Start Archery Week gives the archery community the annual opportunity to come together and celebrate our great sport, with clubs and archery activity providers opening their doors for new people to start their archery journey. Find out how your club or organisation gets to be part of that.
This page is mostly for clubs and our partners who are planning events. If you're a new archer or are interested in attending an event, picking up a bow and having a go, you’ll be able to discover experiences near you, find out what to expect from attending a Start Archery Week event, and read more about the sport over on our new archers' website, Start Archery.
Join us for Start Archery Week 2025, a week-long celebration of archery's vibrant community and its power to bring people together. From Saturday 10 May to Sunday 18 May, we invite clubs and organisations across the country to open their doors and welcome new archers of all ages and abilities.
This year's theme, Community, highlights the strong sense of belonging and friendship that our sport fosters. Whether you're a seasoned archer or just starting out, archery offers a unique opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals, learn new skills, and have fun in a supportive environment.
Archery is more than just a sport; it's a community. It fosters a strong sense of belonging:
Throughout Start Archery Week, we'll be sharing inspiring stories from archers who have found a sense of community and belonging in our sport. We'll also provide resources and ideas for clubs to create inclusive and welcoming events that celebrate the diversity of our archery community.
If you've started planning your event already, please register it in Sport:80 so that it can be found by members of the public on our Start Archery Experience Finder. A guide to registering events on Sport:80 is available here, and if you're still having issues, please contact a Regional Development Officer.
If you're a school, AAP, or organisation out of our club structure, please fill out this form and a member of staff will register your event for you.
Last year, we introduced the SAW Toolkit, a valuable resource designed to help clubs effectively market their events and attract new archers. The toolkit, which included a range of assets, such as posters, social media images, and sample captions that clubs can easily share, proved to be a resounding success, providing clubs with a variety of materials to promote their activities and reach a wider audience.
Based on the positive feedback and impact of the toolkit, we're please to announce that it has returned for Start Archery Week 2025 jam-packed with even more resources. There's new posters, social media images, and engaging captions that you can use to promote your club's events and inspire others to discover the joy of archery.
Last year, Archery GB partnered with SSA Archery who own the Kinetic and Avalon Archery brands to enhance the support we could offer to clubs and activity centres. For 2025, we are adding to our offer by including SSA’s beginner archery brand Core to our most important grassroots event. As well as enabling us to offer free merchandise and resources to clubs, there will be 11 incredible prizes on offer for clubs, members, volunteers and participants worth more than £1,100.
Walter Staelens, Sales and Marketing Director at SSA Archery, said: "I am happy to announce our continued partnership with Archery GB for the upcoming Start Archery Week - a great initiative that’s all about getting more people to experience the thrill of archery! This year, alongside our trusted Kinetic and Avalon brands, we’re proud to introduce Core Archery, also in our line-up and designed to make archery even more accessible for beginners and clubs. High-quality, affordable, and built to inspire confidence from that very first shot.
“At SSA, we’re passionate about growing the sport and making sure everyone gets the chance to feel the excitement, focus, and fun that archery brings. Whether it’s your first arrow or your hundredth, the archery community has a place for you and we’re happy to support every step of the way! We can’t wait to see new faces join the sport during Start Archery Week!”
Having these brands onboard to support all your good work is wonderful. Thanks to them we can offer clubs and AAPs free shipping to use alongside their £25 voucher from us to buy branded Start Archery merchandise from our dedicated club shop. And, there are a whole bunch of prizes for clubs, volunteers, photographers, and participants to get their hands on.
Clubs
Every club and activity partner who signs up for Start Archery Week will be entered into a prize draw to win a pack of 24 Core jet arrows, perfect for any beginner's course or have-a-go.
Photographers
We want to see photos from events up and down the country. The best photos will feature in Archery UK magazine while one lucky winner will be chosen to win a POWR Trolley Recurve Case, worth £175. Send your photos to magazine@archerygb.org by 5 June using the subject line PHOTO COMPETITION to enter.
Volunteers
To be in with a chance of winning one of the following prizes, you’ll need to volunteer at your club’s Start Archery Week event. As part of the event feedback, your club will complete a form which will let us know who the volunteers at their events were, and five volunteers will be selected at random to win.
Volunteer prizes:
Participants
We want to make sure that everyone who comes to your event has everything they need to get into our sport. So, we are offering four prizes to those who fill out the Participant Form and opt-in to receive information from Archery GB, via our Start Archery newsletter. So, make sure to let your participants know to complete the form as they could win one of these four prizes:
Competition terms and conditions can be found here.
Your Regional Development Officers are the best people to contact. Between them, they've helped organise hundreds of events up and down the country. In fact, we'd go out on a limb and say they're pretty much the experts in this, so don't be afraid to get in touch with them.
You can also catch up on our 2023 event organisers' meeting to get some ideas on running a successful Start Archery Week event.
