By Steve Harris
We got off to a false start with the frostbite season, the weather was in the high 20c and most of the members wore shorts. However, the real competition starts in November, and the temperature has already started to fall. One of the real bellwether tests is when Atkins have their Soup Shoot. CMO did answer the call with 5 members attending, Grant, Andy and Les Gatland, myself and Andrew Small. It was meant to be a 70s theme, but it appears no one got the message apart from Andy and I, as I kept reminding him. As usual it was good fun, and nice to meet and talk to other archers from 5 or so different clubs, with tasty grub to buy. Andrew walked of with the barebow title hitting a score of 660 for the Western, and the bottle of red for fancy dress winner, to be fair there wasn’t much competition.
Atkins are a fairly small club in Epsom and the shoot helps to keep them going for another year. In the raffle after, we nearly all got a prize.
Paul McCartney entered his name down as range captain on the Sunday at CMO as the soup shoot was on, so 4 new members could start their archery experience. Hopefully they enjoyed themselves too.
The Halloween shoot was held on 28th and although the weather has been fairly inclement, at least there was a settled period for the shoot to go ahead. It was a slightly smaller group of ghouls that turned out wearing some good costumes, due to work commitments or illness, ‘ unfortunately getting over covid was my excuse.’ However, Phil organised some good games and everyone enjoyed themselves.
Freaky nibbles and soup were enjoyed after, Phil made his legendary potatoe and leek concoxtion, combined with the blood of bats and frogs toes.(Can’t get those in Tescos).
As the days grow shorter, apart from the Saturday and Sunday slots, there is only the 2 hour Tuesday morning sessions, so be an early bird and blow the cobwebs from tired eyes, and don’t let those bed bugs bite.
