Archery v Lockdown Tiers 0 – 4
At tier “5” they have to have their own separate field and club.
Straight up, don’t panic … Scottish archery is still a going concern no matter what tier of lockdown is imposed north of the border. The biggest issue we have is that on Tier 3-4, there is a hard cap of 1 archer per boss. This removes what little flexibility we had for those busy mornings where archers > bosses. Tiers 0-2 allow us to have 2 non- bubbled archers sharing as boss which was a nice piece of wiggle room especially if you ain’t got nobody to share a boss with. Not affecting shooting directly but arguably much more impactful and annoying was the “don’t leave your local authority” clause which affected archers traveling more than a couple of miles. This has been clarified (yet again) to allow “local outdoor informal exercise … (in groups of up to 6 people from no more than 2 households) that starts and finishes at the same place (which could be up to 5 miles from the boundary of your local authority area)”. Half the population of central Scotland is now within ‘legal’ striking distance of Glasgow Archers! :o)
This is not the case south of the border where our English cousins are now under full lockdown of sport with archery, golf and tennis … you know, those sports where you have to stand really close together … no longer allowed!!! As you can imagine this has pee’d people off because it appears arbitrary and not based on anything other than a broad brush stroke pretending to be ‘fair’.
Archery GB has started a campaign including letters to MPs which will, no doubt, be mirrored in tennis and golf. For all archers across the UK, AGB would like you to sign this petition from UK Active demanding emergency support to help grassroots sports survive: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/553619 … your sport has never needed you as much as it does now. Please go sign. Why is it important? .. the below is from a recent AGB survey of archers. Lets get our southern cousins back where they belong … on the line!
Mental and physical wellbeing of archery:
44% said that not being able to shoot has had negative effect on their mental health
47% said that not being able to shoot has had negative effect on their physical health
96% felt safe at their clubs when they were able to re-open
Club Finances:
87% of clubs have reported a loss in income
13% of clubs aren’t sure if they can survive financially until April 2021
FYI
Here are how the 5 levels of Scottish lockdown affect archery in easy to look at pictorial form … click this link postcode checker to see which level your local authority is at.
Key points for Level 0 here
Key points for Level 1 here
Key points for Level 2 here
Key points for Level 3 here
Key points for Level 4 here
