Falling foul of rule 304(j)

bristolianish

New member
"At any Meeting no practice is allowed on the ground the same day, except that six arrows may be shot as sighters before the beginning of each day?s shooting, but only after competitors have come under the Judge?s orders at the Assembly. Such sighters shall not be recorded."

I recently fell foul of the above rule, totally innocently and as a result lost my second first class score and a county record.

In November last year our archery field and storage container was flooded to a depth of three feet. It was six days before we could assess the damage and as you could imagine it was extensive.

November 2012: after the flood photo gallery 1: Bristol Bowmen and Golden Phoenix Archers

A total clean-up was undertaken but we were unable to shoot again until February 2013. In particular all the training bows were just put to one side after cleaning as we had no beginners courses planned. Fast forward to last week and the club was asked to do a have a go session for an event on our ground. Obviously we needed bows for this event plus our coach was planning to assess a returning archer and begin a family and friends starter course. Two of us decided to forgo our planned midweek shoot, re-clean, disinfect, string and test all the training bows ready for the planned activities. I set up a target boss and test fired every bow - including the left handers. They all turned out to be fine having survived six days partially underwater. The total clean-up, bow testing and some hard manual labour took a total of four hours. My colleague sensibly decided at that point to go home. However two more colleagues turned up for an evening shoot and I decided to join them, not expecting to do very well after all the other work

What actually happened was, for some reason, I shot really well - three points under handicap, a County record for 60m barebow and my second first class score, only to be told that my previous labour on behalf of the club invalidated both the score and the County record in so much as I had fired more than six arrows prior to shooting the round.

As you can imagine I'm not particularly happy about this. I gained no advantage test firing a lot of mismatched and wrong handed bows ten yards into a straw boss which didn't even have a target face on. I certainly didn't consider it practice, merely essential equipment maintenance. Any muscle relaxation or advantage there was negated by an additional two hours of manual labour.

Further checking showed there are numerous ways the rule can be circumnavigated by someone determined to cheat. It would be perfectly legal to shoot as many arrows as you wished if you had facilities at home or at a different ground for example. I have also been told that in times past an archer could shoot up to half a round as a warm up. In FITA international competitions archers get a 45 minute warm up where they can shoot as many arrows as they wish.

Sorry for being so long winded, but my point / question is this. What is the point of a rule that can be easily circumnavigated for those wanting to do so, and that penalises someone who has made a genuine mistake. Is there anything I can do to have my score re-instated as valid so as to have my classification and handicap reduction? Should this rule be changed?
 

Vagabond

New member
"..., a County record for 60m barebow and my second first class score, only to be told that my previous labour on behalf of the club invalidated both the score and the County record in so much as I had fired more than six arrows prior to shooting the round...
Hmmm, seems a tad harsh. . .

* First of all, rule 304 applies to GNAS national records, but club and county records officers can use these as guidelines. E.g. There is a rule that national records must be shot at record-status events (obviously!), but it would be silly to apply this rule to club shoots. So obviously some rules are always broken by all clubs and counties, hence "guidelines".

* If you were shooting a FITA-60 to FITA or GNAS rules then Section "308. Recognised Rounds (b) (iv) (c) might apply:

"c. FITA Recognised Rounds shown in Table 3-3. Shooting may be in accordance with either the Archery GB shooting regimes specified in these Rules of Shooting or the FITA shooting regimes allowed under Rule 310. The round need not be the first round of the day."

You need a good lawyer!

V
 

Phil Reay

New member
who disallowed it? sounds very harsh to me and to be quite honest, i would have made the same mistake in your shoes. whoever it was, line them up in front of a 60 yds target with an apple on their head and then "test out" some of the bows you repaired until they relent.
 

mk1

It's an X
Supporter
I'd pose this to the new Chair of the Rules Committee and get a 2nd opinion. I'm sure it was not intended to be used in a situation such as yours.
 

Nightimer

New member
That has got to be the most pathetic interpretation of rules that I have EVER heard of.
Smells of sour grapes to me.
If you had spent all morning shooting at 50m then in the afternoon shot a short metric league match on the same ground and claimed a county record that would be different.
I would take it before your County committee for them to mull over.
 

darthTer

Active member
Supporter
Ironman
American Shoot
I was under the impression that ANY record claim could only be made at a record status shoot!!! Otherwise how can it be completely verified???

At the recent West of Scotland Champs, the judges were not 100% happy with the height/position of the faces & therefore declared the shoot could not be record status - on archer broke a couple of Scottish records but couldn't claim them.

