Congratulations to the 650 Trophy prize winners in the National Disability Championships Men's Open Recurve, pictured here with the chair of the Fletchers' Trust, Past Master Chris Brown.

1st prize (with the relevant part of the 650 trophy) David Phillips; 2nd Cameron Radigan; 3rd Paul Brown

Well done to all. The WCF wishes you all the best in your future competitions.

Saturday 14 May was a glorious spring day on which to hold the 2022 FDAD (Fletchers' Day for Disabled Archers) at the Royal Toxophilite Society. Although there were fewer entrants than previously, all thoroughly enjoyed a relaxed and friendly shoot at Burnham.

The Fletchers who attended were able to admire the shooting and talk with the archers. Before presenting the prizes, Master Philip Shears thanked the Tox members for organising the competition and for their hospitality, and also thanked all the archers and their supporters for attending to make the day a success.

Congratulations to the following prize winners: Albion Compound (Tamas Gaspar); Albion Recurve (Dave Philips); Burntwood prize(Debora Wright); Fletchers prize (Sherry McBain).

The Des Clarke Memorial Cup  was awarded to Sherry McBain, UK gold medal winner in the Novice category during the recent Invictus games, and UK archery captain. 

We were pleased to support Archery GB at The Worshipful Company of Fletchers’ Disability Championships 2021, which took place at Lilleshall National Sports Centre on 11 September 2021.

Both the Fletchers attending, and the competitor archers, were pleased to be back at Lilleshall after the Championships were postponed last year. We were blessed with good weather and a good competition.

The Master, Professor Anne Curry, and the Chair of the Fletchers Trust, Past Master Christopher Brown, presented the medals and a new set of 650 prizes commissioned by the Master to be awarded at this and subsequent Championships.

The full results can be found on the Archery GB website at https://www.archerygb.org/disability-championships-2021/

To commemorate the 650th anniversary of the Company a new trophy for the National Disability Championships was commissioned and donated by the present Master Professor Anne Curry, and awarded for the first time at the NDC held at Lilleshall on 11 September 2021.

The trophy was the amazing work of Marc Grady, master bowyer. We were thrilled with Marc's highly original idea for six trophies in one reflecting the six different classes at the NDC. And his consummate craftsmanship has produced a very special object for our 650th year, which the prize winners on 11 September were intrigued and delighted by as much as we were.

As Marc writes, 'the bases are made of English Yew (Taxus Baccata) taken from the boughs of an ancient tree in Talgarth churchyard in Powys Wales. This tree was recorded as being 1000 years old when it was felled by storms in 2014 (Recent Storms wreak havoc on Ancient Yew Trees - FYI Talgarth Investigates (fyinetwork.co.uk). It is not too unfanciful to think that when Geraldus Cambrensis  accompanied the Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin of Forde, on a tour of Wales in 1188, that they may have preached under this tree.

The target bosses are made of Ipe and inlaid with silver ribbon. Ipe (Handroanthus) is a central and southern American bow wood known by the early Portuguese settlers who saw the native Indian using it for bows as “Pau d’arco” or Bow Tree.

The rear legs of the 6 tripod stands, show the modern bowyer’s skill for fine laminating and invisible glue lines. These were cut and shaped from a longbow stave of Padauk (Pterocarpus soyauxi) and Satinwood (Zanthoxylum flavum).'

Our thanks to Marc for this splendid and highly original trophy full of historical allusions and references to archery worldwide.

In front of it you can also see the special leather book which fits in the trophy base and in which winners' names will be recorded, and also the mementos for 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed archers in each class.

The Worshipful Company of Fletchers congratulates Victoria Rumary who won bronze in the Women's Individual W1 archery, defeating Lia Coryell in the play off 131 to 123.

She had overcome strong opposition from archers from Brazil and Italy in earlier rounds, and had to cope with very breezy conditions in the play off.

This is Victoria's first Paralympics. The Company and Fletchers Trust wish you all the best for the future, Victoria. Very well done.

Many congratulations to Phoebe Paterson Pine on winning the gold medal in the Women's Individual Compound at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

In a tense final she defeated Chile's Mariana Zuniga Varela 134-133. 

The Worshipful Company of Fletchers salutes you on this brilliant result at your first Paralympics, Phoebe.

Hot off the press today (27 August 2021) from our Liveryman Hilda Gibson in Tokyo.

'We have now completed training and today, the Ranking Round.  It was HOT!  34.9 degrees C with 64% humidity.  No less than 9 Paralympic records were broken, one of them by Jess Stretton.  

See the following link for more details  https://worldarchery.sport/news/200444/nine-nine-new-paralympic-records-set-during-qualification-tokyo

Congratulations to Hazel Chaisty - for her first arrow and the first arrow shot on the field in the Paralympics.

Here's a photo of the  GB team taken at the end of their training camp before going into the Village – lots of happy smiles

You can follow results at https://www.ianseo.net/Details.php?toId=9088, including using the ‘Infosystem’ tab in the top right to follow individual matches arrow by arrow.'