All Lead Articles - 2013

Merry Christmas to Archers Everywhere

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The KAA President and committee would like to wish all of our members and archers everywhere
a merry Christmas and a happy and successful New Year.

May you achieve all the goals you work for in 2014, whether that be shooting, coaching, officiating or administrating.

Match Report - Indoor County Match

The indoor county match on Sunday, 30 November 2013 was the first time it has been possible to include all four main bow styles in an indoor match - Compound, Recurve Freestyle, Recurve Barebow and Longbow.

With Kent in the lead by just four points at the lunch break, it was a tight-fought competition right to the end - in fact the winning margin over the entire day was less than one point per archer, per dozen arrows!

ArcheryGB Governance Review

Back in November, ArcheryGB held the first round of consultation meetings, to explain the recommendations that came out of the independent governance review and to find out what changes members would like to see in the governance of the society and, in particular, to the composition of the Board of Directors.

A further round of meetings will be held to discuss the resultant proposals that ArcheryGB has formulated; one of those meetings will be held in Maidstone on Monday, 24 February 2014.

The KAA strongly encourages as many members as possible to attend and take part in the discussions - remember, we are talking about the future of your sport.

The ArcheryGB January Challenge

It is still not too late to enter the ArcheryGB January Challenge, not least because you don't have to pre-register.

The Challenge is now in its eleventh year and is open to all members of ArcheryGB - just send in your best Portsmouth score shot during January to be in with a chance; if you shoot more than one bow style, you can even submit a score in each of them, but only one score per archer per bow style.

And the good news - there is no entry fee!

SCAS Coaching Conference

The 2014 regional coaching conference will be held on Saturday, 01 March 2014 in the Close Brothers Military Services lecture theatre, Halton Gallery and Dermot Boyle wing at the RAF Museum in Hendon, North London. The attendance fee will be £45.00, including refreshments and lunch.

Details and application forms have been circulated by the Invicta Coaching Group to all licensed coaches in Kent; should you require more information, please contact the Invicta Coaching Group or the conference organiser direct.

Change of KAA Secretary

Tony Andrews has stood down as county Secretary due to pressure of work.

We would like to welcome Kay Holliman (Black Lion Archery Club) to the Association's committee after kindly agreeing to step in to fill this very important role; she was co-opted to the committee during the last meeting on Monday, 09 December 2013.

Kay was previously the Kent Archery Development Officer at the Kent County Council's Sports Development Unit at King's Hill, so she comes to the new role with considerable experience and knowledge of sport administration and development.

Document Accessibility

All PDF documents have been checked for accessibility and, where possible, they have been upgraded to:

  • include 'Tagging' for accessibility to screen readers for visually impaired visitors,
  • give improved search results,
  • keep file sizes as small as practical, by taking advantage of the improved compression available in PDF v1.8.

Contributors are asked, where possible to supply content (e.g. tournament entry forms, results) in its original format (e.g. Word, Excel) and we will convert it to a PDF before publishing - this will help to ensure that your content can be read by the largest possible audience.

To help visitors using mobile devices or who have limited internet speed/usage, where practical, download links will show the size of the file.

EduCare for Sport

Archery GB encourage all forward-looking clubs to sign up for EduCare for Sport, a bespoke online learning service that features a range of essential duty of care and introductory business skills programmes for your volunteers and members. Each programme is presented in bite-size learning chunks and there is a downloadable personalised certificate for successful completers. Clear, simple management reports help you to see who has started, is in progress or has completed their programmes.

There are 10 learning programmes including 'NSPCC Child Protection Awareness in Sport and Active Leisure', 'An Introduction to Equality and Diversity', 'NSPCC Preventing Bullying Behaviour', 'An Introduction to Safety in Clubs' and introductions to finance, budgeting, marketing and planning.

Further information is available on the EduCare website and discounts are available to ontarget clubs by contacting Arran Coggan at the ArcheryGB office.

