Spen Valley Bowmen :: Archery Club

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BASIC SAFETY
Simple rules to ensure that archery can be enjoyed safely by everyone.
SHOOTING IN A TOURNAMENT
How to score, all about shooting details and some rules at the line and at the target.
THE ROUNDS
The different types of target rounds, both metric and imperial.
CLASSIFICATION SCHEME
General information about the classification scheme and how it works.

Details

CLASSIFICATION SCHEME

The classification scheme is optional but gives the archer goals to aim for and a way of monitoring their progress.

It is also easy to do as most of the work is done by the club’s Record Officer.

The classifications are:

Ø 3rd Class

Ø 2nd Class

Ø 1st Class

Ø Bowman (Junior Bowman)

Ø Master Bowman

Ø Grand Master Bowman

Classifications up to Bowman are administered by your club. Master Bowman and Grand Master Bowman are administered by GNAS.

During the first year of competing, the archer is an unclassified novice. To become a 3rd class archer you need to complete 3 outdoor tournaments. These can be at your club or an open competition at another club but must be shot in the same year. You can even shoot a round yourself at your club as long as it’s done under tournament conditions with someone to verify and sign your score sheet.

The rounds you need to shoot and the scores you need to achieve depend on age and gender. When a club puts on a tournament, they should have rounds to accommodate all the age groups.

For example, if a club is hosting a York round, the men will shoot the York, the women will shoot a Hereford and the juniors will shoot a Bristol 1,2,3,4 or 5 depending on their age.

You can choose to shoot a different round, for example a man who cannot reach 100 yards may choose to shoot a Hereford or a junior may choose to shoot a round above their age group.

Don’t try and shoot a round with distances you’ve never tried, you will only become discouraged. Make sure you have practiced all the distances needed and have written down your sight marks for each. You only get 1 end of sighters at the longest distance.

Once you have completed a tournament, you need to get a copy of the results and pass this to your club Records Officer. Most clubs put the results on the internet within a few days of the tournament and if several club members have shot that day, only one copy is required.

The Records Officer will use the tables provided by GNAS to determine your classification for that round. For example, a boy under 14 shooting a Bristol 3 with a recurve bow scoring 300 would acheive a 3rd class score. He would then need to shoot 2 more rounds. For example a Junior Western scoring more than 276 and a Metric 3 scoring more than 312 and he would achieve his 3rd Class.

As you move up the classifications, the rounds you can shoot to achieve that class become more limited and so you will need to pick the competitions you enter more carefully.

Copies of the classification tables should be available at your club or on the GNAS website. You can also ask the Records Officer for help on understanding the scheme or for advice on what you need to do to reach the classification you are aiming for.
Your first tournament can be quite a daunting experience, make the most of shoots at your club and for your first open tournament, try and pick one that other club members are going to. Shoots are usually fun days, even when it rains!!

A list of rounds showing how many dozen arrows are shot at each distance can be found on the Rounds page.

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