Little-else, I agree with you but what I would comment is:
1. I believe we have to continue to carry the banner for archery! I believe that we all as archers of all sorts, members and non-members, clubs and not clubs, we all are what called ‘archery‘. I believe that each of us is an example and is a live ‘advertisement’ of archery. Not AGB, not
government, etc, but every and each of us is what called archery and each of us is proud to be an archers and doesn’t matter on what level or style. and Our proudness doesn’t depend on belonging to club, style, regulatory body or managing organisation.
2. AGB, as I personally see it, hast, in reality, not an unified concept of what we are - sport or hobby. As For me - AGB should concentrate on sport first. Sport can be a hobby, obviously, but some people can grow up up to very high level. I will not tell you news if I say that beginners courses havent desired rate of participants who would like and actually do archery as a sport after the course is ended. Content of those courses is out of comments - this content is on a very low level as for me. But I understand that clubs have to earn to exist. From here we clear see a ‘difficulty’ which should be addressed if we want to have archery as a sport.
3. Archery were banned during lockdowns - I don’t think that here was too much politics but yes, agree, money is power and archery isn’t those power. But isn’t it our strength?
4. Sometimes I am very upset that we measure everything in money and markets. Of course, certain level of this thought should be coz we live in environment dictated by money. But, see 3., times are changing, life is changing, and I believe in archery as a sport. I still believe that it can be made popular and successful. Of course we need more people, more serious approach to archery as a sport, more serious trainings, courses, etc....
5. I am convinced that politic should be strictly forbidden for sports and shouldn’t affect it. Agree with you. But I also see a very rigid system that tries to ‘improve’. I’m sceptical with approach what will be used to make this ‘improvement’ BUT this is my personal opinion. I believe that primary information used to decide and make such improvement should come from existing archers of all levels, clubs, all people involved in archery. After analysing this information you can get a lot of points of improvement and then you can see what can be done in short term, long term etc. You can estimate and evaluate predicted result, you can understand what is lacking and what to add. Small example, coaching courses: learners want to have more serious training but what we have is opposite - lowering level. Etc. The same with structure of system.
any system has problems, any system has evolution, the bigger system the more difficult to make changes, improvements. BUT I believe we are enough in number to express freely our opinions, visions, wishes. And this information is priceless! It should be used to make sport of archery better.
im a very optimistic but seeing and reading what is going on I am still sceptical in many things. It is like in market language: we have demand but this demand isn’t satisfied in way and level we want and need. So this gap is still big enough to be significant.