we are famous and trendy !

[wishsong]

From the Australian yesterday
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/na ... 6496183943

"WHENEVER bows and arrows fly on the big or small screen, Archery Australia puts its head down.

This year there's been the London Olympics (in which West Australia's Taylor Worth was pipped in a tense shoot-off in the men's finals by a Chinese archer), and the films The Hunger Games and Brave, both of which featured bow-wielding heroines.

The result: a boom in people taking up archery.

"Since May we're getting about 400 to 500 new members a month," says Archery Australia's CEO Jim Larven. "And quite honestly we can't cope. We're a small amateur sport."

Apart from a shortage of manpower, he says, "the biggest problem we have is that we don't have the infrastructure, the venues."

The introduction of guns shot down archery's use in warfare 400 years ago, but it remained a pastime for the aristocracy (in Europe in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it was particularly fashionable for women) and for hunting.

In Australia and elsewhere archery has stayed in the public imagination, thanks to cowboys-and-Indians games and various screen incarnations of Robin Hood.

The Lord of the Rings films, which propelled Orlando Bloom to fame a few years back as the elf archer Legolas, and Robin, starring Russell Crowe, sparked a strong resurgence, Larven says.

So does any story that gets the sport into the media, whether it's the archery prowess of actress Geena Davis to a kerfuffle involving Olympic team selection.

"When there's any sort of publicity, we get a boost in numbers," says Larven.

He's bracing himself for the 2013 TV release of The Green Arrow, featuring the DC Comics superhero.

At the Sydney Olympic Park Archery centre, a group of Year 11 students from Strathfield Girls' High School are firing their first shots. It is surprisingly noisy: the twang of strings, thwack of aluminium arrows hitting targets, or the occasional pop of a balloon, placed on the targets as an extra challenge. Any hit is followed by whoops of triumph and high-fives.

The girls, most of whom have never tried archery before, describe it as "fun", "better than I thought","exciting".

"The hardest thing is pulling it back, and then holding it in position... precisely, to hit what you want," says Farheen Hussain.

As she waits for the whistle to sound (indicating it is now safe to pick up the arrows), she confesses only one of her first three shots hit the target.

"Better than nothing," she says.

The girls are using recurve bows - the sort you see at the Olympics. (The other main variety is the compound bow, which instructor Aidan Coates describes as "much more Terminator-ish".)

Few of the Strathfield Girls' students say The Hunger Games inspired them to even think of taking up archery. However, Coates says some youngsters who come to the centre insist on calling themselves Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of the film and novels.

The centre has experienced a boom in recent months. Anyone wanting to try their hand can expect to wait two weeks to get into a weekend group class of 50 students.

"It used to be 30, but demand was so high," says Lisa Matton, another instructor.

Australian Archery CEO Larven is a member of the Liverpool City archery club at Moorebank: "It has tripled its membership in the last four months... which is quite phenomenal."

About 12,000 people belong to archery clubs in Australia, he says, "but from archery sales we know there's probably around 300,000 people who actually have bows and shoot at something".

Archery is much bigger in many European and Asian nations (it's a national sport in Nepal, Korea and Mongolia). During the London Olympics, a British survey found archery was the sport most people said they wanted to "have a go at", Larven says.

The growth in the sport's popularity here is partly linked to a take-off in field archery or hunting.

"Quite honestly, in archery hunting is where the sport lies," Larven says.

Native animals are off-limits but feral rabbits, foxes, goats, pigs and deer are all legitimate targets for people with the requisite licence. In NSW, that means a Game Council R-licence, which can be obtained through the Australian Bowhunters Association.

What lies behind archery's enduring popularity?

"It looks easy," Larven says - although, as someone who has won national championships and competed and judged internationally, he knows how much work goes into becoming an expert.

He thinks part of archery's appeal lies in the enjoyment of shooting at a target.

"It is a highly competitive individual sport," he says. "It's similar to golf in that respect: it's one-on-one, you compete against yourself."

