At a Glance

The round shot was a Short Windsor. Sadly SUAC did not come away with any medals due to this being a handicapped based tournament with the awards going to those that most improved their handicap. There were some interesting occurrences and impressive performances though:

Report

Once a season, SUAC are invited to a shoot with the charity known formerly as St. Dunstan’s. Now associated with the Blind Veterans and celebrating the centenary of their charity,they invited SUAC and many other groups they usually do a competition with to one big event. The Army, Navy and Air Force were all in attendance, as was the rain.

After an early start, too early for one member who promptly went back to sleep in the car, and a long drive up to the shoot location in Crawley, SUAC set up in the decidedly damp and windy conditions ready for a shoot none of them would forget. The miserable weather was affecting everyone’s performance, even Abby who was in a little world of her own due to the medication prescribed for an ear infection she was suffering (and yet chose to come out shooting in the rain anyway, dedication or stupidity?). Yet they continued with the shoot regardless.
Lunchtime brought about some more strangeness with, following the weather, the conversation turning to ducks. It was decided that clickers were far too boring and that it should be possible to have different noises, such as a duck’s quack, as a clicker and the best way of having an authentic noise was having a real duck attached to the bow.

After lunch the shooting and rain continued. Fortunately a few of the team were able to take shelter in tents, being adopted by various branches of the RAF or Navy as had space. It was halfway through the afternoon session that a revelation was made, Sara’s sight marks had been off all day, and a chance glance in the right place showed that her bottom limb was not in fact set in correctly. It had been sitting on the riser all this time. A quick de-stringing fixed this and Sara completed the shoot with a properly set up bow.
The shoot concluded and the raffle done, Matt upholding the tradition and walking away with a bottle of alcohol. Sadly SUAC didn’t win any medals as this was a handicap improvement tournament so the winner was the one that improved theirs the most. But all was not lost, due to the special occasion all participants and helpers received keyrings and an engraved centenary glass. Something shiny to take away after all.