Welcome to the final League Report (and report in general) of the Indoor Season. This will also probably be the last report for a while (for obvious reasons).

March proved to be chaotic for shooting in general and the Postal Leagues in particular, with many clubs not being able to enter any scores at all. Fortunately, many Yelverton members managed to get in their Grand Prix and Portsmouth scores before the lockdown came into effect. Unfortunately though, only a few were able to shoot a Frostbite.

In the wider scheme of things, the indoor Postal Leagues are now finished, as is the inaugural Grand Prix and the Indoor Season in general. Below are the final results from those, as well as a couple of things that would normally be dealt with at the AGM.

DCAS Indoor Postals (Portsmouth) – March – Complete

For those unfamiliar with the format; Archers shoot a Portsmouth round under competition conditions and the top three scores for each bow type form a team (and the following archers form the ‘B team’, ‘C team’, etc if a club enters multiple teams). These scores are sent to DCAS and clubs compete against each other from November to March.

In March, we won two of our matches (Recurve A and B) and lost three (Recurve C, Compound and Longbow). Below are the final results tables from DCAS and a table that I keep myself for progress within the club.

As you can see, we had a mixed bag of results this year. I’m confident though that we will do well next year, as our Compound, Longbow and Recurve contingents all have either new talent or existing members have made great improvements this year (for example, at least three Recurve shooters have broken that magical 500 boundary this season).

DCAS Outdoor Postals (Frostbite) – March – Complete

The Frostbite teams are selected in the same way as the Portsmouth, with the top three scores forming each team. As with the Indoor Postal, archers shoot a Frostbite round and the top three scores form a team. Unlike the Portsmouth, teams are not bow specific (with the exception of the new Longbow team). Archers from any bow style can contribute to the teams, although there is a maximum of one Compound allowed per team.

In March, we won our Longbow match but lost the other two (technically we lost one and entered no scores for the other). This is unsurprising due to the lockdown hitting early in the month, so few people had a chance to score. Below are the final results tables from DCAS as well as the table that I keep myself.

As with the Portsmouth, we had a mixed bag. The lockdown (plus the terrible weather in February) really caused problems for people scoring. A lesson to take away from this (also applicable to the Portsmouth but especially for the Frostbite), is to get scores in early in the month. We can’t guarantee the weather or otherwise uninterrupted shooting. Another observation is that our Compound shooters (unsurprisingly) make a huge difference to the Frostbite teams. I would encourage more of them to put in scores next year.

AGM Items

The following sections would normally be announced and presented by me at the Annual General Meeting but given the current situation, I will report them here.

Yelverton Bowmen Grand Prix – March – Complete

I mentioned the Grand Prix results in last month’s League Report but I would have announced them at the AGM, so here’s the post again.

The Grand Prix has now concluded. Based on the popularity of the inaugural event, I shall look at running it again next season (assuming I’m re-elected at the AGM).

The use of handicaps has made it very interesting to watch the leader board change over the months, especially as the eventual winner was actually placed quite low after the first month but climbed ever higher as the rounds progressed.

Congratulations to Jamie and thank you to everybody who took part.

Yelverton Bowmen Tavistock Trophy – March – Complete

The Tavistock Trophy is an internal competition run using the scores entered in the Indoor Postal. The highest cumulative score for each category over the five months wins. In the event of a category only having a single participant, they are included in the most appropriate alternative (normally forming a unisex bow category).

The individual category winners are:
Compound – Darren Bennion,
Longbow – Alister Smith,
Ladies Barebow – Linda Wright,
Ladies Recurve – Sarah Watson,
Gentlemen Barebow – Pasty Cain,
Gentlemen Recurve – Darren Bennion,

Congratulations to all. The full scores and standings can be seen on the table below.

Handicap Improvement Medal

This is an award given to the person who has improved their handicap the most between two outdoor seasons (scores from the indoor season don’t count unfortunately). Your best three handicaps of the year are averaged and compared with the previous year (in this case the 2018 outdoor season compared to 2019). The winner receives an official medal (the one in the image). This must be returned to the club by the next AGM, as it actually belongs to Archery GB and is on ‘permanent loan’ to the club.

This year, the winner of the Handicap Improvement Medal, with an improvement of seven points is Linda Wright. Congratulations.

Indoor Handicap Improvement Award

As mentioned above, the official Handicap Improvement Medal doesn’t recognise scores and development indoors. I thought we’d rectify this and introduce an indoor specific handicap award.

Unbeknownst to everybody (well… most of you), I’ve been keeping an eye on the 2019/20 indoor handicaps and comparing them to 2018/19 in the same way as the outdoor handicaps work.

The inaugural winner of the Yelverton Bowmen Indoor Handicap Improvement Award (working title) is Sarah Watson with an improvement of 15. Congratulations. This was highly entertaining for me, as Sarah and Andy were unknowingly locked in battle for this award. They spent much of the season with equal improvements and only near the end of the season did Sarah enter the deciding score.

Finally

As a final note, I received 442 scores from all members this indoor season, compared to 347 last year and even less the year before. I’m glad that things are picking up and more people are choosing to pursue their handicaps and classifications. The introduction of the Grand Prix contributed to this total and also exposed members to rounds other than the Portsmouth (and occasional WA18). Thank you to everybody who supported the Grand Prix.

I also awarded in the region of 70 new club records and 23 new classification badges (some beating previous records and others filling previously empty spaces on the record tables). Congratulations to all the recipients. I hope there are many more to come.