Welcome to what I hope will be the first of many updates on the achievements of club members. I felt that, while we make announcements whenever somebody achieves something, the whole club doesn’t necessarily know about it, just those there on the day. Likewise, competition/league results don’t have as wide an audience as they could.

Some of the sections are fairly long, covering substantial periods. They will not be so in future but I wanted to be thorough and make it up to date.

Please provide feedback, so I can improve future reports. If anything is missing or if you don’t want to be mentioned in reports, please let me (Jon) know.

Winter Postal League and the Tavistock Trophy

As you’re hopefully aware, the club took part in the Winter Postals run by DCAS, which are divided into Portsmouth (indoors) and Frostbite (outdoors). The top three scores from each club formed a team (next three formed a 2nd team, etc) and faced other clubs over five months. We entered three teams for the Portsmouth postal (two Recurve and one Compound) and two teams for the Frostbite (no bowstyle distinctions). The results for our teams are as follows:

Portsmouth teams:

• Recurve Division 3: ‘Yelverton Bowmen Team A’ came 2nd
• Recurve Division 4: ‘Yelverton Bowmen Team B’ won the division,
• Compound Division 1: ‘Yelverton Bowmen’ came 2nd

Frostbite teams:

• Division 3: ‘Yelverton Bowmen Team A’ won the division
• Division 3: ‘Yelverton Bowmen Team B’ came 2nd

Thank you to all who entered scores and congratulations to those who were part of the winning teams.
With two wins and three 2nd places, I believe this is the most successful postal year we’ve had. This shows that our members are getting better every year and we should be proud of that. We also have newer archers who are building up their skills and could very well contribute to next year’s leagues. I hope we do just as well, if not better in the 2019/20 season!

As usual we ran the Tavistock Trophy parallel to the Portsmouth Postals. The highest cumulative score over the five months in each category was awarded with a small trophy and bragging rights until the next indoor season.

This year our Webmaster, and general tech guru, Simon Bench designed and crafted a set of 3D printed trophies. Thanks go to him and we look forward to seeing next year’s version.

Congratulations to: Pasty Cain (Barebow), Bruce Cox (Recurve), Alister Smith (Longbow) and Marcus Yeoman (Compound).

If you want to see a more detailed breakdown of the Postal and Tavistock Trophy scores, let me know.

Indoor Classifications

The following are all the classifications earned by members during the 2018/19 indoor season. Congratulations to all.

• Simon Bench, Bruce Cox, Marvin Doncaster, Iain Lees and Alister Smith regained their ‘D’ classification.
• Jonathan Ingram regained his ‘C’ classification.
• Darren Bennion and Marcus Yeoman regained their ‘A’ classification.
• Stan Axworthy, Karen Ingram and Jim Start earned their ‘F’ classification.
• Andy Axworthy, Jim Lakeman, Jamie Pruden, Sarah Watson and Linda Wright earned their ‘E’ classification.
• James Baker, Holly Bench, Robert ‘Pasty’ Cain and Jenny Woodards earned their ‘D’ classification.
• Martin Bawden earned his ‘C’ classification.

Outdoor Classifications

Since outdoor evenings have only recently started, there haven’t been many classification gains/regains yet. Those hardy individuals who continued to shoot outdoors on Sundays during the winter have had a head start:

• Jim Lakeman regained his 3rd Class.
• Karen Ingram earned her 2nd Class.

252 Scheme

From its introduction a couple of years ago, the 252 scheme has proven to be very successful, with all new members and many existing members progressing through the distances, demonstrating their increasing proficiency. The current standing for active members is as follows:

• Bob Dakin (LB), Oliver Harris (R), Jim Lakeman (BB) and Brian Woodman (R) have achieved 20 yards.
• Jamie Pruden (R), Jon Batten (R), Holly Bench (C), Jonathan Ingram (C), Karen Ingram (BB), Jenny Woodards (R) have achieved 30 yards.
• Jim Lakeman (R), Iain Lees (R), Sharon Rostock (BB) and Shaun Rostock (BB) have achieved 40 yards.
• Jon Batten (BB), Alister Smith (LB), James Baker (R), Simon Bench (R), Jim Start (BB+LB) and Linda Wright (BB) have achieved 50 yards.
• Bruce Cox (R) and Jonathan Ingram (R) have achieved 60 yards.

Additionally in April, Alister Smith (R) achieved 60 yards and John Williamson (R) achieved 20 yards.

Club Records

This is a list of the club records that have been awarded since I took over Records Officer last April. The does not include the pre-2018 records I discovered during my overhaul. Please see the Club Records for anything before then, as well as the current (30/04/19) standing for all rounds.

