OTC's TAC Open

An interesting weekend for all – I hope.  Although, it was extremely windy on the first day, I’m glad the rain held off, so it was only Phiz and me that got soaked through putting the targets away on Monday and not those who attended this shoot.

For those that couldn’t attend the format for the shoot is unusual and one I have dreamt up over the past 5 to 6 years, with some trial events along the way and lots of fine tuning.  Of which we still have some way to go, especially in the admin section, but I’m confident as the archers and us get more used to the format things will become slick.

The aim of the TAC Open tournament circuit is three fold:

1. To bring archery more to the fore front in the eyes of the general public by showing it in its three most popular formats.
2. To offer archers something different with opportunity to show case our sport, with all the pressures that go with it.
3. To establish an exciting, but small UK based Pro Archery Circuit.

I’ll try to explain the tournament format, but really it’s one of those things that’s easier to take part in than see on paper.  However there were quality prizes for all archers to win with numerous door prizes each day, great raffle prizes and cash, voucher and product prizes depending on how well you shot.

The Main Event is an Unmarked 3D target event – of 20 3D per day shot over two days (40 targets) – with prizes for the top three in each Shooting Section.  Depending on numbers in these sections we took a percentage of archers through to shoot in a “Sudden Death” shoot off round on the Sunday afternoon.  So at Knebworth in the Open Section we took the top 8 archers through out of 20 or so competitors.  Using their 3D Round scores we seeded them, so that the top two archers shoot against the bottom two scoring archers.  With the furthest away from the centre of the ten ring being knocked out after each round – basically one shot, you stay in or go out.  For every round reached the archer got a cheque for £10.00.  The winner also got a cheque from our sponsor OTC Solutions Ltd.

Also there was an EFAA marked distance field round and a GNAS target round to compete in.  Archers competed in these at their leisure and can shoot these events as often as they like, with only their top score being counted.  Prizes went to the top three in each section. 

Living Heritage has sponsored a league event for us that will run throughout the season.  We have taken a fairly hefty amount from the archers’ entry fees that will go towards a league payout at the end of the season.  League points are taken from an archer’s combined scores over the 3D, Field and Target Round for the weekend – and from 3 of the four Tournaments in the series.

There was always something to do – if you had finished shooting for the day you could always look round the country show, which I was led to believe was full of goodies.

Living Heritage spent a lot of time and effort fencing off the perimeter of the entire archery section, with an additional fence line running through the middle for spectators to get close the action in complete safety.  Plus they provided a PA System which was really useful for the Sudden Death round as we got quite a crowd round us – I promise I’ll work on the quality of the commentary. 

We had devised A3 Size score cards, so that the public could follow the action, but the extreme weather put pay to them a little.

We gave away approximately £1800.00 worth of cheques, cash and product at the OTC TAC Open.  My thanks goes to all those that helped over the weekend including, Phiz for making all of the stakes and target stands and doing a great job in the shop, etc, Chris for his patience, Jo for the website and working out all of the technical side of things, my sister Jane and brother John for baring with me when I barked at them and for working so hard, Megan for her help with award ceremony, Robin Frost for being an absolute star all weekend, Sue Cox for making herself so small on the way home that we didn’t need to do more trips up and down the A1.  Plus a big thanks to all the archers that came, saw, shot, helped setup (After the wind had destroyed most of the course on Friday night) and take down, (especially Paul, Daisy & Holly on Sunday night and Cass on Saturday).  Lastly to our sponsors, the main sponsor was Richard Whitby of OTC Solutions Ltd (the best accountants in the country – well he sponsored an archery event, he can’t be bad); Badland products who gave us two backs packs to give away and numerous caps, etc; BCY who gave us some string material and serving; Coffey marketing who gave a grain scale, Bodoodle who gave an arrow rest and lastly Living Heritage Events.  

Check out the photos and results on the website and thanks again to all the archers that made the event and I hope more of you will be able to make the next one on 12th and 13th July in Exeter. It will be a blast.

Tony