The other attraction is there's no age limit. "We have people as young as six and seven who are shooting competitively, and we're just about to introduce... a 70-plus age division, to cater for the interest."

A sign on Sydney Olympic Park Archery (SOPA) clubhouse door reads: "I liked archery before it was cool."

Outside, club member Colin Lambert, 73, is taking aim. He has practised archery "off and on" since 1972, and is devoting more time to it, and to cycling, since he retired. Contrary to what many think, archery demands a level of physical fitness just to draw back the string.

Lambert uses a recurve bow fitted with an advanced sight, a stabiliser to absorb the vibrations and a string he made using a jig at home. The fingers of his right hand are protected by a leather tab, to lessen the friction from repeated use of the string.

His six arrows all land in the centre or innermost ring of the target but, he says, "there are far better archers than me".

He passes on a tip: "Aim first, then pull back."

Sounds simple? Maybe not. Lambert says letting go of the string is "a whole art in itself".

AAP

Nice to see a positive spin for once eh !

[GrahameA]

Morning All.

IMHO The real issue in this statement is:

"And quite honestly we can't cope. We're a small amateur sport."

This inherently is an admission by one of the larger bodies it does not know what to do.

Manna has fallen from heaven, it had forewarning and it has no national plan of what it is going to do to take advantage of the situation.

[jcm]

Thanks for the post.
True- all areas of the sport are feeling the high demand .
Should there be a group effort to promote and foster -Yes.
Regards
John

[bigbob]

Regards the need for a national response from all sections of archery, we now have a liaison between three of the bodies in ABA 3DAAA and AA called the Archery aAliance, supposedly formed exactly for times such as this. I know they have done a power of good in meetings with the relevant government instrumentalities regarding hunting etc; so hope they will be quick to respond in a constructive manner to this welcome surge of interest.

[GrahameA]

Hi Bob.

I am a real cynic with this stuff. The potential for the resource issue has been known for sometime. The effects have been happening for months. The CEO of AA states:

"When there's any sort of publicity, we get a boost in numbers," says Larven.

IMHO The concept of a National response to numbers is at least a year late. In the case of AA I have zero faith in there ability to do anything quickly - they have an organsational inertia that any Bureacracy would be envious of.

[looseplucker]

Regards the need for a national response from all sections of archery, we now have a liaison between three of the bodies in ABA 3DAAA and AA called the Archery aAliance, supposedly formed exactly for times such as this. I know they have done a power of good in meetings with the relevant government instrumentalities regarding hunting etc; so hope they will be quick to respond in a constructive manner to this welcome surge of interest.

.....meetings and liaisions which were initially organised by folk tired of seeing the so-called representative bodies not so much with their heads down, but in the sand.....I'll say nothing more.

[longbowinfected]

funny how the focus is on competition yet in ANSW you are lucky to get 100 for a big shoot and 200-250 for a national shoot which would be less than 10 per cent of the whole of AA yet all the associations' memberbase is probably less than 3 per cent of the total who pick up a bow.

Love how SOPAC just doubles the class sizes and still has a couple of weeks waiting list. Wonder how many instructors for 50 people? That is a lot of bows and arrows sitting around during later quieter times.

Kevin

[Fanto]

We are lucky in Adelaide to have a non-club field archery park.

I went to visit the Adelaide archery club which is only a few hundred metres from home. They do the Oly thing but also barebow style longbows. (Jeff, I do mean actual long, straight, narrow longbows!!)

They shoot in the parklands so i wandered up one day with my bow, just to say gday and get a feel for the people.

I very much got the "who are you and what do you want with us? and whats that ? surely not a "hunting" bow is it? dear oh dear. tisk tisk. (martin mamba, no camo or bowquiver in sight) I asked if i could shoot and they said, "Oh no, its an insurance issue." Why can I sign in and shoot at the indoor range in melboure, the archery park in Adelaide and all of the 3D clubs?

They seemed OK but their approach was come along, but you'll be doing things OUR way end of discussion. And their fees are triple everyone elses.