• Martin Bawden (Gentleman Recurve Master): Portsmouth (single face) – 562.
• Simon Bench (Gentleman Recurve Senior): Bray 2 (single face) – 266.
• Darren Bennion (Gentleman Compound Senior): Individual Match Round 50m (18 arrows) – 146, WA Field (24 Target Marked) – 380.
• Darren Bennion (Gentleman Compound Master): Frostbite – 346, Individual Match Round 50m (18 arrows) – 146, Portsmouth (three spot) – 595, St George – 938, WA Field (24 Target Marked) – 380.
• Robert ‘Pasty’ Cain (Gentleman Senior Barebow): Frostbite – 270.
• Robert ‘Pasty’ Cain (Gentleman Master Barebow): Frostbite – 270, Portsmouth (single face) – 516, WA18 (single face) – 401.
• Bruce Cox (Gentleman Recurve Master): Worcester – 246, Bray 1 (three spot) – 213, Bray 2 (three spot) – 230, Bray Combined (local round) (three spot) – 443.
• Karen Ingram (Lady Barebow Senior): Short National – 210, Worcester (single face) – 101.
• Karen Ingram (Lady Barebow Master): Short National – 210, Worcester (single face) – 101.
• Jonathan Ingram (Gentleman Recurve Senior): Bray 1 (three spot) – 276, Bray 2 (thee spot) – 268, Bray Combined (single face) (new local round) – 520, Bray Combined (three spot) (new local round) – 544, Portsmouth (three spot) – 552, WA18 (three spot) – 511.
• Jim Lakeman (Gentleman Recurve Senior): Short Metric 3 – 561.
• Jim Lakeman (Gentleman Recurve Master): Short Metric 3 – 561, Short Western – 541.
• Alister Smith (Gentleman Longbow Senior): Frostbite – 229, Portsmouth (single face) – 480, Portsmouth (double) (single face) – 864, WA18 (single face) – 352.
• Alister Smith (Gentleman Recurve Senior): Bristol 2 – 1004.
• Linda Wright (Lady Barebow Senior): Frostbite – 215, Portsmouth (single face) – 463, Short Warwick – 281, WA18 (single face) – 353.
• Linda Wright (Lady Barebow Master): Frostbite – 215, Portsmouth (single face) – 463, Short Warwick – 281, WA18 (single face) – 353.
• Marcus Yeoman (Gentleman Compound Senior): Bray 1 (single face) – 289, Portsmouth (three spot) – 598, Worcester (five spot) – 300, Worcester (double) (five spot) – 600.

Competition Results

This is as complete a list of results as I could compile. Starting on January 1st means a mix of indoor and outdoor results.

• Marcus Yeoman attended the Brixham Clipper in January, where he came 1st in the Portsmouth and 2nd in the head to head.
• As usual, we hosted the DCAS Indoor Championship on February 24th. Nine of our members took part, across five categories.
  • Simon Bench came 13th in Recurve Gents,
  • Iain Lees came 19th in Recurve Gents,
  • Darren Bennion came 3rd in Compound Gents,
  • Pasty Cain came 2nd in Barebow Gents. He also set the Masters club record,
  • Alister Smith came 16th in Recurve Gents and 6th in Longbow Gents. He also set the club record for the Longbow WA18,
  • Jim Start came 11th in Longbow Gents,
  • Andrew White came 4th in Compound Gents,
  • Linda Wright came 3rd in Barebow Ladies,
  • Marcus won the Compound Gents,
  • The team of Pasty Cain and Linda Wright came 2nd in the Barebow team,
  • The team of Darren Bennion, Andrew White and Marcus Yeoman won the Compound team.
• Marcus attended the Newquay Bowmen Combined FITA (or WA Combined if you prefer) and won, setting club and county records.
• Darren and Andrew attended the Royal Navy Indoor Championships at HMS Sultan in March. They came 1st and 2nd respectively.
• Darren attended a marked WA Field round in April at Merlin Field Archers. He placed 4th and established a club record for that particular round.
• Darren attended the Bath Archers Double 1440 in April. The first day was cancelled but the second day went ahead and Darren placed 3rd.
• The first of the year’s national rankings were released on April 25th. Darren is placed 106th, with Marcus sitting in 21st.

Congratulations to all who competed.

Take a look at the DCAS events calendar and see if there are any competitions you fancy trying. If in doubt, speak to the tournament organiser.

If you attend a competition, please let me know how you get on, so I can share it with the club (and add the score to your records card!). Also, let me know if you earn any badges (Roses, Stars, etc) or if you manage to attain the lofty ranks of Master Bowman and Grand Master Bowman. For those unfamiliar with record status awards, I hope to have a dedicated page on the website in the near future.

Thus ends the inaugural Records Report. As I mentioned above (several times), please let me know if there are any errors, omissions, etc and I hope that members continue to provide me with material to put into these reports.

Jon