Meteksan Archery World Cup, Dover

The fourth leg of the Meteksan World Cup 2007 was officially opened at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday 30 July on the lawns of Dover Castle with a short ceremony that

Competition commentary and results are available on both the official event web site and the FITA web site and the latter also includes recorded video highlights. So there is no point in reproducing it all here, except to congratulate the GB team on a great performance and results that should quieten some of the critics!

The event concluded with a short speech by Paul Paulsen, FITA senior vice president.

Given the recent weather, it was little short of a miracle that almost the entire event was conducted under blue skies with the temperature in the mid- to high-20s (Celsius). A downpour shortly before the marquees were set up resulted in a very soft floor in the work-party's area, but a waterproof layer covered in hessian made it very habitable. However it was rather unavoidable that it acquired the nickname "The Swamp".

Lynne Evans, Chairman of the Event Management Board, has sent an e-mail to all of the volunteers for whom an e-mail address was available, to thank them; the full text is available here. Please pass the message on to anyone you know who was involved and may not have received it.

Congratulations to all those KAA members who helped in any capacity. It is always risky to name individuals in this kind of situation, but particular thanks are due to the members of Dover Castle Archers, whose help, local knowledge and positive response to everything that was thrown at them had a big impact on the success of the event.

Comments have already been received from several team captains, competitors, FITA officials, local government officials and sponsors indicating that the event exceeded their expectations, sometimes far exceed them. It is fair to say that everyone who has been involved should be extremely proud of what they have helped achieve.

Having said all of that, there were occasional glitches and mistakes and there is a very real desire and need to learn from them. For example:

• notes have already been made on the correct way to set up a flag pole and rehearsing the flag raising will be added to the task list!
• problems with the volunteer recruitment process will be raised - some volunteers did have significant issues with lack of information.

If you have any issue that you wish to raise, please don't hesitate to let the Development Officer know.

Again, many thanks to everyone who helped in any capacity to stage this really successful week of archery - it has made a major contribution to putting, Dover, Kent and Britain well and truly on the map.