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Our club was founded in 1979, the first annual general meeting to create it, being held in October that year. Of the original 15 or so founder members only one remains, like many clubs, members come and go, if only we could retain them all. We do however have a very active club with a number of senior and junior members who shoot both compound and recurve. This has enabled us over the years to compete in numerous events for both disciplines. We also have some members active in the tournament circuit both here in Scotland and throughout the UK. We are based at Lasswade High School Sports Centre, which is about 7 miles from the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Several of our club members are also involved in field archery, but require to be members of field archery clubs as we do not have this facility. This has promoted a degree of friendly rivalry, which over the years has benefited our club.

During the indoor season we try to run as varied a program as time permits and we have 2 evenings per week when we can shoot. We usually have one or two dedicated coaching sessions, throughout the season. These are in addition to ongoing coaching during club sessions. We are fortunate in having a number of qualified coaches. However with many experienced archers in our club, we can offer a broad base of knowledge to help club members at all levels of experience. Beginners classes are held during the Indoor season only.

We are fortunate to have close links with other clubs in our area, and many of their members hold dual membership which allows them to shoot with us. It also helps the club funds to meet the cost of our rental for the Sports hall and our outdoor range.

Over the years we have held our own tournaments, both indoor and outdoor. The most well known of these perhaps, is our open Portsmouth, this is held annually on Remembrance Sunday in November. This is a British record status shoot and a number of both Scottish and British records have been established. Perhaps the most notable was in 1996 when the Gents Scottish record of 594 was set by Simon Needham. This event is now well established in the Scottish fixture list and is becoming more well known throughout the UK.

Our Albion round was first held to mark our tenth anniversary. For the first few years we were fortunate to have sponsorship from the employer of a club member. As they were in the food supply industry, this enabled us to provide archers with a buffet meal after the event. Regrettably with the growing requirements of the food and hygiene regulations, we found that it was not possible to continue this. The intention of the round was to encourage newer archers to shoot at a tournament which was not so onerous as a York/Hereford or FITA. The fortunes of the event have waxed and waned over the years. This event is held in June each year.

We set up the European Millennium Postal League in October 1999 and this is proving to be quite successful, but we would like to see more clubs joining in, especially from mainland Europe. We do have a number from several European Countries but we would like to see more. This has now been continued into the outdoor season, so all of you out there, get your entries in. The results for each months fixtures are published on the League Section of our website, so you can see them without having to ask for a copy or wait for the post to arrive. In addition to medals being awarded, we have also produced commemorative certificates. Medals and certificates will also be awarded to the highest scoring Lady and Gent at the end of the season, and it will be worth the effort to obtain them.

Derek Sangster

Founder Member
 

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