Some thoughts

Renegade_Archer

On the differences between archery in Germany and archery in Ireland.

I recently joined an archery club here in the town of Deggendorf in Southern Germany. First off, they have sponsors. As in one whole wall of the clubhouse(more on this later) is *covered* in sponsorship ads. Their shooting range is probably the best I have ever been in. They have a really nice wooden, decked enclosure(will put up some pics at some stage) that you shoot from, so even if its pissing rain you dont get wet till you go to collect your arrows. The entire range is surrounded by trees, so its excellently shielded from wind.
They have TRAINING. Proper, people helping you out who know what theyre talking about, TRAINING.
They have a clubhouse. Im not talking a shed to store gear, Im talking a proper little building with a bar and other stuff. Yes, thats right, a bar, just for the archers.
They are part of a sporting complex(ah la Sportslink), so they have those facilities available as well.
I was talking to the head honcho in the place, she said it used to be a lot like yer average club in ireland, i.e feck all facilities, only adults, few juniors, no great progress, until new leadership came in, actively sought out sponsors, encouraged juniors, set up a junior archery development program(think a german equivalent of the JOAD), and thats how they ended up where they are today. They have guys there on the Junior German Archery Team, and they kicked my ass. I was impressed.


Was a real example of what archery in Ireland could be like if the IAAA got its sh1t together - and remember guys, *we* are the new generation, one day soon the IAAA will be in our generation's hands, and it will be up to us.

madrab

there was talk of setting up a similar outdoor range when sportslink was originally set up


but as usual fell into the bottomless arse that is irish sport

mr potato head

Well as i said to a few people over the last few months, and i'm not the only one who thinks its a good idea, the college scene is not a bad place to prove what can be done... we through round the idea of getting the league sponsored, i will look into this over the summer if everyone approves... and setting up some sort of assocation so that there is some form of board for comunication and representation of us as a whole, strength in numbers n all that.
this doesn't mean we have to get real serious all the time thats not what we are all about, but things like funding, irish team, and maybe some media type stuff (website, newspapers, etc.)
anyone with ideas or suggestions? or critisisims i'm all ears

halenger

Well that does sound like an idea. Try to get a proper committee set up for inter-varsity systems. Perhaps one where we can get a seat on the IAAA. Not a rep who really doesn't know much about us or what we do and is not actively involved but someone active on the scene.

I realise such committee meetings are difficult to arrange when you're across the country but, I'm a computer nerd so forgive me, teleconferancing (may seem over the top) is a definate option. Why? Because we are in college and the facilities are there. Even something far more simple. A chat room. We arrange to be there at a certain time and we discuss things. It's quite simple to set one up. Even with a crappy website interface.

It could be run a tad bit USI style. As in all clubs contribute X amount and the committee takes care of all the prizes for the year. Not necessarilly the general inter-varsitiy prizes but it is an option. Funding could also go towards coaching or something. If we get our act together we could get funding from places <insert places here>.

The committee would be a full committee. A rep from each college who WANTS to do the job. Also the committee would have a chair, webmaster, pro, etc etc etc. A constitution would also be a good start. It allows outlining of goals. Like a mission statement.

One thing I would like would be to see accomadation and events arranged. When we all go to UL we should all stay in the same place if possible. The job of a Trips/Ents (can be seperated if necessary) would be to assist the Trips Officers of the clubs who are travelling to X inter-varsity.

Maybe I'm taking it/talking aboot it too seriously but hey I've been on too many committees for my own good.

mr potato head

Glad to see you approve of the idea podge...
The first step would be a draft constitution that everyone approves of!
Then a committee structure, i think having too many positions tends to get people confused about who does what, so a simple setup is a suggestion from me?
Definitely

A rep from each college who WANTS to do the job

think the WANTS bit is the most important bit!.... but maybe have these people look after a role (chair, webmaster, pro, etc etc etc).
Accomodation thing is a good plan, would make it cheaper and a bit of craic.
We should start with a good basic structure and do the important stuff right... good foundation type thing.

