Publicity for the sport

[tripod]

Whats going on :o ?
Australian archery at the moment has a great chance at Atherns and that should be enough to promote the sport.

I turned on the TV today to see Michael Dimand promoting his sport and moving it forward :o .

Should there be something writtin into each Archers contract that they will at some time have to provide there time to promote the sport in the same fashion?

Or why has Archery Australia not followed this example :agrue: ?

[slick]

There is an apparent lack of promotion fullstop! I feel the bulk of the responsibility for this lies with the administrators and yes I know they do it for the love of it. :wink: The sport needs to be progressive, hell in the past I have laughed at Lawn Bowls but their colorful sport can be seen regularly on Foxtel. One of the key issues as I see it the attraction of juniors to our sport and without the color, brand name stickers, media exposure and general face lift the characters and role models like Dave Barnes within the sport don

[CMB50]

have a read of this thread:

http://www.archery-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=87632

Additionally i have found a center page spread in Melbourne's MX newspaper last week on Simon Fairweather and his wife, adouble page story with pics is not something you come across all the time.
MX is a free newspaper in Melbourne available nearly anywhere in the city and closer surrounding suburbs. Has a high number of readers for a smaller paper.

[Kuru]

hmm I'm guessing coz target archery is boring

[Dave Barnes]

:rofl: That could be one reason Kuru. Or maybe we are all ugly bastards who people wont pay to see in papers??? :wink:

[Marianne Rieckmann]

Whats going on :o ?
Australian archery at the moment has a great chance at Atherns and that should be enough to promote the sport.

I think the question is how do we want to promote the sport? What outcomes do we want?

The promotion of our top Olympic archers has been excellent! I think the top archers are doing enough to promote the sport. 8)

But is this promotion encouraging more people into the sport? Do all these news articles have a link back to AA or the State Organisations so people know where to go? :-?

[Marcus]

I think Marianne is bang on there.
With the articles I was submitting to our paper I always ended with our website link, otherwise what is the point?

Another thing I am starting to do is I won't allow reporters to submit reports without me seeing the final version. I am personally tired of poorly written reports in local papers or reports where they missed the point entirly because they were looking for a feel good hook. This is quite common in professional sports where interviews are often checked out by agents and I think we need to behave the same way.

[unclepete]

I think the question is how do we want to promote the sport? What outcomes do we want?

The promotion of our top Olympic archers has been excellent! I think the top archers are doing enough to promote the sport. 8)

But is this promotion encouraging more people into the sport? Do all these news articles have a link back to AA or the State Organisations so people know where to go? :-?

Excellent point. In order to get one olympic-level archer to the AIS you have to have a whole flock of people at club level doing the coaching, encouraging and maintaing the facilities used to train on. Without the enthusiasm at club level, the sport is dead. We need to get a connection between "good on ya, Dave Barnes" and "contact your local club".

[katzgrin]

The Tuesday edition of the Daily Telegraph has an eight page section on junior and school sports results. Frequently there are archery results. The sport is quite noticable, being the first entry.
This week the results are 10cm (4 inches in the old money) deep. It is one way of bringing our sport to the attention of kids who might not be aware that there are clubs around.
Guess what Marcus? The results were ALL clout! :D

[stars_shine]

i live in the ACT,
basicall, through some miracle, i managed to get Tim Cuddihy to come to the school, and do a demonstration at an assembly, we offered half price try days, and the crowds flooded in

i think, if u have sum1 like tim, who appeals to all kinds of ppl, why not use him to promote the sport? with his permission of course, all im sayin is that i think clubs can organise half price come and try days, put an add in the paper, and i can almost garuntee, the club will come out with a profit

:angel:

[Milkovitsch]

I have just returned from Europe, where there has been an incredible increase in medieval re-enactment societies (you know, people dressing up and playing all sorts of medieval games). This should please the 'purists' out there - especially those like Elder Raven.... :P

Interestingly, I saw a video of one such event and there were lots of different people involved, families, even groups of teenagers if you can beleive this!


I also met with archers from the local club, who stated that a positive spin-off of this is that their member numbers have increased dramatically. This has happended since 'The lord of the rings' and then the olympics.
Similarly in Australia many clubs have had an increase in new members lately.

Are we doing all we can to promote the sport while things are working for us? And are we doing what we should to encourage beginners to keep to the sport (there was an earlier thread about this, about making the sport more social etc).

You must strike while the iron is hot
You go fishing when the fish are biting

[Marcus]

This is why I think it would be smart for State's to run their State Clout titles and at the same time invite and open it up to the SCA as well. Think about how we would do if suddenly you had 100 extra archers there competing side by side with the modern shooters. You would certainly get some cross over.

Erika was talking to one of them as uni recently who was shocked at the poundages tht we use. Most only shoot 20-30#.

[Flehrad]

The SCA has several events, but for their combat, they are only allowed 30lb bows to prevent major injury when their wooden rubber blunted arrows hit someone, as not everyone is wearing heavy plated armour....

Their target events are unrestricted, and we have heard stories of guys shooting 90lb longbows with wooden shafts and cast iron tips, blowing chunks out of their targets....

[GrahameA]

There are more groups than just the SCA - and there is nothing wrong with the SCA before anyone gets the wrong impression.

I have seen everything from 25lb Bows to a 100lb plus Yew longbow. It justs depends on what people like.

If you want to attract such people then you need someone to champion there cause in clubs.

Just note that most of them are participating for the fun and competition runs a distant second.