All Educare courses are available free of charge to registered CPOs of clubs affiliated to the KAA. For details please contact the county CPO.

Annual General Meeting, 2013

Many thanks to all those members who gave up the possibility of shooting or sitting in their nice warm home to attend the KAA AGM on Sunday 17 November.

The number of members there was above average, if a little short of a 'personal best'!

Minutes of the meeting will be circulated shortly before next year's meeting, but read on for a short account of some of the more important matters that arose.

KAA Indoor Championship

The KAA Indoor Championship was again hosted by Ashford Archers as part of their Indoor Tournament on Sunday 10 November 2013.

Results are now available for download.

Two New Clubs Join the KAA

The KAA would like to welcome two more archery clubs to the fold, both of which had their affiliations formally approved at the Operational Committee meeting last Monday:

The Nomads Archery Club is recently formed and is based down at Romney Marsh.

The University of Kent Archery Club, membership of which is only available to students and staff, has been growing in popularity among the students at their Canterbury campus for some years; previously only affiliated to BUCS, they are now also affiliated to ArcheryGB to give their students even greater flexibility in where they can shoot.

Changes to County Policies

The KAA Operational Committee is recommending changes to three key policies:

  • Championships and Tournaments: there are seven separate changes:
    1. a tidy-up to avoid repeating text that is common to all the following sections;
    2. to change the name of Disabled/Disability archery to "Para-Archery";
    3. changes to certain names following decisions at the 2013 World Archery Congress (see below);
    4. to grant county championship status for Recurve Barebow;
    5. to grant county championship status for the Disability/Para-Archery Tournament;
    6. reintroduction of the "FITA" tournament due to membership demand;
    7. explanation of how GNAS Law 20 affects county tournament entries.

    (Because of the extent of the above changes involved, each is explained in the draft document with comments that also show which of these seven headings each change relates to.)

  • County Records: no changes to our underlying policy, but there are changes to names of World Archery rounds and awards (see below);
  • Score Returns and Team Selection: there are no changes to our underlying policy, but there are changes to names of World Archery rounds and awards (see below);

World Archery intend to stop using the "FITA" name, so we have taken the opportunity to remove/amend references to it. The key recent decisions by World Archery that affect these policies are to rename the following:

Old Name New Name
FITA Round 1440 Round
FITA Star (award) World Archery Star
FITA Arrowhead (award) World Archery Badge

The above documents are now subject to the 12-week consultation period before they can be adopted and are therefore available for comment from members until noon on 13 January 2014; please let us know if you have any reservations or objections to the proposed changes, or have suggestions for improving them. If so, please the county Chairman to discuss.

ArcheryGB Governance Review

An independent review of the ArcheryGB Board of Directors was conducted earlier this year and its recommendations include making it easier to appoint directors with the right skills as well ensuring that they are well placed to represent the best interests of members.

To achieve this it will be necessary to make changes to the composition of the Board and the way in which appointments to the Board are made. However, any changes of this type would require changing the Memorandum and Articles of Association (the society's constitution); rather than just springing a pre-decided set of changes on members at the AGM, a series of six meetings is being held around the country to explain the proposals and give members the opportunity to discuss and offer feedback.

One of those meetings will be held very locally to us in Maidstone at 7.00 p.m. on Monday, 04 November 2013. An invitation has been sent out via all Club, County and Regional Secretaries as well as to Direct Members and it is very important that club secretaries pass this information on to their club members quickly.

It is strongly recommended that as many members as possible should attend to find out at first hand what is proposed and offer constructive feedback, whether at the meeting itself or later by email or the planned web-based survey.

Sunday Times and Sky Sports Sportswomen of the Year Awards

Nominations are now open for this year’s Sunday Times and Sky Sports Sportswomen of the Year Awards, celebrating the outstanding contribution to sport made by elite performers, coaches, administrators, community volunteers and inspirational female figures.

