An archery club in Gloucestershire has unveiled ambitious plans to improve their facilities and increase their environmental sustainability.
Deer Park Archers have spent the last 10 years transforming their home from a former landfill site to a national award-winning facility. The club is a thriving hub for archery, community groups, and environmental stewardship. With over 200 members, countless community partnerships, and a commitment to sustainability, all powered purely by volunteers, they have achieved a huge amount, but they now need help to go even further.
Maintaining their focus on environmental stewardship, they have implemented a series of projects collectively aimed at improving the natural environment at their range and maximising energy efficiency. Throughout this time, they have continued to develop and support archers of all abilities with their shooting, consistently achieving success including at an international level.
In the past 12 months they have been awarded the Sport and Recreation Alliance Green Club of the Year and featured in the Sport England Environmental Sustainability and Inclusivity Strategy as a case study.
Roger Crang, Director of Development at the club, said: "If we are to sustainably remain at the top of our sport, we need to grow our volunteer workforce, further improve the experience offered to parents, carers, and supporters and extend our accessible practice facilities to meet increasing demand for membership."
The club successfully applied for planning permission to build a covered social gathering area, men-in-sheds workshop, and a 50% increase in covered shooting bays. Additionally, they need to install more land drainage to maximise the use of the target range and running archery track, convert an old workshop into a field course centre, which is their fastest growing section, and, if funding permits, add a further 40 solar panels with storage to their existing 66 panels that feed directly back to the grid.
The target for completion is September 2025. Having already raised some funds and submitting a number of grant applications, they are now launching a crowdfunding appeal to reach their target of £130,000.
Roger added: "We recognise this is a challenging target, but it is one that we need to achieve. Archery is a great sport being generally held back by lack of facilities. Hopefully we can meet this challenge and inspire other clubs to do the same."
Click the button below to view the club's crowdfunding page, share, and donate if you can:
