European 3d Festival In France Next Year

Karen

New member
Just out now - details of the EUROPEAN 3D ARCHERY FESTIVAL to be held at Montlouis sur Loire near TOURS in the Loire Valley here in France on the weekend of 30th June / 1st July next year.

It will include during the weekend two double rounds of 3d (40 targets per day ) - one day of the standard French 3d (2 arrows per target) and another day of the newly recognised 3dI (1 arrow per target) , with the best archers in each category going through to finals with prizes the second day.

There will be stands and displays and on the Saturday evening there will be a big competition for the ' Complete Archer' which will entail shooting 9 targets with three different types of bow (limited to 45 entrants and with the entry money going into the prize pot for the first three ) Then also a Country concert and general 'knees-up' as only the French can do it !


Accomodation is plentiful in this area, and I would think there will be camping on site anyway, though all the details on the site are not yet complete.

Also note - Ryanair do VERY cheap flights direct to Tours - especially if you book early ! Car hire is cheap here, usually.

The site is in English and French but not yet complete in English - for the entry forms etc look on the French bit at present.

The website is - http://www.3darcheryfestival.com

Entries will be limited to 500 archers (see website for the numbers in each category of bow) so if you think that you might want to come then do it now, because it will be filled very quickly.

If anyone wants to know more but doesn't have the French then please feel free to contact me through this forum and I'd be glad to help.

I'm not an organiser, but just an archer keen to see this sort of event spread so that we can all shoot for the pleasure as well as the winning !

Hope to see you all
 

Fox

New member
Id just like to say that,

THE FRENCH REALLY KNOW HOW TO PUT ON AN ARCHERY TOURNAMENT!

This sounds fantstic and if its anything like the way they run target shoots, i bet it will be awsome. If you have never shot internationally, try it, its great, you will be seriously dissapointed when you come back to GNAS:cheerful:
 

Karen

New member
3d shoot

Someone asked me what rules we will be shooting under -

Here in France we shoot 3d under the FITA recognised FFTA as well as the IFAA recognised FFTL.

This Festival is being run under the french FFTA 3d rules -

Plain 3d shoots are two arrows at the same peg with distances up to 35 metres

3di shoots are one arrow from a peg distance up to 30 metres ( you can find full rules for this on the fita website)

We have our own national rankings on the FFTA website for all three of the field disciplines ( other two are Tir Nature (Paper animal faces up to 40 m ) and the Tir Campagne (what you know in England as the FITA field rounds)

Do please come if you can - it will be a really good weekend and should be a true international shoot with people from all over and a chance to make new friends and have a great weekend holiday.
 

Swaledale

New member
Id just like to say that,

THE FRENCH REALLY KNOW HOW TO PUT ON AN ARCHERY TOURNAMENT!

This sounds fantstic and if its anything like the way they run target shoots, i bet it will be awsome. If you have never shot internationally, try it, its great, you will be seriously dissapointed when you come back to GNAS:cheerful:
OK Fox
What do you want to see?
We are trying to put on a local Derby which only covers alf of the bloody country!!!! and what do you know... we have 17 entries with four weeks left!
What do you have to do to persuade folks that field is where it is at!!!
Come on give me your best shot!!!
If this had been an NFAS do we would have had 80 by now from a society with a third of the membership of GNAS!
 

Karen

New member
What is this shoot that you are running - if its gnas and field or 3d I wouldn't mind coming over for it !

Where do I find details of it ?
 

Karen

New member
Come on - I've scoured all the things that I can find on the internet and can't find anything like you describe.

How can you expect entries if you don't tell anybody about it !
 

Karen

New member
May have found it now - is it the Riggwelter shoot ?

If so then I can't see how this compares to the French Festival

October in Yorkshire shooting just the ordinary field target round (with a limited range of classes for the bows (ie no flatbows - my own particular bow style which is fully included in the fita classed longbow section, not excluded as in the UK !)) cannot surely be the same as shooting in Central France in May on a complete weekend of 3d which is barely recognised by the gnas, and made extremely limited as they do not use the international fita classes, but make up their own limitations to suit their own shooters. With all the associated events, displays, competitions and just the general ambiance - 500 archers make a whole lot better event than just 30 or 40, and the fact that this is a Festival of Archery and nt just the usual competition must make it a little more special.

Don't knock someone for saying how good another shoot might be - just make yours interesting enough to attract them to yours as well !
 

Fox

New member
Iain

If the course is good word will spread among the FITA field posse and it will get a good reputation so thats maybe one for next year.

Except..........."The people in charge" have decided that next years teams will be decided on the total of the three highest scores which means no weight will be thrown in favour of who beat who on which course and if the course is good(hard/challenging/lots of slope etc) it will almost become one to be avoided?????????????

Stupid I know!

