I'd had a few "goes" at archery over the years, first (very briefly) as a child, when my Aunt's new husband, a keen archer, asked my Dad, brother and I if we wanted to join his archery club, and again later when taking groups of children on "Activity Holidays" - archery always seems to feature in the programmes of these holidays, and I'm not one to stand around and just watch. They were always what were called "taster sessions" - long enough to whet my appetite but not long enough to learn anything more than the very basics.

My brother, on the other hand, became a serious archer - his chosen discipline is Field Archery and he shoots a Longbow, with a bit of Re-Enactment on the side, and he's good at it - for two years running he was British National Field Archery Champion. So when I was at a Guides' County PR Team meeting and a flyer was read out, asking for volunteers to train as Archery Leaders, I jumped at the chance (a classic case of being in the right place at the right time.)

Six of us signed up for the course, plus three others from archery clubs in the county - we looked on them as the "professionals." Of the six Guide leaders, only two of us had ever shot before, and then only at "taster sessions" and boy, did it show! But we were eager to learn and the instructors told us they actually preferred to train up absolute beginners as we had no bad habits to unlearn. The course lasted for three months, a full day every other Sunday. We learnt how to shoot, and more importantly, how to teach others to shoot, we learnt theory as well as practice, we made our own bowstrings and repaired bows and arrows, we even learnt how to hit the target - even the gold - and at the end of the course were tested (we all passed) and became official Grand National Archery Society Community Archery Leaders (and THAT'S a mouthful) with certificates and badges to prove it.

But that was only the beginning - the county now has a total of nine Guide leaders qualified to teach beginners, and with six thousand Guides in the county, we can only hope they don't all want lessons at once! We have set up an archery range at Guideacres, the county campsite, where there is ample room for safe archery alongside the site's other uses. The foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001 saw a severe setback to our archery, as although the disease never reached the county our campsites were all closed as a precaution. Since then, however, we have all managed to get in enough archery teaching to renew our qualifications, and give sessions to all ages, from Brownies to Trefoil Guild. We are awaiting the arrival of some small bows so that even Rainbows can join in.

If you would like to learn more, why not visit my Archery website : http://archery-guides.freeservers.com

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