We recognise the need to develop the club in the best interests of our members and our sport. We also recognise that it must be sustainable, affordable, relevant inclusive and importantly play a positive role in the archery and local community. ClubMark, Club Leaders Programme, and Archery GB progress awards recognises our belief that good coaches will only flourish in well run clubs.

Every club is different. Clubs can differ in many ways – size, objectives, ethos and culture.

Club Development will therefore mean a different thing to each club. Some clubs shy away from Club Development as they think it involves paperwork, bureaucracy and red tape, when in reality, running a new tournament, finding additional facilities, running Archery GB Progress Award scheme and qualifying a coach are all club development activities.

Club development is not policy; it’s a choice and a club development plan doesn’t need to be huge, start with little things and watch your club grow.

Ontarget

Ontarget is Archery GBs Club development scheme. It is a free service that clubs can sign up to with the aim of developing for the benefit of their members, surrounding communities and archery as a sport. By engaging fully with ontarget and the development pathway, clubs can enable better retention of members, reduced rate of churn and a positive, exciting atmosphere generated in the club that provides for an improved quality of experience for everyone involved.

In short – ontarget helps clubs provide the right activities, for the right people at the right time.

There are 3 specialisms in the ontarget programme, each of these has a set of criteria that a club has to achieve to be rewarded with the title of a specialism. Your club will most likely meet certain aspects of these criteria already. The ones you don’t meet are where the development work is required, which should ultimately make the club better and provide a greater experience for its archers.

When signing up to ontarget, your club doesn’t have to obtain or work towards a specialism, but you’re strongly encouraged to consider them, you don’t have to complete all the specialisms, your club may choose to complete just 1 or 2.

More information on the ontarget scheme and the specialisms can be found on the Archery GB website.

Young People Clubs

Young people clubs provide encouragement to train, compete, have fun and socialise. Young people need to be allowed to partake in a sport with some degree of independence from their parents. In a modern environment it is unlikely that parents will be able to accompany their children all the time. A club recognises this and organises archery activity that does not prohibit children from taking part where a parent cannot attend.

Community Clubs

Community clubs offer archery to many more people in an accessible way. To attract and retain archers in our clubs, it is important that we make new people feel welcome. An early positive experience often means people will more likely stay and take an active role in the club. A Community club understands the needs to be consistent with how new and existing members are greeted.

Performance Clubs

Performance clubs create an environment that allows the archer to compete and excel. A culture of performance doesn’t just happen; it is planned and resourced effectively. It’s about getting the right people, doing the right things, with the desire and the will to improve.

How can the County help?

The County Development Coordinators role is to develop a County Development plan and to help clubs in the County with Club Development, this could be putting clubs in touch with each other to achieve a common goal, running events as a County for the benefit of multiple clubs or helping clubs with writing a development plan.

In addition, the County Development Coordinator is a link between the Clubs, the County, The Regional Development Organiser and Archery GB.