Session on the 3rd September 2024
This archery session was special indeed. The session started on time at 2pm with a great turnout of 16 archers who, apart from shooting, were ready for the arrival of a very special guest.
The weather (as usual?) was overcast and the grass was damp. Not the most inspiring of days… yet.
Cec looked up at the clouds, hmm’d and arrr’d, then predicted the sky would clear and the sun would come out at 3pm on the dot. And do you know what? It did just that.
As our special guest arrived, the dark clouds parted and the sun shone from a bright blue sky. The rest of the afternoon was bathed in lovely warm sunshine.
Today was the award ceremony for our newly introduced David Lench Award for the All Gold competition. The award was kindly donated by Jim, and our special guest was, of course, Margaret Lench who very graciously agreed to make the presentation to the winner. The ceremony was quite an emotional affair with Jim saying a few words about David before handing over to Peter to announce the winner and Margaret to make the presentation.
Jim told us that the club’s origins were born out of an idea of David’s to “give archery a go”. It was also suggested that a drop of beer may have been involved in getting the creative juices flowing… and the club was born. David was also instrumental in defining some of the rules of the club – including the whistle signals that we still use to this day.
Now over to Peter. Peter announced the ranking of the All Gold archers and in 3rd place was Roy with a score of 10. In 2nd place was Jim with a score of 11 – and in a worthy 1st place was Glenn with 17 golds. It was lucky for Glenn that Jim had already used up all his competition sessions as he had a great afternoon scoring countless golds (which sadly didn’t count) !
Congratulations to all – and special thanks to Ken who organises and manages the club.
Margaret then said a few words and humbly thanked the club for naming the award after her late husband. She then went on to make the presentation to Glenn (twice, because the dozy photgrapher missed it the first time!).
We all then settled down for a wonderful picnic, reminiscing with Margaret and enjoying the delicious food – and also wondering if this was the last of the summer. Thank you to everyone who brought (bought and made) all of the picnic food. Lovely.
So whilst the season isn’t quite over, this was a highlight that will be remembered by all.
Thank you David – and thank you Margaret.
Here are a few photos taken on the day – and a couple of David and others from the archives. You can click on an image to enlarge it and read the caption.
