Outdoor Regulations and Training

Please either:

• Read the Hampstead Guidelines,
• Obey seniors and Hampstead Bowmen members' instructions.

The guidelines mention the 252 challenge which is designed for beginners. For our purposes, we should avoid the 252 challenge and push everyone to qualify for BUCS Outdoors as soon as we can. The outdoor season is split into 3 seasons:

• Imperial Season (March - May): Imperial rounds shall be practised as it is easier to qualify for BUCS outdoors. Local competitions at this time use imperial rounds. Competitions include: Richmond Pagoda, Aquarius Albion and the Crystal Palace Shoot.
• Metric Season (May - June): Rounds practised shall be WA for seniors and Metric for novices to practice for BUCS Outdoors. Local competitions in metric at this time include: Rivernook and Middlesex Outdoor.
• National Ranking Season (June - September): Rounds practised shall be WA for competitive archers or Short Metric for the non-competitive archers. Competitive archers (including novices) should aim to submit a national ranking by going to world record status tournaments including: Surrey Archery Weekend, Bedfordshire WA Weekend and Oxford WA Weekend. All archers can take part in Short Metric matches, which are very relaxed.

All archers must shoot a distance which is challenging but not too difficult, which will result in a lot of lost arrows, therefore archers should build up their distances during practice and not jump into the longest distances too early. I recommend the following for novices:

• Female novices start at 40 yards, and then go up to 50 yards and 60 yards when they feel comfortable.
• Male novices start at 50 yards, and then go up to 60 yards and 80 yards when they feel comfortable.
• Once novices have their sightmarks, they shall score and attempt to get a classification in their respective rounds. e.g. male novices score Albions and female novices score Windsors.
• No novice may attempt their respective senior distance/round until they have achieved at least a 2nd class classification.

The club may get seniors who were novices in our club last year or seniors who are new to the club. I recommend the following:

• If the senior archer has never shot a senior distance before, get them to achieve at least a 2nd class score at their novice round before attempting to qualify for BUCS Outdoors at their senior round.