The year draws to a close

Just before Xmas, Kate (from sportstructures) and I spoke to sportscotland about how to link into the Active Schools network. They seemed pleased we had come to them and gave us some good feedback. In particular, they have details on what each school in Scotland is doing in terms of sports participation. Our next step is to pull together a map of what all the various parts of activity are taking place (in schools, in GNAS clubs etc). We had this conversation through a telephone conference call which I am well used to through work, but was a novel experience to the others on the call - good that the "new technologies" can bring people together quickly and at little cost.

Bumped into Susan from Penicuik at Ikea where her and the family were out for an excursion. Santa brought her a new compound bag from Christmas and she reminded me about the annual Frostbite and to bring a £3 present as part of the communal present giving that takes place at the end. Next Sunday, someone will be the happy recipient of Ikea finger puppets!

The household has been awash with virtual re-decorating (wish the real thing indoors could progress as quickly!). The SAA web site is getting a makeover, and Muriel is busy with that and e-mails are flying back and forward between her and Murray. I guess it is the only time that they can get on with this as they are both involved in squads (Muriel with Scottish and Murray with UK disabled).

Having time on our hands, a trip to wildest Hawick was planned, which many people may not know is one of the Archery hotspots in Scotland.

We shot indoors with (another) Kate who is, I think, Scotland's only international double medallist this year having gained Sliver & Bronze at the IPC event in Korea the other month. Her man was there shooting as well with his recurve as he has had his arm twisted into competing in deepest Geordie land at a Vegas. At the end, we were joined by Ronnie, a local newcomer who will be at Lasswade soon taking part in his first competition (that thrill seems so far away from me now).

Kate let us into a wee secret. She said that Peter Suk, in the way of coaching, gives her a wee peck on the cheek and says she is a great archer. This obviously works from her medal success - must be something in the way the Koreans kiss :-) I feel a wee tongue twister coming on here (based on Peter Piper nursery rhyme) ...

Peter Performance pecked the purple pinkie of a pretty paralympian
The purple pinkie of a pretty paralympian Peter Performance pecked
If Peter Performance pecked the purple pinkie of a pretty paralympian
Where is the purple pinkie of the pretty paralympian that Peter Performance pecked?

... must remember not to give up the day job for a career in poetry writing.

I had a chat with Gwyn who has now been there for almost seven years now (visit http://www.eastcote-archery.co.uk/ if you don't know them). When they first started out, shooting inside in the winter was problematic as the gas in the heater would often be so cold as not be able to light properly. Now, there is an outdoor range for up to 8 targets @ 90m, a well stocked shop and a really warm new indoor range with three foam targets. The shop is planned to be moved into the original indoor range which will give lots of room and also provide for a reception area. All of this has been gradually built up over the years without too much public investment - well done Gwyn!

During writing this, I had forgotten the link to Gwyn's place and did the usual web search to find it. The first link to come up was the news that Andy Logan (a two time European Field Archery champion from Hawick) had narrowly escaped death in a car accident and will miss the Worlds in Namibia. Though Andy is from the "other lot" (the Scottish Field Archery Association), it is still a sad piece of news to have at this time of year.

Ah, Yoda

Michael Mather kindly sent through the extract from the SAA's Development Plan concerning how to use Leaders to increase numbers. As usual with Michael, it has a deal of thinking and detail behind it. GNAS are also interested in this area, but are a little more cautious. Needless to say, everyone has a number of completely contradictory opinions (it wouldn't be archery otherwise) and I hope to work with GNAS to survey Leaders in Scotland to establish a independent basis to proceed on.

Xmas is drawing near and I was at a fun shoot on Friday night that was very enjoyable and good humoured (the juniors certainly liked their selection boxes). Ian Wilson took in in good part when he was ribbed about missing the balloons twice and I certainly shot better this week. I got two red stars at the top of the tree to Muriel's none and so all I need to do now is to get FITA to make an official Spruce Tree Round.

The Scotsman reported that sportscotland looked to be safe from the SNP axe, though their remit will be changed and re-focused. We will have to wait until the New Year for the details, I suspect.

There are a number of schools who will transition into GNAS School Membership due to the demise of the AAS scheme. The SAA and Areas need to set corresponding fees and Ray Mason is on the case with the solution to charge Junior Club fees.

I hope that all Scottish Archers felt some pride this month in the December announcements in the News section of the web site - Hannah becoming Junior Lady Indoor Champion and Andy Ward shooting 1380 in Australia.

I've had less time for Archery this week than of late. I was down seeing my three week old grandson in York. As I held him in my arms, he made a face like Yoda and noisily filled his nappy, thus displaying he had the family genes.

Schools, students, AWOLs & socks

Conversations around schools continued this week with a very helpful conversation from the development officer at Learning & Teaching Scotland (a PE teacher on secondment who used to teach archery in his school). Information about activity also started to come in - most of the activity seems in the Northern Area, and John Sullivan told me he had been running lunch time sessions for over 10 years, wow!

I visited Edinburgh University who are in the early fund-raising and planning stages for two new indoor ranges to be open in 2010 as part of an extension to the already impressive sports centre (http://www.sport.ed.ac.uk/). The club has really grown in numbers and quality over the years and the University is acknowledging this with this investment.

The SAA AGM was not quorate this year which is a real pity and those Absent With Out Leave missed some great debate and information. The Children 1st unit that looks after child protection were there and gave a presentation full of really useful facts. GNAS' Marketing & Development Director talked about Clubmark and how it could be used to provide a framework for club improvement and also took open questions - what an opportunity missed to talk to someone at such a high level! The Development Plan was covered by Michael Mather and a good healthy debate followed.

The Development Plan had a lot of detail in it, but there is one inescapable fact - if Scotland had the same participation as in England, the SAA numbers would just about double and we could afford to employ a Development Officer to get even more growth.

The final thought is that "her indoors" made me shoot a round on Friday and beat me. Totally unacceptable, so socks need pulling up.

More formats, deep thoughts, 2012 & a baby

I spent a couple of hours this week looking at a format for action plans with Kate Griffiths of sportstructures, and have hopefully come up with a template that is usable for these types of documents.

Kate and I also had a conversation about extending the work done for school engagement in England into Scotland. That will involve her understanding about the different systems up here and so I've arranged for a couple of conversations with sportscotland and Learning & Teaching Scotland. I also wrote to National Council and got back a response from Alan Wood

for three activities in the Northern Area.

I also attended a Board Meeting of the Scottish Sports Association. Here we discussed the legislation going through the Scottish Parliament about children and vulnerable adults and it is clear that there will be continuing work to be done on procedures. We also had an interesting start to a conversation on what legacy is in terms of 2012 and 2014 - this resulted on some deep thoughts to answer that simple question and I suspect the debate will continue for some months.

My last attendance of the week was at a talk from UK Sport on how they will monitor the National Governing Bodies in the run up to 2102 and the GNAS Performance Unit is involved in the pilot of that activity. They also shared their thoughts on what Elite Centres should look like and their observation of what is happening in China in this respect.

I write this on a train back from York after giving my 8 day-old grandson a bath and wonder if his grandfather's generation will leave him with a country dedicated to world-class performance in sport and, more generally, in life.