint baronial practices - Namron's reciprocal joint practices with Eldern Hills were great.  We had huge turn out and it really was more of an event than a practice.  We had a lot of new archers come play, tons of folks watching and visiting.  I would love to see us do something like that on a regular basis, rotating practices around to the three or four closest baronies every three or four months.

  Guess that pretty much empties my brain of thoughts - time to go fill it up again!

  Blessings,

  Mellina

  From: ansteorra-archery-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org [mailto:ansteorra-archery-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Patrick R
  Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:00 PM
  To: Archery within the Kingdom of Ansteorra
  Subject: Re: [Ansteorra-archery] [Mm] How to increase TA, TW, and CA

        The logistical problems with archery are something we are going to have to live with. Even when ranges are available closer to the main activities we are going to be last on the list to get them. A simple face we will have to deal with since we are considered the bottom of the list for many things in the SCA. 

        What we do have as our advantage is that we can be much more inclusive in the people participating. For the last two years in the Bryn-gwlad fall baronial we have tried to get the maximum participation possible. In addition to the tournament held at the end of the day we opened the range to people who wanted to try their hand at archery. We do have an advantage over other activities for doing this. It needs to be announced and announced often. We placed notices at gate and had people going around making sure everyone knew about the range (OK I begged a lot of people to come by the first year). The result is that each year we had over 50 people participate and over 25 of them shot in the competition. It offered people who were participating in other events to take some time that they had available and come join us. The results speak for themselves, several people who never tried archery went out and purchased their own bows and equipment and are now part of our community. 

        For my two cents, the key is to make it attractive for people to try and they may find that they like it. Sometimes parents bring their children over and find that they like it as well. It makes for a busy day for the people running the range but it is worth the work. 

        Dante

        --- On Tue, 1/13/09, Jed Tressler <jed.tressler at gmail.com> wrote:

        From: Jed Tressler <jed.tressler at gmail.com>
        Subject: Re: [Ansteorra-archery] [Mm] How to increase TA, TW, and CA
        To: "Archery within the Kingdom of Ansteorra" <ansteorra-archery at lists.ansteorra.org>
        Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2009, 10:24 AM

        Instead of trying to conquerer the logistics of a wagon, why not make an effort to put the ranges closer to the rest of the event?  Some sites will make this impossible, obviously, but I have attended several events where the range is off in BFE, where you had to walk through half a mile (exaggerated) of suitable range to get to it.  Scoot that sucker up a bit.  It may mean investing in more safety line, but that will be cheaper than renting a wagon/paying for gas and the like.  This would be especially true for Thrown weapons, where the necessary safety zone is (usually) much smaller. 

        Speaking of thrown weapons, somebody mentioned that if there were multiple throwers on the line, than each would require there own marshal.  I can't find this in the rules, can somebody point me to it?

        I think an additional factor we may not be keen on considering is the relative ratio of participating individuals to total event size.  My experience is that a large proportion of the people who sit and watch an activity (any activity) are connected personally to somebody who participates in the activity.  So the more participants, the more spectators.  If 1/3 of the people at an event are fighters of some kind, and only 1/4 are archers, there will be more people at the list field than at the range, both due to the number of participants, and there attending personal connections.  We could use this a bit to our advantage.  

        We could emphasize the importance of an archers inspiration, have archers perform salutes, give dual awards to competitor and consort, even pander a bit and award largess for best list pavilion set up, etc.  We, as archers, also need to ask our friends to come watch us shoot.

        Finally, I would like to offer that "all-day" tourney designs, while fun for us, do not engender attendance from non-participants.  Because of safety concerns, no matter how close we can get the firing-line to the rest of the event, watching an archery competition will always mean facing away from everything else that is going on.  Often it means being completely separated from the event.  Conversely, watching the rapier tourney usually means being in the middle of everything, and often you're at the list even when you're not paying attention to the fight.  Peoples attention span will not hold very long (most college students have a max attention span of 20 min. and there on the high side of the curve).  The ideas mentioned about making the range attractive, having snacks, heralds, interesting formats all combat this, but if you ask them to sit for hours on end, while they miss the rest of the event, even strong personal connections are going to be hard pressed to keep there butts in the seats.

        I think a good strategy would be to pick your best, most climactic portion of the days shoot and push to get people there for that.  Try and get it scheduled in an empty part of the day (no use trying to compete if you don't have too) .  Get the site heralds to make a big deal of it.  Petition the presiding royals to attend.  Ask all your friends to come support you.  And try to time the whole thing to be over in about an hour.  You wont see most of the attendees any other time in the day, but big deal, they came to the big tourney.  The fighting equivalent is pick-ups after.  People don't sit around and watch the fighters practice with each other when the tourney is over, even when they are on the center field.

        Just my $1.25.

        Bastian Eisengart

_______________________________________________Ansteorra-archery mailing listAnsteorra-archery at lists.ansteorra.orghttp://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/ansteorra-archery-ansteorra.org 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  _______________________________________________
  Ansteorra-archery mailing list
  Ansteorra-archery at lists.ansteorra.org
  http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/ansteorra-archery-ansteorra.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  No virus found in this incoming message.
  Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com 
  Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.6/1891 - Release Date: 1/13/2009 8:17 AM
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/ansteorra-archery-ansteorra.org/attachments/20090114/6727b228/attachment-0003.htm>