Don’t throw in the towel
You are talking to a shoulder injury maestro mate - blew out my left rotator cuff last October, cannot shoot my
longbow AGAIN but haven’t hit the “screw it” button this time. Reckon it will be another 8-10 months before I pick up my
longbow.
During my enforced downtime my AGB Session Coach (the new version of the old level 1 coach) course started in its all new online guise and WOW have I learned a ton of useful stuff from it.
First and foremost - warm up and warm down drills - what to do, how to do it and the why EVERYONE in EVERY club should be doing them to prevent injury and discomfort.
I wish that you were close enough to come to our club - we aren’t perfect but we are like one big daft supportive, often dysfunctional, mixed up archery family. Part of my love of the sport is my club and the environment in it, one of the reasons our membership grew in lockdown was from members of other clubs migrating to us because of that nurturing environment.
If you could find a club like that local to you then I guarantee your outlook on the sport would change.
As for beginners courses we have 60+ names on our waiting list, are on week 3 of course two this year & as I’m now nearly signed off as ’real’ coach we will begin running staggered courses next week as our week 4’s continue to develop with experienced mentor buddies and our new week 1’s get the intensive coaches.
We also seem to be gaining a bit of a reputation as a ‘para friendly’ club {horrid term} with archers joining us who are visually impaired, wheelchair users, amputees or with other challenges. Some blue sky thinking and an insane amount of internet trawling has been required to create adaptive devices but on the whole it’s been a smooth ride.
Renewal won’t affect our numbers - they tend to fluctuate as people move away from the area rather than leaving the sport and like most clubs we probably have a 30-40% stick rate from beginners courses but I am hearing of other local clubs who are starting to reach a position where falling numbers are threatening their ability to continue.