Shooting on a club night can get you classifications but not records. Was the target distance officially checked?? was the target face at the right height & angle??? was the range marked out correctly?? was you score marked & verified by someone else??

Unfortunately, I think you have to be happy within yourself that you broke the record & attend the next record status shoot knowing that you are capable.
 

bristolianish

New member
For some reason Gloucestershire are happy to accept a record if it is shot on a designated club target day - don't ask me why. I'm not particularly worried about the County Record - I already hold it for 60m although a fellow archer bested that score by four points on Sunday and will claim it (subject to verification). I do object to losing my second 1st class score and my handicap reduction.
 

mk1

It's an X
Supporter
Thanks Vagabond. I have posted that to the club record officer and will see what he says ...

He'll probably say that the FITA round was being shot under AGB not WRS rules and therefore the AGB rules apply. As I said though I don't think what you did prior to shooting the round was in the spirit of the rules
 

grimsby archer

New member
"My colleague sensibly decided at that point to go home. However two more colleagues turned up for an evening shoot and I decided to join them, not expecting to do very well after all the other work

What actually happened was, for some reason, I shot really well - three points under handicap, a County record for 60m barebow and my second first class score, only to be told that my previous labour on behalf of the club invalidated both the score and the County record in so much as I had fired more than six arrows prior to shooting the round.
Surely this was a practise session and did not qualify for classifications or county records ?!
Classifications and records (depending on the county criteria) have to be shot at club target days or above, which have to be announced in advance and recorded in the club minutes.

If I was a member of your county, I'd be pretty cheesed if you claimed a record shot during practise.

<edit> sorry to have repeated that which had gone before. I'd had my page open a while before replying, during which time others replied</edit>
 

bristolianish

New member
In Gloucestershire records can be claimed on designated target days. Our club has decided to make every shoot that's advertised to all members a designated target day. Perfectly legal and accepted by the County.
 

Martin Heelis

Active member
Ironman
We certainly didn't penalise our club secretary when he tested out all our training bows and then did a scoring round. I don't think it's reasonable to count testing bows as "practice". As mk1 said above, talk to the Chair of the Rules Committee and get a 2nd opinion.
 

bristolianish

New member
I have indeed emailed the Chair of the rules committee at Archery GB and sent a copy to our own records officer. We'll await his reply. The County Records Officer is of the opinion that it is a breach of the rules however unintentional ..
 

Bertybobby

New member
In Gloucestershire records can be claimed on designated target days. Our club has decided to make every shoot that's advertised to all members a designated target day. Perfectly legal and accepted by the County.
I believe this is the case at my club. According to our records officer all of our twice weekly shooting periods are "nominated club target days".
 

Vagabond

New member
I've mentioned this before in previous postings, but here I go again...

Archery clubs, counties, regions, etc. have a written constitution. This often includes something akin to:
"To encourage the sport of archery in the local community/county/etc...."

Now, FITA rules achieve this perfectly. They encourage archers to shoot more and more rounds per day and reward them accordingly.

In contrast, GNAS rules seem designed to achieve the exact opposite: you are only ever rewarded for the first round, so there's absolutely nothing to be gained by shooting any more. The net effect is to discourage the archer from (e.g.) shooting double rounds at tournament. Very odd that we pay our subs to GNAS who write rules that actually discourage archery. Ho-hum.

To illustrate how silly this can be, consider a tournament shooting two rounds on the same venue on the same day:
* American : A GNAS round shot in the morning
* FITA-900 : A FITA round shot in the afternoon

You can claim 2 records for this and 2 qualifiers for you classification.
But swap the two rounds so that the FITA is shot in the morning and it's absolutely pointless shooting the American in the afternoon.

When in doubt, the Records Officer should be guided by the constitution: i.e. reward archers for shooting more rounds, rather than the opposite.

V
 

mk1

It's an X
Supporter
Just to complicate what you are saying Vagabond - the FITA rules only apply when the shoot is WRS - if it is UKRS or less then AGB Rules apply.

As for contacting the Chair of Rules - I'm not suggesting that he will overrule the Club Record Officer, but that he should be aware of what has happened as sometime rules are far too open to interpretation.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
I was told; but cannot confirm the truth of this, that shooting practice on the targets/ shooting line set out for the round, was not allowed. That sort of implies that shooting different faces or distances would not be banned.
If the county accepts scores from target days at the clubs, then it could be worth finding out what their view is about shooting before the round and what is allowed and what is not.
 
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