At a glance
Janna Collier – 486 – 8th
Scarlett T-Rush – 459 – 11th
Yvonne Zanker – 453 – 12th
Jessica Soles – 205 – 2nd
Stephen Fawcett – 514 – 25th
David Williams – 510 – 26th
Andrew Howe – 505 – 31st
Jamie Parkin – 483 – 39th
James Nelson – 403 – 2nd
Full results
Report
A team of 9 braved the icy conditions to pick up their bows from the range and make the journey to the Bournemouth Open (in Canford Magna, actually outside of Bournemouth) on Sunday 20th January. The conditions forced the cars to be parked outside the Boat Hard, and Jamie Parkin held everyone up by first leaving his lunch back in the range when it had been locked up, and then forgetting his GNAS card at home. Fortunately there was plenty of time, and we didn’t get lost on the way this year either…
The recent lack of practice due to exams, thesis writing and snowed-off range hurt a lot of the scores, though Scarlett Theron Rush and Janna Collier both got PBs. Some competitors observed that the novices were very impressive for the amount of time that they had been shooting! Despite some first competition nerves, Janna was shooting better than the rest of SUAC for a while, and took it upon herself to start coaching Stephen Fawcett on the target next to her. The points she made were entirely valid, but her coaching style was rather direct!
David Williams rationed his Jaffa Cake consumption this time, but the equipment officer suffered an equipment failure as his longrod extender fell apart. Superglue couldn’t save it, but fortunately another competitor had some spare equipment to lend to him.
The recurve team consisted of Stephen (woop) on 514, David on 510, Andrew Howe on 505, and Janna on 486, a total of 2015. There was also a barebow category, with James coming second in the gents with 403, and Jess Soles coming second in the females with 205. The two combined to win the barebow team prize, and some gold medals to go with the individual silver medals. To cap it off, James also almost won the Lady Paramount prize for the closest score to 400, missing out by one point.
The team score also goes towards SEAL this month, except Janna isn’t eligible for this (long story), so her place is taken by Jamie on 483, giving a SEAL senior team score of 2012 – the team will probably be a few places down on the leaderboard for this leg. The novice team of Andrew, Jamie and Scarlett (459) scored 1447, which is likely to be good enough to win again.
The recent run of SUAC raffle prize winning looked to be coming to an end, as all the tickets were apparently from the non-SUAC/South Wilts/Bournemouth side of the hall, but Scarlett kept the streak going, in the end winning twice. She claimed a travel Sudoku, and a toy laser gun that will probably shortly be making an appearance at the range (for testing people’s bubbles, of course).
It was a successful and enjoyable day, and the SUAC members who went resolve to bring even more people to Bournemouth next year.
-Stephen Fawcett
