A Day Shooting Arrows 9 September 2006

An early start for Chippy's stag day. For those that remember the last time he had one of those, the WebMaster reached heights of alcoholic intoxication that exceeded the expectations of even his stoutest supporters.

So when we heard the event would be archery-based, the more sane of our number expected the worst....

Following a bacon roll for brekkie (which was provided), and a quick abuse of the salubrious facilities (!) we were divided into teams of five. Or two teams of five and one of four.

Safety & the rules were very quickly outlined, and the first activity was actually shooting arrows at a target. Easier said than done.

The next event featured taking pot-shots at rubber pigs. A pink-fletched arrow found it's mark, as did an orange arrow, and totally disappointing the advocates of "fart arse-ing around™" so did TWO black & white fletched arrows.

There were also rubber deer to be shot. It was about this time that we began to suspect that the father of the groom wasn't quite the novice that he claimed to be..

At mid day we adjourned for lunch. The organisers put on an excellent dinner for us.

One of the afternoon events was a bear hunt. We had to shoot the bear, but NOT his guard in the camouflage jacket. The result - several dozen arrows in the bear, one arrow in the guard. Who was it that had red arrows with black & white fletches ?

There was all sorts of events for us to do - targets to shoot, a wolf in among sheep (not REAL animals!), even knights in shining armour to take down.

A brief tea break, and then whilst the team scores were compiled there was an "individual" knockout tournament.

In the first round it was necessary to hit the target with at least one of your six arrows. In the next round one of the six arrows had to be within the black circle, The next round inside the blue .....

With only three people managing to get the gold circle on the gold circle round, there was a shoot-off for first place. We were very happy that two of our number were in that shoot off - but even happier that the birthday girl won.

But enough mucking about - the scores had bee totalled up, and even being a team member short, Team Clio managed to win. We'll draw a line over what happened to the Wheelie Bin Ladens.....

All things considered, an excellent day out. Must go back again!