[Archers] Needwood Forest Company of Archers

Wed Nov 16 11:17:11 PST 2011

That's a great site, thanks for sharing!  I love the fact that your Wednesday practices have a "theme" so to speak.  As Baron Colum is fond of saying, "Practice by itself isn't enough, you need to practice smart." (Or something like that.)  I think this is a perfect example of practicing smart.

Keep up the great work.

Lorelei

-----Original Message-----
From: fenrisulven <fenrisulven at comcast.net>
To: Holly Gibbons <holly0920 at yahoo.com>
Cc: archers <archers at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org>
Sent: Wed, Nov 16, 2011 6:17 am
Subject: [Archers] Needwood Forest Company of Archers

The Sunday practice is actually Roxbury Mill's, not ours.  The Needwood practice is Wednesday evenings starting around 6pm, but we shut down for winter and start back up mid-march. Its more of a daylight issue than due to rain or snow. 

There is no consensus, no backtalk allowed - I am the Vinetar, the Captain. Whatever I say goes. Usually I give alot of orders and everyone laughs and then ignore me.  We have lots and lots of rules than appear super secret only because I haven't imagined them yet. I do get to wear a silly jester's hat as my "cap of maintenance".  To which everyone points and laughs and then goes back to ignoring me. As you can see, we're a very casual and goofy group. 

In all seriousness, I believe Timothy of Shaftsbury formed the Needwood Company as a training tool for event shoots. Our Wednesday practices focus on splitting into teams to shoot at novelty targets. Sometimes we teach tactics and teamwork, sometimes we test out someone's newest novelty target prototype (still working on the remote controlled helo target for flu flus. sigh). The training has paid off. I don't need to list all the Needwood Archers that routinely sweep the lower and upper ranks at each event, you already know how awesome they are! (sorry, obligatory boast of my people).

We do span several baronies. We claim no precendence on any household or company - you can be a member of your Baronial Archery Company and of Needwood and shoot for whoever you choose whenever you want, even against us in some cases. Some of our founding members are Baron William of Storvik, Greggor, Gregge, and Timothy.    

We have a very strict membership policy, you must:

1) love archery
2) shoot with us at least one wednesday
3) want to join us
4) meet us at an event
5) express your love of archery
6) have fun 

And yes, our badge is the porcupine:  http://www.needwood.org/index_history.shtml

"The symbol of the Needwood Forest Company of Archers is a porcupine. The idea of adopting the porcupine as a symbol is older than the Company itself. Originally, Æþelwine  proposed (jokingly) that the local archery group should give out an Order of the Porcupine award for people that moved across the firing line to retrieve their arrows before the shooting was done. Later, when the idea of the Company was being bantered about, the porcupine idea rose again. After some Google research, we learned that the porcupine/porpentine idea was more appropriate than we first realized. Teresa de Çaragoça discovered that Louis XII used the porcupine in a badge (see below) with the motto "cominus et eminus" (from near and far), based on the porcupine's purported ability to be dangerous both far away and close up (it was believed at the time that porcupines could throw their quills)."

Cheers
Fen

Vinetar
Needwood Company of Archers

From: "Holly Gibbons" <holly0920 at yahoo.com>
To: archers at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 9:42:24 AM
Subject: [Archers] ullr's bow and archery guilds

As to the question of archery guilds, we in the DC area have the Needwood Forest Company of Archers, which has members in something like five Baronies/Shires, but mainly Roxbury Mill and Storvik. It is a loosely held confederation which is managed by consensus, I think! We all practice on Sunday mornings together at the beautiful Lake Needwood archery range and that gives us some stability and rhythm. There's no set requirement for membership, but it is by appointment upon decision of I am not sure who. And there is no budget. As you can see, informal, but we do have these incredibly way cool badges of a red and white stylized porcupine!
Nuala

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