Until midnight on Monday 4 November, people are invited to make nominations across seven categories, including the Community Award.

Tournament History

The Tournament section has been enhanced to include a page about the Kent Clout Championship. You will notice that it is a little sparse on information so far, especially relating to its history before it was resurrected by Thanet Archery Club in 2009.

There are also considerable gaps still in our archive for the other championships and tournaments run by the KAA, so we would be very grateful for any information that members and past members might have.

If you have any useful information (especially old results or entry forms), please get in touch with the webmaster.

KAA Clout Championship

The KAA Clout Championship took place in Ramsgate on Sunday, 15 September 2013, hosted again by Thanet Archery Club.

Results are now available for download.

Refresh your Browser

When you display a web page in your browser, it needs to download a number of files containing the page content, formatting instructions and processing instructions. Depending on your browser settings, it might take the fast route and only download files it hasn't already got; if so, it is quite possible it might overlook the fact that one or more files that it already has have been updated - if this happens the page might omit new data or the formatting might end up a little odd!

Normally the simple solution is just to click on the "Refresh" button (normally at one end of the address bar) and this will force the browser to reload everything from scratch. If the results are still not what you were expecting, then try emptying the "browser cache" (the folder where it keeps all of the temporary files) - the tool to do this is built into the browser, but just how to do it varies from browser to browser - and then reload the page.

If there is still a problem with displaying the page, then please report it to the webmaster, but don't forget to include details of:

  • which page you are having problems with;
  • the name and version number of your browser (e.g. Firefox 23);
  • your operating system name and version number (e.g. Windows 7 or Android 4.1.3);

If you are using a mobile device, it might also be helpful to know which one.

Membership Renewals

ArcheryGB started the renewals process in July by sending out the renewals pack to each club secretary.

Club membership secretaries are strongly encouraged to complete the renewal process by 01 September, to give their members the best chance of receiving their ArcheryGB membership cards by 30 September and therefore have them for the start of the new membership year.

Don't forget that:

  • missing/incorrect addresses and other personal details can be dealt with by each affected member through the ArcheryGB members' portal;
  • it is especially important that county and regional fees are sent to the county Treasurer, regardless of any guidance given by ArcheryGB;

Club members are also advised to log in to the ArcheryGB members' portal as soon as practical and check that their personal details are correct and complete.

Full details of all national, regional and county membership fees for the coming year (2013-2014) are shown in our fees page. Remember, the forms must be completed and sent to ArcheryGB and KAA even if no fee is payable - if they are not sent, the archers will not be registered as members of ArcheryGB, SCAS or KAA and will not receive the benefits they would have been entitled to.

KAA Clout Championship

Members are reminded that the 2013 KAA Clout Championship will again be hosted by Thanet Archery Club, incorporated into their Tassel Status tournament in Ramsgate on Sunday, 15 September 2013.

Full details and entry form are now available for download, but hurry, because entries close next Sunday, 01 September 2013.

The Archery Big Weekend

You tried archery at school or on holiday? You watched the archery at London2012? You saw Jennifer Lawrence in the film "Hunger Games", or Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves", or you remember Legolas in "Lord of the Rings"? And you've been wanting to try out archery ever since?

Well, now you can - and it's completely free at the Archery Big Weekend, hosted by Swan Archers on Saturday, 24 August 2013. Donations to a local charity will be gratefully accepted.

And if that's not enough, refreshments will be available and there will be guest appearances from Eastenders stars during the day - just turn up and find out who!

Just click on the picture for the full-size A4 poster with more information about the event.

A4 poster with more information.

Thelma Barber, Deceased

We are sad to announce that Thelma Barber passed away on Tuesday, 30 July 2013 after a lengthy illness.

She was Coaching Organiser and a founder member of Tonbridge Archery Club and in the past had been a National Coach, County Coaching Organiser, County Chairman and a member of the county team.

