Woking Archery Club's annual tournament, the WAC Open, saw a weekend of great shooting and a number of UK record claims.
Having hosted a pilot event in July, Woking Archery Club's wonderful volunteers were prepared to spend a lot of time planning their Open competition, held on 19-20 September, using the latest Archery GB competition guidelines to ensure everyone's safety. In-car registration on arrival helped keep people socially distanced, and marked-out spaces for archers' tents meant everyone knew where to set up. Sanitisation stations were placed all over the field as well as the toilet block, leaving no excuse not to keep safe.
Under the Covid circumstances, the club changed the round from their usual Hereford & Bristols to a WRS double WA70/50 for all bowstyles, including the new 50m barebow round.
Archers were asked to post their score sheets into a plastic crate - the scoring team then sanitised and collated them, entered the scores and resanitised. Despite the stringent health and safety measures, many archers commented how nice it was to be together again, even at a social distance. The sunshine was also much appreciated!
To top it off, there were at least six UK record claims over the course of the weekend. Amelia Chumber of Braintree Bowmen, pictured above, claimed a World Record for a WA double 50m barebow, and another was made by Richard Heathcote of Talisman Bowmen.
Woking would like to thank all volunteers, judges and archers for making the shoot such a success, and hope the event inspires other clubs to consider hosting competitions.