When I got on the team, I was advised to go to all the hardest courses and not worry too much about scores and it worked. Currently the best course in this country for FITA field is probably Kendal but that suffers a low turnout due to it always clashing with the Lileshall Fita star in May. BUT it gives you the experience so that you will rarely meet anything that is an unknown.

And a final point.

Er, a huge majority of the Fita field shooters in this country are southerners so they dont feel like travelling. Look at how many shoots are down south, Woodstock,Raven, Crawley etc, all the shoots in Ssouth Wales, Pentref, Dinefwr, Carmarthen etc. They just dont need to come north to do a lot of shooting whereas I have HAD to travel the length and breadth of the land.
 

Swaledale

New member
May have found it now - is it the Riggwelter shoot ?

If so then I can't see how this compares to the French Festival

October in Yorkshire shooting just the ordinary field target round (with a limited range of classes for the bows (ie no flatbows - my own particular bow style which is fully included in the fita classed longbow section, not excluded as in the UK !)) cannot surely be the same as shooting in Central France in May on a complete weekend of 3d which is barely recognised by the gnas, and made extremely limited as they do not use the international fita classes, but make up their own limitations to suit their own shooters. With all the associated events, displays, competitions and just the general ambiance - 500 archers make a whole lot better event than just 30 or 40, and the fact that this is a Festival of Archery and nt just the usual competition must make it a little more special.

Don't knock someone for saying how good another shoot might be - just make yours interesting enough to attract them to yours as well !

Karen
I'm not sure if you are thinking I am having a go or not, I can asure you I am not. If this is what it takes and by the sound of it it probably is, then the people to convince are the governing body. GNAS are not noted for treating their Cinderella section with too much respect but there is always hope!
I have just come back from the NFAS National Champs, no 3D there either but still over 500 archers there to enjoy it!!!
 

robtattoo

New member
If this had been an NFAS do we would have had 80 by now from a society with a third of the membership of GNAS!


Hmmmmmm......makes you think, doesn't it. Maybe because the NFAS has a class for ALL bow/arrow combinations, maybe because the NFAS doesn't have a dress code, maybe because the NFAS is more 'user friendly' & doesn't ruin the simplicity of field with a lot of rules & regulations, mybe because when the NFAS says 'Compound Unlimited' they actually mean it, rather than imposing draw-weight restrictions, maybe because they recognise flatbows as a class, maybe because NFAS shoots are friendly, sociable affairs & not all gussied up with titles like 'Record status' or 'Arrowhead status'
(WTF is Record status anyway?? I'd read the GNAS rulebook to find out, but I'm only expecting to live for another 40 years or so, so probably won't have time...)

Just a thought.


ps. I'm not having a pop at you in any way, shape or form Swaledale, just the GNAS for not allowing me to shoot competetively in ANY of their field disciplines (I'd shoot compound U/L but it's a 70#er)
 

ukarcher

New member
Rob....maybe. Is record status where you have to get the arrow through the hole in the centre? :reading: It is a shame that the GNAS is what international archers see as British field archery.
Graham
 

Haywain

New member
It is a shame that the GNAS is what international archers see as British field archery.
Graham

The IFAA actually recognise the EFAA as the lead on field archery in England. If you go to their web site and click on the link for England you are taken to the EFAA website. I believe they only recognise one society in any country as well.

As some of the EFAA rounds are also used by the NFAS, the societies are more compatible to each other and is the reason why many NFAS members are also members of the EFAA. And is especially true if they wish to enter international competitions, something not done by the NFAS.
 

Haywain

New member
Haywain, I was thinking more British rather than English.
I stand corrected...... focused on the word international and went down that root. I know the GNAS have an international field section, but having been created AFTER IFAA, who should take precedence?

It would seem that there are just as many problems on the International front as there are nationally? More than one governing body for the sport does rather spoil things doesn't it?

"Too many chiefs and not enough indians" - or the politically correct version, "Too many Robins and not enough Merry Men." :)
 

Karen

New member
Don't really have a problem here with having two governing bodies - there is the FFTA (GNAS affiliated) which run the three field disciplines as well as all the Olympic type target shoots , and the FFTL (IFAA affiliated) which run the IFAA (like the EFAA, I suppose) shoots which use longer distances and are generally the 'iron man' type of events in comparison.
As a lot of the clubs have a dual membership to both then there really isn't too great a problem - you just shoot as and where you like with the field shoots - the only difference is that due to the huge number of archers for some of the FFTA shoots then they have to have a qualifier (done by the National Ranking system kept by computer )for the French Championships to keep the entries down to about 500 to make them manageable ! The FFTL championship is open to anyone who wants to shoot and has a FFTL licence, but due to the greater difficulty of the courses it tends to have a manageable number anyway.
So everyone gets a go at whatever level they aspire to.

How does this compare to the GNAS system where only the FITA field rounds exist, or with the other organisations who seem to think that they are the only ones who should exist - come on, lets have a bit of give and take here and go out to enjoy yourselves - its the shooting that matters, not the politics !

On a final note - I used to shoot barebow recurve and got really quite good, but this year have had to change to longbow (FITA longbow - which is really a flatbow).
I tried to come over to shoot at the GNAS field shoot in Wales, as it counts for the World Ranking system and that includes fita longbow.
I was told that although it was a world ranking shoot (theres only a few in each country that count towards this) they would not be putting out the yellow pegs (as per the fita regulations) at this shoot as they already had three pegs out and that was enough !
Also I couldn't shoot my flatbow in the longbow class as the gnas have their own special regulations for this - this I understand, but when I asked if I could just shoot to record a score for the rankings (not wishing to take any prizes from the longbow archers) I was told that I could'nt do this either.

How can these organisations be affiliated to Fita and yet seemingly make up their own regulations - they want a world ranking competion, but don;t want to give all the archers a chance to shoot it. I'm sure there are several flatbow (fita longbow qualified) Archers out there who would love to try for a ranking score.

When I queried this regulation for longbows then I was told that when they had asked some of their archers whether they wanted to change to the fita classification for this ( or even having a class for them) then they had voted not to as they were happy with the way things were.

Turkeys voting for Christmas maybe comes to mind here!
 

ukarcher

New member
Karen, that is what we were getting at. GNAS are so stuffed with stupid rules that not many people bother to shoot it. EFAA and NFAS are structured much simpler and friendlier. I just received my Archery UK magazine (GNAS publication) and out of 60 pages, 2 were devoted to field archery. They just don't promote field archery, and they are the governing body for the British team. NFAS have it in their constitution that they are not interested in international competition and that's fine. It's a domestic organisation.
 

Swaledale

New member
Hmmmmmm......makes you think, doesn't it. Maybe because the NFAS has a class for ALL bow/arrow combinations, maybe because the NFAS doesn't have a dress code, maybe because the NFAS is more 'user friendly' & doesn't ruin the simplicity of field with a lot of rules & regulations, mybe because when the NFAS says 'Compound Unlimited' they actually mean it, rather than imposing draw-weight restrictions, maybe because they recognise flatbows as a class, maybe because NFAS shoots are friendly, sociable affairs & not all gussied up with titles like 'Record status' or 'Arrowhead status'
(WTF is Record status anyway?? I'd read the GNAS rulebook to find out, but I'm only expecting to live for another 40 years or so, so probably won't have time...)

Just a thought.


ps. I'm not having a pop at you in any way, shape or form Swaledale, just the GNAS for not allowing me to shoot competetively in ANY of their field disciplines (I'd shoot compound U/L but it's a 70#er)
Hi Rob
Sadly it does make you think and yes the class system in GNAS is depressingly unrepresentative, there are however no dress regs in GNAS field.
Re the u/l rules, both as bad as each other, 60lb on GNAS and 300ft/sec on NFAS.
The record status, all that is about is that you can, if you are good enough, achieve a record breaking score and have it officialy logged thats all. The arrow head on the other hand is quite a nice thing for your average archer. There are a set of mile posts as it were and you get a badge (arrowhead), as you pass each score level so there is something for archers to achieve at every level, this is one of the better aspects of FITA/GNAS field.
Regarding the friendliness, believe me it is just as good, field archers are field archers but you can get a crap group in either!
You'll have to call in if you are over this way, PM me if you fancy a blast round.
 

Swaledale

New member
Re the flat bow issue, I have heard similar complaints so if you want it changed then I would suggest a more organised and concerted aproach is required. If you are serious about this then try running a pole, get some numbers and see if you can't set the ball rolling.
If you really don't like something or it appears unfair in your opinion then fix it don't just moan!!!!!
Just one other thing, I started a post using a deliberatly biggoted stand point and the comeback reiterated the point that there is no argument behind the standpoint of 'my way is better than yours'. There is room for all and room for improvement!
 

Karen

New member
Much as I would love to try and change the field archery world in the UK I am afraid that it is beyond me to take this on - I live in France and shoot here, for French teams normally, and so I don't think that I could have any effect whatsoever on the problems I see. I just find it very hard to get anyone here to take the British archery scene seriously - the reputation of the gnas is not too good here as they have refused to consider sending any archers to either of the World 3di Championships so far (a new fita initiative (gnas are fita affiliated?)) . The efaa however has a much better name and they have some very good well known archers - the IFAA clubs here travel all over and some of them did go to Scotland for the big meet a few years back.

I am not just having a moan - maybe I'm trying to encourage a bit of healthy criticism so that maybe someone will be inspired not to take NO for an answer every time that the gnas or any other body does something that seems stupid, illogical or unfair !

However - I started this thread to tell you about an event that I think will be one of the best around next year - a good time will be had by all and I look forward to meeting all who are brave enough to venture across the Channel - you won't regret it !!
 
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