Her funeral will be held at the Kent and Sussex Crematorium, Tunbridge Wells TN2 5JJ at 12:00 noon on Friday, 16 August 2013.

KAA Target Championship

The KAA Target Championship will be held at Vigo RFC on Sunday, 18 August 2013.

Entries are now closed and the Target List can now be downloaded and printed.

KAA Tournament for Disabled

The 2013 KAA Tournament for Disabled took place at Sittingbourne Community College on Saturday, 20 July 2013.

Results are now available for download.

SCAS Contact

We understand that SCAS is currently without a secretary.

It is therefore important that for the time being all correspondence that is intended for the regional secretary should be routed to the county Treasurer, who will ensure that it is passed to the most appropriate person at SCAS.

Remember though that the county and regional element of all membership renewals and new membership registrations should always be sent to the county Treasurer anyway, as described in the Payment of Membership Fees section of our Membership System guide.

Archery Big Weekend

Swan Archers are hosting this year's "Archery Big Weekend" on behalf of Kent on Saturday, 24 August, the start of the August Bank Holiday weekend.

The main purpose of the Big Weekend is to promote archery to the general public, raise its profile and get people of all ages interested in our sport by giving them the opportunity to try it for free. If last year's inaugural event is anything to go by, it will attract people from all over the county and from outside. It might just attract new members in your club's area.

Swan Archers would appreciate help for all or part of the day, from any existing members who are available. If you are able to help out, please contact Sophia Andrews for more information.

KAA Target Championship

The KAA Target Championship will be held at Vigo RFC on Sunday, 18 August 2013.

Entries so far are very disappointing - about 40 from one club, but only about 20 from the whole of the rest of the county! Don't forget that the closing date (by which your entry must be received by the Tournament Organiser) is Sunday, 04 August 2013) and that is now less than four weeks away. So to avoid disappointment, please make sure that you send in your entry in plenty of time!

The details and entry form can be downloaded and printed.

Membership Renewals

July is the month that ArcheryGB starts the renewals process by sending out the renewals pack to each club secretary; it is tempting to just sit on this until September, but a little preparatory work now will make it easier. Club membership secretaries are strongly encouraged to:

  • check ArcheryGB's list against the club's membership list and sort out any problems early - missing/incorrect addresses and other personal details can be dealt with by each affected member through the ArcheryGB members' portal;
  • make sure they are familiar with the process - the membership renewals pack contains some instructions, but further information is provided on our Introduction to the National Membership System; It is especially important that county and regional fees are sent to the county Treasurer, regardless of any guidance given by ArcheryGB.

Club members are also advised to log in to the ArcheryGB members' portal as soon as practical and check that their personal details are correct and complete.

Full details of all national, regional and county membership fees for the coming year (2013-2014) are shown in our fees page. Remember, the forms must be completed and sent to ArcheryGB and KAA even if no fee is payable - if they are not sent, the archers will not be registered as members of ArcheryGB, SCAS or KAA and will not receive the benefits they would have been entitled to.

The Archery Big Weekend

You tried archery at school or on holiday? You watched the archery at London2012? You saw Jennifer Lawrence in the film "Hunger Games", or Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves", or you remember Legolas in "Lord of the Rings"? And you've been wanting to try out archery ever since?

Well, now you can - and it's completely free at the Archery Big Weekend, hosted by Swan Archers on Saturday, 24 August 2013.

And if that's not enough, there will be guest appearances from Eastenders stars during the day - watch this space for more details soon!

A4 poster with more information.

Where has the News Gone?

The news page hasn't changed - we have just moved it to make way for more information on the home page! It's here and you will still be able to get to it after this note has gone, by selecting "News" in the main menu bar, then "Current News" from the drop-down menu. Alternatively use the "Quick Link" over to the right of the Home Page.

Success at the National County Team Championships

Kent compound and recurve teams were both placed 4th overall at the inaugural National County Team Championships held at Lilleshall National Sports and Conferencing Centre over the weekend of 29 and 30 June 2013.

