About Us

The Kent Archery Association (KAA) was formed in 1953 and was responsible for the whole of the county of Kent as it then existed. Its purpose was primarily administrative, collecting affiliation fees for the national governing body (the Grand National Archery Society (GNAS)), coordinating training for officials and coaches, organising county championships and team tournaments and maintaining county records.

Some 60 years on, the county boundaries have changed, but the KAA is still responsible for the same area, so certain clubs in some of the south-east London boroughs fall inside its domain. It is also still responsible for the same administrative work, but its developmental role is steadily gaining in importance and it has recently started working closely with the Kent County Council Sports Development Unit. Together we will be looking at ways of developing archery in the county:

• attracting and keeping new members,
• helping and advising clubs that want to develop and grow and
• bringing archery to a wider audience in schools, colleges and other community groups.

The KAA Operational Committee is elected each year at the association's AGM. The AGM and the bi-monthly committee meetings are open to all KAA members and clubs are encouraged to send a representative to see the work that is done on their behalf - details of meetings are sent to all club secretaries and are also shown in the current year's diary.

It is important to understand that, although archery is moving towards including a fully professional circuit, at club and county levels it is still overwhelmingly an amateur sport and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Thus all members of the KAA and its committee are unpaid volunteers, who have to balance the work that they do for the sport with the demands of professional and home life.

Some years ago coaching administration was delegated to the Invicta Coaching Group and they are responsible for certain areas of the coach training and renewals processes. They run winter workshops to help coaches gain experience and work with the KAA Operational Committee to develop the abilities of archers who show potential for the county team. Additionally they run an annual tournament aimed specifically at novice and developing archers.