There are many people out there that think “traditional archery is simple”. All you need is a stick and a string and you have a bow. But let them try to shoot an arrow out of that simple bow and they soon realize that it is not that simple. For any bow be it longbow, recurve or compound for that matter must be tuned to suit the shooter’s style of shooting. I’ll be talking about longbows and recurves in this article.
The way to measure the “tuning” of a traditional bow is by measuring the brace height, this is the distance from the back of the arrowshelf to the string. Manufactures have recommended brace heights for each bow they make. eg. Martin Mamba goes from 7.5 inches to 8.5 inches.
The telltale signs of a bow not tuned are, the bow is noisy when an arrow is shot, there are vibrations and hand shock, and the arrow in flight is erratic. The way we tune our bow is by changing the length of the bow string. This is done by simply twisting the string, this will either lengthen the string if you untwist it or shorten the string if you twist it up.
Usually if your bow has vibrations or hand shock, it means the brace height is too low. When you adjust the brace height do it in small steps and wind the string 3 turns at a time, remembering which direction you turned it and how many turns you used, so you can go back to where you started if changing the brace height didn’t work.
If you have trouble with your archery equipment, talk to one of the other club members, we are more than happy to help. In the next article I’ll be talking about tuning your Traditional arrows.

End to a Busy Year
Well, another year is over and much has been accomplished, though the hard work of many of our members and some of their friends, some of the improvements being;
1. New practice Range (Just waiting for the grass to grow)
2. New roof to seating area
3. New seating
4. A new bridge (still needs moving into place)
5. Tree stand
6. New cupboards in Canteen
7. New Bows
8. New Targets
9. Repairs to boundary fencing

There are also other items being sought, such as a new toilet block, shade for practice range and with luck, electricity. Items such as these need outside funding and as such take longer to arrange but we are getting there.
We are also currently talking to council on the possibility of either extending our current grounds or to relocate to larger grounds within the same area.

Next year we are looking at taking our major shoot in September back out to Kilcoy but to a new location which I think will be a lot of fun as it will enable us to give everyone a new range of shots, and also give our grounds time to re-grow (water permitting)
There have also been a number of new targets acquired during the year. Due to our current lot of targets being heavily shot out by some of our top shooters (thinking of charging them double for repairing X ring). We are now ready for next 2007.

This year has also seen us break the 100 members barrier, which is absolutely fantastic to see, just goes to show we must be doing something right,
None of these things could have or would have been accomplished with out the help of:
Elva Smith, for her selfless acts and some fantastic food though the year and an unwavering energy to make sure everything was done around the canteen even to the point of NOT shooting herself. And then to put up with the committee every first Friday of the month!
Chris Smith, for maintaining the equipment and grounds and generally organizing safe and enjoyable course.
Don Honey, for number crunching, and keeping the club financially in safe hands
Jacqui Callon, with organising the trophies, shirts, and the countless hours spent on her computer writing all those fantastic articles every month along with our pictures and score recording (and the list goes on!)
Peter Popovic for finding avenues of funding and who has now stepped up to fill the role as secretary. John Warburton who’s always first there to lend a hand with what ever needs to be done,
Thanks also to Al Alcorn (Canga Archery Supplies) whose support with prizes, sponsorship and advice as well as equipment we greatly appreciate.
Stephen, Melinda, Lincoln, Adrian Smith, for installing new fences and annex roof. Gary Penshorn, Perry Jackson, Glenn Hines, for building the tree house and helping to set ranges. Dennis Malone, for the supply of a bridge to replace the old one that was demolished last year
Ashley white, supplying new parts for our equipment and with setting ranges, Warren Tunks and David Johnston who cleared the trees for the new practice range
Noel Traynor, our very own web site guru