Aryzel

The sponsorship idea is good, its pretty hard to get one of us sponsored, but if we offer the entire league and all the teams then we might have something.


On the committee thing, first thing is to decide exactly (in detail) what its going to do, ideals have to take second place to reality, what can and will people do.

Main things would be:

- Represent us to IAAA and Sponsors, writting for News papers

- Hosting and maintaining a website (news, results ect.)

- Helping orgainising Intervarsities
* Accomodation (getting lists of places and prices for each IV)
* Travel (maybe a single coach for the Dublin teams would be worthwhile)
* Food? (example, at GMIT, would the supermacs give us a group discount and
deliver?) { not sure if this on is necessary, but its possible}
* Prizes (the end of season prizes, prizes for each IV should probably be left to
the club involved)
* Entertainment???

- Organising international competitions
* Getting people from UK ect, to come to our competitions
* Getting competitions for us to send a team to
* Choosing and organising the team
* Travel, Accomodation and Food for visitors coming here
* Travel, Accomodation and Food for our team going abroad


Thats all i can think off the top of my head, but i think it covers most things.
So you'd need 4/5 people, keep it small and dedicated.

halenger

Well the way I was thinking is one rep from each club and then divide the typical roles amonst them.

It could be done on a rotating basis (for Chair for example). That would probably make it fair.

Aryzel

you don't want to divide up the roles too much, basically there are particular things that need to be done, and we need 4/5 want to and are capable of doing those jobs well.

Fairness is all well and good, but getting the job done right is the most important thing.

halenger

True true but without defined roles I could imagine things getting messy. Someone has to chair the meeting etc.

Someone should specifically deal with public relations. With assistence.

Have a read of our club constitution. I think it's a fairly good basis for any good constitution.

DCUAC Constitution

halenger

Well defined committee is fairly essential to a good constitution. Keeps things from getting out of hand and makes sure there's some extent of cooperation and agreement.

Whether there is other roles or not I believe Chairperson is essential. Companies who we want sponsorship from will most likely want to see the constitution and want to know who they are dealing with. Also if we are dealing with money (prizes etc) a seperate bank account should be arranged. We will not get one without a constitution and agreed signatories. That makes Chairperson AND Treasurer now essential.

If you want the website up to date etc etc that NEEDs to be one person. Not a couple messing with things and styles. One voice. One setup. One Webmaster!

A proper committee leads to things being done in my opinion.

mr potato head

Yea thats fairly much the bones of it... but do you really need that many members of the Executive Committee?
We have had 3 for the last 2 years and we uped it to 4 this year, not because we needed to, just thought 3 looked a little sparse!

halenger

Ok that's true. Maybe we only need the main few alright. They are required anyhow to get a bank account really. Which I'm sure will be very hard to do anyhow.

Anyone know much about registering as a society?

Tis something to work on over the summer anyhow. The sooner some semblance of organistation happens the better.

oscarBravo

I've set up a co-op, am in the middle of setting up another, and have been involved in the creation of Mayo Archery Club.

There shouldn't be much to it. You need a constitution that defines the basic groundrules in terms of committees, officers, general meetings and so on. You should be able to get a decent template off the web. A bank account shouldn't be a big deal either, just proof of identity and a few signatures.

Count your blessings it's not a co-op you're setting up!

halenger

Or a limited company. Man that's an utter pain, unless you're willing to pay too mcuh money to solicitors etc. At least I know the process now! And have helped another person set one up since, helping another one at the moment.

Renegade_Archer

I'll do the webmastering if nobody has any objections. Minimum donkey porn visible on-site. I promise.

halenger

Lol... No objections here. I'm not one for webdesign personally though I run and have run websites a number of times. Not exactly my forte.

Who goes for what, though important and worth thinking about, wouldn't be the highest priority at the moment.