The two days of competition

d a ranking round, team head-to-head elimination rounds and a full FITA round and involved county teams from all over the UK. The weekend saw one of the strongest performances ever by Kent teams and d several outstanding team and individual results, of which the whole team should be rightly proud.

Sport England Survey of Clubs

Sport England is asking all sports club secretaries to complete a short survey to find out more about the things that are currently affecting the health of our community sports clubs.

In answering the survey, they want to get a quick snap shot of the community sport landscape so they can provide the best advice and guidance, and develop resources tailored to the needs of people running community sport.

Tournaments and Champions

The section of the website relating to County Champions has been revised to fill in some of the gaps and (where possible) to show the name of each champion's club at the time they were awarded. (Note that this will not be updated if someone subsequently moves to a different club.)

A few more historical result sheets have also been added to the Tournaments section. Most of these are from scanning original paper copies, so the resulting quality is not as good as the most recent ones, which were created directly from word processor files. The results sheets are now stored as searchable PDF files, but the effectiveness of the word recognition software used is limited by the quality of the original printed version - some are better than others!

Not all of our tournaments are

d yet and there are still a lot of gaps in those that are d, but we hope to fill these gradually over time.

Longbow Championship Results

This year's Longbow Championship was held at the Vigo RFC ground on Sunday, 26 May 2013; even though the day started cool and overcast, they enjoyed a sunny afternoon. Thanks to everyone who took part and special congratulations to our new champions (the first of 2013).

The results are now available to download.

European Archery Festival

Europe's largest archery tournament and trade show - and the third leg of the Indoor World Cup - is coming to Telford on 24-26 January 2014.

Around 1,500 archers from around the globe will descend on Britain at the start of 2014, competing for over £20,000 in prize money, visiting the largest trade show this side of the Atlantic and enjoying the largest archery festival ever seen in Europe.

The tournament isn't just for the pros, though: it's a chance to compete on a world stage, in an international-level competition - and enjoy the atmosphere that comes along with it. Whatever bowstyle, age or tournament experience, this is one festival you can't afford to miss out on.

Protecting Club Assets

The KAA has now approved the next in its series of club guides - Protecting Club Assets - and this is now available for download.

We are all familiar with insurance cover for equipment, but clubs also have a number of less tangible assets that are frequently forgotten until problems arise, as in the recent case where a member left a sports club in acrimonious circumstances, claiming personal ownership of the club name, logo, website and much else. This new guide has been written to provide advice on some simple measures any club can take to ensure this does not happen to them.

County Records

All of the new county records have been added to the respective records booklets following last Monday's meeting of the KAA Operational Committee - these all have an issue date of 13 May 2013.

The committee agreed to maintain records for the Warwick family of rounds; claims will now be accepted for Warwick rounds shot on or after 14 May 2013 - please note that claims for scores shot before that date are not permitted (for details please refer to the KAA County Records policy).

All of the county records booklets have subsequently been revised and reissued, dated 14 May 2013; the changes

:

  • the names of some rounds have been amended, so that they will be consistent across everything we publish;
  • the order that some rounds appear in booklets has been adjusted;
  • the Warwick family of rounds has been added to all of the Outdoor Target Archery booklets.

Longbow Championship Target List

The target list for the 2013 KAA Longbow Championship at the Vigo RFC ground on Sunday, 19 May 2013 is now available for download.

County Invitation Results

This year's County Invitation Tournament was held at the Vigo RFC ground on Sunday, 05 May 2013; 61 archers from around the county were able to shoot in sunshine! Congratulations to everyone who qualified to take part.

The results are now available to download.

Membership Fees 2013-2014

The table of membership fees for next year (i.e. commencing 01 October 2013) has now been updated to include all of this year's increases:

County KAA No increase
Regional SCAS All membership categories that are required to pay a fee have increased by £1.00 p.a.
National ArcheryGB/GNAS All membership categories that are required to pay a fee have increased by £1.00 p.a.

