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?
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?