Welcome to the Bowmen of Warrington - our mission statement : shoot arrows and have fun!
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A bit about us
Bowmen of Warrington is a target archery club based in Warrington in Cheshire, catering for Recurve (also known as 'Olympic'), Compound and Longbow archers of all ages, skill levels and physical abilities (sorry, no crossbows allowed).
We like to think that we are a friendly and informal club, with a current membership of over 40 archers of all ages and levels - with anything up to 30 on the line on a good day (ie when it's not raining!). From small beginnings we have grown very significantly, are still growing steadily and have plans for the future, and we welcome all archers or would-be archers to come and join us. If you do come to see us, we hope you like what you see and will join our growing band of eternal optimists. And no you don't have to be a Grand Master Bowman (though it'd be nice for our budding tournament team if you were), an interest in archery (and a good sense of humour) is all we ask of you.
A brief club history
Originally called Warrington Sports Club for the Disabled, the club was founded in 1995. At that time, archery was just one of the many activities available.
In 1996 the Archery section of the club, under the guidance of Bob Miller, applied for registration with the GNAS and Warrington Wolves Archery Club came into being, meeting once a week at Bewsey Old School Gym in Warrington. The dropping of 'disabled' from the club name in no way implies that we suddenly stopped catering for the disabled - indeed one of our former members was in the 2008 GB paralympic archery squad - and if you can draw a bow you will be more than welcome.
Over the course of the next few years, other sporting activities fell by the wayside leaving the Archery club as the only surviving branch of the original sports club.
In 2003, the club moved to its present home at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School in Latchford, where we have the use of the school gym and the school field (which is an excellent archery venue, being level, shielded by trees and amply large enough to host the occasional 2-way Clout shoot as a variation from target shooting).
In 2006 the club held its first open Junior Metric tournament, which also hosted the Cheshire / Lancashire inter-county junior tournament. This was a great success despite some appalling weather and as a result of positive judges' reports we were granted Record status for the 2007 tournament. In 2008 we went one better again and were awarded World record status - again with glowing reports from the judges. This set a precedent and our 2009 tournament was also given World Record status - as will be the 2010 tournament.
The present and the future
In late 2006 it was decided at the club AGM that the club would change its name. As locals will know, there is another Warrington Wolves who engage in a slightly different form of sport from ourselves (involving 13 men and an odd-shaped football) and it was clear that the name clash was causing confusion as would-be members were ringing the rugby club and being told 'Archery club? No we don't have one of those' (which is a shame, the stadium floodlights would have been great for outdoor shooting in winter!). And hence Bowmen of Warrington was born - the acronym 'BOW' made picking the new name a no-brainer really!
The change of name was formally announced at the end of the 2007 Junior Metric tournament and Bowmen of Warrington was officially born. At the same time, we made our first foray into the world of the Internet, initially with just some notes on the GNAS website, but now with this, our own web presence as well.
After an initial slow growth of membership, we are pleased to say that the club is now growing to be a very respectable size, with the vast majority of members being active archers. This is due to a combination of newcomers to the sport, thanks to our very successful training courses, and also returning archers 'discovering' us via the web. Between the abilities and enthusiasm of our members and the skills of our coaching staff we are confident that we are on the path to becoming a force to be reckoned with in Cheshire archery - so come along and help us make it happen!
The Committee
Yes, we do have one of those - well, even such a brilliant archery club as ours needs a little helping along occasionally! Currently the committee consists of :-
| Chairman | Bob Miller |
| Secretary | Hannah Carter-Taylor |
| Treasurer | Julia Blair |
| Records Officer | Lynn Laitak |
| Head coach | John Evans |
| Affiliation officer / Webmaster | Martin Jackson |