The increase in Regional fees is still subject to ratification, as the SCAS AGM was inquorate.

A full list of membership fees and pro-ration for new members is now available from the Clubs section.

Internet Explorer - Older Versions

Because of the expense and difficulty involved in installing multiple versions of Internet Explorer, testing is currently only practical by using the simulation tools built into Microsoft's 'Expression Web 4, Super Preview' and the Developer Tools available in Internet Explorer 10. Although these normally give accurate results, under some circumstances they can prove to be not totally reliable.

Future development will concentrate on providing additional content and to improve compatibility with mobile devices; because of the considerable limitations of some older browsers, it will not always be possible to take them into account.

As a result, in common with most web developers, we will do what is practical to support version 7, but we cannot guarantee that all pages will function correctly. Anyone still using Windows XP is strongly advised to upgrade their browser to Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Vista users should consider upgrading their browser to Internet Explorer 9 (the most recent compatible in each case), both of which we plan to support for the foreseeable future.

For a full list of supported browsers, please see our technical information page.

There is a known issue with the display of some content contained in tabbed sections of pages, when using IE7 - it is normally possible to coax it into displaying the content, by clicking on the tab button, then moving the cursor away from the tab. The reason lies in a well-documented problem with this browser, but it has not been possible to find a work-around that is compatible with later browsers that work correctly.

ArcheryGB Annual General Meeting

In response to membership requests for ArcheryGB to hold its AGM in different parts of the country, last year it was held in Stratford (East London) and this year it was held yesterday in Warrington, Cheshire (Northern Counties region).

The main points of local interest:

  • Annual membership fees for the 2013-2014 membership year will rise (£1.00 increase for senior and junior club members) in line with the request to raise fees regularly by small amounts, rather then rely on occasional larger increases. The full fee structure for 2013-2014 is now available.
  • Derrick Lovell (Bowmen of Woodstock) has been elected as President of ArcheryGB.
  • Mike Brighton (Tonbridge Archery Club) has been elected to a third term as Vice-President.

The main discussions centered around:

  • how ArcheryGB can provide financial information that members will find informative, in contrast to the statutory accounts provided in the AGM booklet.
  • the best way of presenting the statutory business of the AGM and the other business/discussions that members expect of such a meeting and how the 'non-statutory' business should be recorded to ensure future action and for posterity.
  • the reasons for reviewing ArcheryGB governance and what form this might take.

The afternoon session

d presentations and question and answer sessions, including:

  • Ian McGibbon (Director NI) on the governance review;
  • Sara Symington (Performance Director) on performance funding and the 'way to Rio 2016' and beyond.

Details of all the presentations will be available shortly from the ArcheryGB website.

Next year the AGM will be held at the University of Derby (East Midlands region) on Saturday, 26 April 2014.

Nationwide Tournament Diary

Brighton Bowmen have recently created a tournament diary that is intended to fill the gap left by the recent demise of the "Mayflower Diary". Their aim is to include any and all archery tournaments from around the country and it is not restricted to those conducted within the ArcheryGB fold.

They have started by bringing together tournaments from a wide range of sources into one large table that can be sorted in a variety of ways. Any club that wishes to advertise their tournament should contact them direct.

This diary can also be accessed from our Links page, under the 'Archery Info.' tab.

Para-Archery Categories

The descriptions of the Para-Archery categories provided in the Glossary page have been updated to follow more closely the current descriptions in the IPC and World Archery documentation.

It is important to note that these are simplified descriptions only - comprehensive functional definitions can be found under the 'Classification' menu option in the 'Para-Archery' section of the World Archery website.

Welcome

The KAA Operational Committee would like to welcome Glyn Levis of Canterbury Archers, who has agreed to fill the final remaining vacancy on the committee.

