[Archers] Sponsored Shoot at Pennsic

[Garth G. Groff]

Friends,

The idea of having teams composed of three bow types is interesting, but 
is it practical? To begin with we have four classes of bows: crossbows, 
longbows, recurves, and period handbows. Do you presume to include 
recurves and non-period longbows under same category? If you look 
carefully at Atlantia's rankings, recurves appear to create much higher 
scores. Is this something that might be unfair, require a handicap or 
other equalizer, or a whole separate category and four-person teams?

The other question is can we, or any other kingdom, field enough 
three-bow (or four-bow) teams to do this. Consider the current scores 
again, and you will see that some bow types are fairly rare. Among the 
active Atlantia archers we have scores for 12 crossbows, 10 period 
handbows, 46 longbows, and 95 recurves. Given that the last two are 
apparently to be lumped in the same category, the latter types 141 
"flatbows". Also keep in mind that some people have scores in more than 
one category and could only shoot once. It looks to me that if all our 
archers showed up at Pennsic, we could field 10 teams, the period 
handbows being the limiting factor. That means two crossbow shooters and 
131 "flatbow" shooters are out of luck finding a team. I suspect that 
other kingdoms have a similar spit in bows, and of course, the further 
away they are from Pennsic, the less archers from their region will show 
up. Any competition, at least on the populace side of the equation, will 
be heavily stacked in favor of the Midrealm and East Kingdom who will 
probably have the heaviest attendance.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff / Mungo Naper, Archer of Mallard Lodge

Jonathas wrote:
> All good suggestions! Keep the conversation rolling!
>
> The original idea was taking the concept of the Lochmere Arrow shoot 
> to the Society level and allow ALL the kingdoms to compete against one 
> another not just Mid vs East.  As well as not let it become an elitist 
> shoot as the Masters has become.  I remember back when I first got 
> into archery, I was mad when "they" closed the *entire* range *just* 
> for a couple people to shoot, out of the 10,000 there 30 got to play.  
> At least back then "they" left the shoot up for the minions to go 
> shoot at it once "they" were done. 
>
> What about working Cog's suggestion in.  Split the prize, the best 
> team/kingdom over all chooses where 25% of the donation goes, then 
> have 5 ranks determined by one of the targets and the winner of each 
> chooses the donation of 15%?  Figuring that the top team will also be 
> in one of the 5 ranks so the "big" prize becomes 40% with the 
> remaining 4 ranks getting 15% each. Remember the real prize is having 
> a fun shoot to play with for a change, and for those competive 
> shooters there is also a prize of sorts to achieve.
>
> The idea of limiting an archer to shooting *competitively* on only one 
> team is a good one, though they may come back through and shoot again 
> for fun if they so desire.  I'd take it a step further and say they 
> may only be competitive on their first run through, no practice runs 
> with the second time being for a competitive team.
>
> So a revised set of rules might be:
>
> Teams of 3 archers
> A) All from the same kingdom
> B) 1 Crossbow, 1 Period Bow, 1 Flat limb Bow per team (the first two 
> per Atlantian rules)
> C) Must be the first pass at shooting for each archer
>
> Rules A, B, or C may be broken, but then the team is just shooting for 
> fun though their score may still be recorded for other fun prizes.
>
>
> As for marshals, why don't we only plan on holding the shoot for one 
> day this year.  Then if it is a success expand on it next year.  
> Northern Atlantia is unique in the Marshal to Archer ratio we enjoy, 
> may other places only have one marshal for a fairly large area.  I 
> don't think it would be a good idea to expect each team to have a 
> marshal to travel with it, especially if this ends up a success like 
> we hope it will be.  I think we would be better off with a marshal at 
> each target, plus a couple for bow inspections/sign-in.  That way we 
> have a fixed number needed and can plan/sign-up accordingly.
>
>
> From the sounds of it there are already enough people willing to bring 
> at least one target up to put the shoot togeather.  Are there enough 
> marshals willing to sit range duty for half a day, plus setup/tear 
> down time?
>
> Jonathas
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