Last weekend our archery Club hosted the 2014 South Island Junior Championships.
The JAMA which used to be know as the Junior and Midget Archers Association (now called the Junior Archer Members Assoc)...is great for children up to the age of 18 to compete and the different levels for their age group.
It took a lot of organising but it was so worth it when you see the effort those children put in.....it was 2 days of shooting - the first day was 144 arrows from about 10.30am till 4.30pm then next day was the 720 when they shoot 72 arrows...it's a lot of hard work for them but especially the little ones...(my son is one of the very little ones ...the mini minja's as they are called in the club....he is 5 in from the right....next to him is the shortest competing archer in our club...they are hilarious together ..they're like a little old married couple ...just as well because she keeps in in order and organised
We were absolutely worn out at the end of it...we started on Friday morning marking out the range and were up on Saturday and Sunday out at the range for 7am to get the targets out and approved by the judges before shooting started...but it was fabulous.
The Line up with the view from the DOS's (Director of Shooting) point of view
We were meant to have some lovely new bosses arrive before the competition but unfortunately Cyclone Lusi had other ideas so they were still out in NZ waters and didn't have time to clear customs in time...still another club who we get on really well with let us borrow some of their bosses so we had enough for the competition.
...and this is Bruce D'Bear who is our club mascot...he is very well loved and respected amongst the archery fraternity
If you get the chance to have a go at doing archery I would strongly recommend it...we love the club we're in ..they're like an extended family and the kids are fabulous.