He joins as the second "Ordinary Member"; while this post has no defined portfolio, it is an opportunity to learn more about how the county governing body operates, increases the breadth of opinion and experience available to the committee and exists to help out on occasional tasks that need additional input.

KAA Indoor County Match

The indoor county match that was originally intended for the end of March has now been rescheduled for 30 November 2013 and Kent will be competing against teams from Essex, Middlesex and Surrey. The match is now shown in the 2013 diary.

The match will include Compound for the first time as well as the customary Recurve (Freestyle) in separate teams, so please keep in mind the recent changes to the Score Returns and County Team Selection policy that now includes threshold scores for submitting indoor compound results.

More information will be available nearer the date.

Criminal Record (CRB) Checks

With effect from 01 December 2012, the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) were merged to form the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), an agency of the UK government's Home Office. As a result of this change all future CRB checks will be known as DBS checks - the name has changed, but the stationery (apart from the name on the form) and process remain the same.

There are some further changes that have been mentioned recently in the media and are expected in the future:

  • portability of DBS checks, that should help reduce the number of checks that an individual volunteer will be subjected to, if they work for more than one organisation;
  • exclusion of certain old and minor offences (convictions and cautions), provided that they did not incur a custodial sentence - this is currently before parliament for consideration and requires legislation before it can come into effect.

It is important to note that these last two changes have not yet come into effect.

Archery Big Weekend

The Archery Big Weekend is back on 24, 25 and 26 August 2013!

Archery clubs and organisations across the nation are invited to open their doors and welcome members of the public to come and try out archery. It is the perfect opportunity to celebrate your club, enhance your local profile, fund raise and attract new members.

To take part, all that clubs have to do is complete the application form. The first 30 clubs to sign up will be entered into a free prize draw and could win equipment vouchers worth £100.

GNAS Annual General Meeting

As previously advised in the 2013 diary, this year's GNAS Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday, 20 April at the Warrington Collegiate, Warrington.

The invitation and voting forms have now been sent to all Direct Members and club secretaries and should be received during the next few days. If anyone, who believes that they should have received notification, has not done so, please contact Membership Services at Lilleshall as a matter of urgency.

All Direct Members are strongly encouraged to exercise their voting rights and club secretaries should also do so in consultation with their members. If you are not able to attend, then we would urge you to vote by proxy, by returning the

d form at the earliest opportunity.

Changes to County Policies

Following the membership consultation period that ended recently, the KAA Operational Committee has now implemented changes to two key policies:

  • Policy - County Records: to clarify that it is only possible to make a record claim for a record that is currently maintained, where to find the list of records currently maintained and how changes to that list will be made.
  • Policy - Championships and Tournaments: to clarify members' responsibilities relating to trophies, to explain current insurance cover for trophies and to make it clear that winners must not be asked to sign for any award until they actually receive it.

Both documents will remain available from the download section of the website.

Site Search Repaired

The "site search" at the top-right of each page has now been repaired and can be used to search either this website only (the default) or the internet, using the Google search engine. It would appear that it has been broken for some time, but only recently spotted as part of detailed testing.

Touch Icons & Tiles

If you wish to save a shortcut to this website on your iPad/iPhone or Android device, the new 'touch icon' (in place of a generic button) will now make it easy to identify. For those of you that are already using Windows 8, you can also save a shortcut as a tile on your home screen.

KAA Tournaments 2013

Details and entry forms are now available from the 2013 Diary and the "KAA Tournaments" section below for most of this year's championships and tournaments:

County Invitation Sunday, 05 May 2013 Vigo RFC ground
Longbow Championship Sunday, 19 May 2013 Vigo RFC ground
Tournament for Disabled Saturday, 20th July 2013 Sittingbourne Community College
Target Championship Sunday, 18 August 2013 Vigo RFC ground
Clout Championship Sunday, 15 September 2013 Ramsgate

KAA Target Championship

The 2013 KAA Target Archery Championship will again be held at the Vigo RFC ground on Sunday, 18 August 2013.