Has anyone though of a name? There's always options like College Archery Group of Ireland or something but maybe they're a bit bland? Just noticed that collegearchery.com is available or irisharchers.com etc. If we're considering a domain even. Both are available as .org too which be more appropriate and less commercial sounding.

Anyhow I've domains on my mind at the moment so ignore me.

When we get together a constitution and committee etc then the IAAA can be approached to say hey. This is who we are, what our goals are etc.

Foremost to that those active here should get the constitution and then make sure all college archery clubs receive a letter asking for a member to be nominated or something.

Another point I just thought of is colleges who do NOT have an archery club. We could send them a letter explaining us and our goals and offering support to any college club wishing to form.

Renegade_Archer

Something along the lines of "Dear Trinity, stop being such uppity bastards and get yerselves an archery team"?

I could be persuaded for $some_large_amount to do my masters there, if they want to buy in some talent

halenger

Hah. Trinity sucks.

Anyhow did anyone hear anything further about the rumoured club there that Jim was assisting to form?

halenger

Wakey wakey thread.

mr potato head

zzzz... which what, sorry nodded off there 4 a while.

From what i can figure out a possible name is Student Archery Assocation Ireland (SAAI), tried it in google n no other assocations in ireland or sports groups seem to pop up that we could annoy?
Good, bad anyone have any other ideas or see any thing i might have missed with this one?

i'll do a draft constitution for prople to look at n add to or change if people don't have any objections with me taking the bull by the horns....
anyone else who has ideas please post them.
......
DON'T FORGET that EVERYONE in student archery is to have a say in an assocation that is to represent "our sport" and everyone has to be happy with its structure and leadership if it is to work, don't think that any ideas or questions you have aren't helpful, the more ideas we have in the setting up the fewer hickups are likely to have along the way to getting this set up.
But if i may just say one thing- keeping the assocation as a simple structure untill we have it up and running might be the best approach?
......
if i have managed to keep your attention this long you deserve a clap!
:dunno:

Aryzel

or University Archery Association ( UAA )

mr potato head

Well thats another one.

Well guys I did up a rough constitution that I think covers the bones of what we may need. (Podge…hope you don’t mind me using the DCU one as a template?)
Its open to suggestions for changes and additions from all, I suppose the easiest way to do that is to state the paragraph and any changes/suggestion you have for it and it can be discussed here?
Any changes from the name of the association to the punctuation I’ve used (as it’s definitely not my strong point) are welcome.
Hopefully I haven’t left too much out…

if anyone wants a word verson of the document pm me n i'll e-mail it to you.

Renegade_Archer

The one year restriction on the webmaster post could be tough... sometimes hard to find competent people...

mr potato head

yea good call... i can get rid of the limited length of term bit! n we can leave it up to diplomacy and the natural flow of interest through the colleges?

halenger

Perhaps add that there will be other posts whose titles shall vary depending on a given committee...

For example one committee might focus a bit on PR so a PRO would be quite essential. Another might focus on coaching etc etc.

These could be all called "Ordinary Members" for the sake of the constitution but the committee would decide itself what the role of the ordinary memebers would be. These would vary year on year but it gives people something to focus their thoughts on. Rather then 1 ordinary member doing a tonne of work on lots of different aspects.

No problem about using ours as a template. We got ours from people in DCU who helped us to set up.

Aryzel

i would suggest to create an document listing "in detail" what needs to be done over the course of the next year. This would be worth doing each year so that the incoming committee would know what would be required of them, also it probably will vary as things get established.

halenger

Yes of course. For example making contact with international event organizers. You've already made the first steps with the British competition there.

Should we start a new thread on it? Just somewhere to keep to specifically things to do for this year.

Well I'll start it so.

halenger

Tis up there at the top now.

As I've said keep it clean. We want it to be an easy to follow list. There's nothing worse than sifting through a thread to find the information you want and being unable to find it!!