What shooting can I do over the winter?

As we leave the lovely summer weather behind us and move into autumn and winter, there are still plenty of opportunities to carry on with your shooting and to improve your technique and equipment set up.

SHOOT INDOORS

The club has organised indoor shooting sessions at Ash Manor School (about 3.5 miles from the club). These are on Wednesday evenings from 8.00 til 10.00pm and on Sundays; 1.30 – 3.45pm and 3.45 – 6.00.

The first Sunday session is intended to be used for general practice and coaching, whilst the second session will for shooting an indoor round.

The Wednesday evening sessions are in the smaller hall, whilst the Sundays are generally in the larger hall, but not always, so it will be important that you use the Club Sign Up to check which hall is being used and because numbers will be limited in the small hall.

SHOOT OUTDOORS

It may be a little chilly from time to time, but nothing that an extra layer or pair of socks can’t fix and there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy your archery over the winter;

Target Sundays
We will carry on with these Sunday morning sessions, shooting rounds with a maximum of 6 dozen arrows. Once a month we will shoot a ‘Frostbite’ round of 3 dozen arrows at 30metres. These are super-relaxed sessions and provide the perfect opportunity to keep up with your shooting, maybe practice some changes suggested by the coaches, meet some other members and enjoy a chat! We meet at 9.30 to set up our equipment and put out targets so that we can start shooting at 10.00am sharp!

Join the Saturday junior sessions
The regular Saturday morning Junior sessions carry on throughout the year with the usual mix of coaching, competition and fun. 10.00am to 12.00pm – if you are a Junior member and haven’t been before or for a while, why not come along?

GET SOME COACHING

On Saturdays between 1.00pm and 3.00pm, the coaching team will be on hand to help with any queries or issue you may have with your shooting technique or equipment. They are offering:

‘Boost’ courses – 6 sessions of structured coaching that will endeavour to help you with your shooting technique and equipment set up, so that you are ready for even better shooting in 2026!

‘Check Ups’ If you don’t fancy committing to 6 sessions of the ‘Boost’, but have a particular question about your shooting form or equipment, then just ask one of the coaches and we will do our best to help!

‘Adjust and Maintain’ workshops – these are short presentations in the club house during the Saturday coaching session that will give you some insights into how the various parts of your bow and arrows work and how to look after them

If you really can’t make Saturdays, please fill out a coaching request form with your contact details, an outline of what you would like help with and when you can make it to the club and we will try and match you with a coach who can help you.

Full details of what the sessions invovle and when they will be on can be found on the Winter coaching opportunities  page

TRY A DIFFERENT BOW STYLE

Over the winter, we are planning to put on some ‘Have a Go’ sessions for different bow styles, so if you have fancied trying your hand at compound, bare bow, longbow or other traditional bows, these are for you.

They will probably be on Saturday afternoons at the club grounds, but we will send out confirmation of dates, times and locations in due course.

If you are thinking that you’d like to attend one of these sessions, please complete out very short questionnaire on this link, which will help us to judge what to arrange and when

PUT IN SOME SCORES…

Even if you are not a competitive person, scoring your shooting is a great way to keep your interest up and measure your progress over the winter. Scores from outdoor target Sundays and indoor rounds will all count towards your handicap and classifications!

There are plenty of opportunities to compete during the winter;

• Work on your 252s – you can still continue to shoot and score 252 rounds right through the autumn and winter – use them to measure your improvement over those months!
• Shoot the monthly ‘Frostbite’ round on the second Sunday of each month at Manor Fruit Farm
• Shoot  the monthly postal ‘Portsmouth’ round at Ash Manor on the second Sunday session (look on Sign Up for when the round is shown as a Portsmouth)
• Enter our own WA25 tournament, held at The Spectrum in Guildford on 18 January 2026 – you can enter by clicking here
• Enter one of the indoor tournaments held by local clubs – there are quite a few to choose from – just look out for suggestions on the GAC Slack communication platform

But most of all – have fun!