Full details and entry form are now available for download.

KAA Tournament for Disabled

The 2013 KAA Tournament for Disabled will take place at Sittingbourne Community College on Saturday, 20 July 2013.

Full details and entry form are now available for download.

Touch Icons & Tiles

If you wish to save a shortcut to this website on your iPad/iPhone or Android device, the new 'touch icon' (in place of a generic button) will now make it easy to identify. For those of you that are already using Windows 8, you can also save a shortcut as a tile on your home screen.

County Invitation Tournament

Archers who achieve Kent County Bowman classification or above during any year are invited to the following year's County Invitation Tournament - this year's event for those who achieved it during 2012 will be held at Vigo RFC on Sunday, 05 May 2013.

93 invitations were sent out during this last week to club Secretaries; if you believe that you have qualified, but have not yet received your invitation, please check first with your club Secretary whether an invitation has been received and, if not, check with your club Records Officer that your scores were submitted to the county Records Officer last year. If they were, then please contact the county Records Officer urgently.

Please also remember that, although entry to this tournament is free of charge, you must complete and return the entry form to be

d.

Archery Upgraded to 'Core' Olympic Sport

Archery will form part of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and is now also set to be

d in the 'core' sports in 2020 (the host city for which is due to be decided this year).

Last Tuesday (12 February 2013) the IOC Executive Committee announced the list of 25 sports that it will be recommending for inclusion as 'core' sports for the Games in 2020. The list will be on the agenda of the 125th IOC Session in September, where the final list is due to be approved.

At a more local level, the inclusion of any sport in the Olympic core list makes it much easier to find sponsor ship and development funding right down to club level.

Indoor Classification Badges

Indoor classification badges. Shaun Jacobs.

Badges denoting your outdoor classification have been around for years, but now Shaun Jacobs of The Jolly Archers of Houghton & Wyton (Cambridgeshire) has designed and created an indoor classification badge. The first production run should be available toward the end of this month and he is now trying to determine how much interest there is nationally before going into full production later this year.

The badges will be available at £3.00 each plus postage and packing, which will be free on club orders of 36 or more badges; additional discounts will be available for orders of 100 or more.

If your club/members would be interested, please contact Shaun Jacobs for further information and register your interest/requirement, without having to commit to a purchase at the moment. He will then email order forms to those who register an interest.

Please note that this badge scheme, like the outdoor classification badges, is a commercial venture.

Website Development

This month brings a few new developments to the website, including some minor styling changes and a number of technical improvements to make future changes that bit easier.

The first change is that new County Records can now be added much more easily, an issue that has become increasingly significant in the last couple of years, with more available categories and more records being approved.

You might recall that when ArcheryGB changed its age groups for girls back in 2010, all existing records were reassigned to the new age groups; the website, however, continued to show the records in the age group for which they were originally awarded. This has now been brought up to date and the website is now consistent with the records books.

The second change is to the club list and map that have been updated to allow clubs to include social media pages that they own. The following options are currently available, but others can be

d if required: Delicious Digg Facebook Flickr Google+ Linkedin Pinterest Stumbleupon Tumblr Twitter YouTube (hover your cursor over each icon to check who it is).

Just give details of the page to the webmaster and we will arrange for it to be

d in your club's information, but please note that we can only accept links that belong to the club, not to its members' personal pages.

KAA Longbow Championship

And hard on the heals of the Clout Championship comes the details and entry form for the next tournament.

The 2013 KAA Longbow Championship will again be held at the Vigo RFC ground on Sunday, 19 May 2013.

Full details and entry form are now available for download.

KAA Clout Championship

The first set of details and entry form for a KAA tournament is now available and more will follow in the next few weeks.

The 2013 KAA Clout Championship will again be hosted by Thanet Archery Club, incorporated into their Tassel Status tournament in Ramsgate on Sunday, 15 September 2013.

Full details and entry form are now available for download.