Our New Range.

Late 2004 discussions commenced between club officials and the NZ Defence Forces to establish whether there was any land within the Trentham Military Camp complex which could be made available for the club to set up it's own archery range.

As a result of these discussions the military were prepared to make a seldom used rifle range available for such a purpose. The area made available for the club's use will allow the club to set up ranges for the three main types of archery currently being shot in New Zealand, Target, Clout and Field.

The panoramic picture shows the area that we have access to. The Target Range will be set up on the right hand side of the picture, Clout will be shot on the central area of the picture and a Field Course established in the area to the rear of the picture up to the line of trees.

There was much behind the scenes planning and acquisition of the equipment that would be needed. Target butts were designed and the components manufactured off-site. For a long time nothing happened on site apart from the receipt of a shipment of second grade softboard which was stored in a container on the range.

A huge step forward took place on Saturday 1st October when a team of twelve enthusiastic club members and supporters turned up at the range for the first scheduled working bee. The pre-cut material for five target butts was transported onto site and the team split up into three groups, one assembling the target butts, another group cut up softboard for filling the butts and the third group started to mark the range out.

By clean up time at the end of the afternoon the weary and dusty crew were ecstatic over the progress that had been made. There was just some minor work to be done to the butts before they could be moved onto the range and enough softboard had been cut to fill 10 butts. A couple more good working bees would probably be sufficient to get the range ready for archery to commence.

The following is a selection of photographs taken on 1 October 2005:

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The first butt is assembled and the next is on the way.

Softboard is cut as butt assembly continues.

Butt assembly progresses.

Clouds of dust as the pile of cut softboard grows.

Lunch break.

A butt is filled with softboard to test the design of the clamps.

Progress Continues.

Working Bees scheduled for the weekend of 8/9 October saw further good progress made on the range.

The weather report for Saturday 9th, issued on the Friday evening, was for bad weather, so the team were advised of the cancellation of scheduled work. To our utter frustration the forecast was wrong - there certainly was bad weather but it passed very rapidly during the night and Saturday dawned fine - too late to undo the cancellation!

Sunday, on the other hand, was true to forecast - a cool calm morning which progressed onto a very warm day. The team got to work on finishing off the butt frames and continued the marking out the range. Around lunchtime the butts were being moved onto the range and being filled with softboard. in the picture below some of the team pose for a light hearted photograph:

By the time the afternoon tea break was due five butts were in place on the range and covered to protect them from the weather as shown in the following picture. Initially we have set the targets at the distances that are shot by junior archers for the national postal shoots. Our target movers (nicknamed Terradactyls) are currently under construction and when these are available we will be able to move the targets to other distances for other rounds.

Two of the butts are ready for use with only a small amount of work to be done on the other three to have them serviceable also. One more day's work and the club should be able to resume it's shooting and coaching activities.

Next job? Start on the Field Course and there is a frightening amount of gorse which has to be dealt with to get that job done!

Follow our progress by checking this page from time to time.

Yet more Progress.

The weather was kind to us on the weekend of 15/16 October and the team was able to get a solid two days work done.

On the target range the last three butts were finished and further line marking was done.

Geoff brought down the partly finished Teradactyl to measure up against the target butts and on Sunday the dust was flying as more softboard was sawn into strips. We have now sawn up close to half the delivery of softboard and with that packed into the container we now have more room for other club gear.

Another team concentrated on getting tracks cut on the Field Course and putting out marker pegs to indicate where targets and shooting lines would go. This provides a safety check to ensure that people are always well out of the line of fire from those shooting on other targets.

Shown at the right is the site of target No.1. Real "Tiger Country" at the moment, but the scrub cutter will make short work of the gorse.






Further round the course the landscape opens out to undulating ground grass and tussock. Shooters have to cross a ditch at this point so the team have installed a small bridge.








One of the more daunting shots, especially for a beginner, will be this one, across the lake. Some field rounds are shot "unmarked" which means that the competitor is not told what the distance to shoot is and they are reliant on their skills and experience to estimate it.

It is very difficult to estimate distance across water due to lack of reference points!






Over the next few weeks Field Target Butts and shooting pegs should begin to appear and the hard working team will be able to start thinking about putting down their tools and getting back to the business of shooting.

Labour Weekend 2005

Working bees were scheduled for the Saturday and Sunday.

In spite of weather forecasts to the contrary earlier in the week the day started out cloudy, cool and with the odd shower, but as the day progressed the weather improved and by Sunday it was warm with a slight breeze.

Saturday morning Geoff, our engineer, arrived with the first Teradactyl (T Rex 1) and is shown above trying it out on one of our target butts. A small modification was indicated but we now have the capability of one person being able to move the targets around the range to the differing distances that we shoot. Without the lifting machine it takes five strong men to lift and move a target!

Saturday and Sunday the team concentrated on the field course. Another small bridge was put in and 14 targets were pegged out with shooting distances of 5 metres up to 60 metres. A quantity of gorse was cleared to enable shooters to see the targets from the shooting line. Little more can be done there now until the target butts, being built off-site are ready to move onto the course.

By 2:30pm on Sunday afternoon we had run out of work and we all headed off home early to get ready for our first target shoot on the Monday.

Labour weekend Monday, the long awaited day of the first shoot, dawned with grey skies. The forecast during the week had been for fine weather but by now it had changed to "Showers clearing this afternoon, then fine". Well that wasn't too bad, we could live with that. By mid morning the weather wasn't just showering, it was pouring! Around lunch time it seemed to be easing and the keen ones amongst us went up to the range to set up things for the afternoon. It was looking promising with only a few spots and the odd bit of blue sky starting to show.




Up went the "shooting in progress flag" and .....















.... down came the rain again. This time it had a very "set-in" look to it.

Ah Well, nothing to do but to pack things away again and hope for better luck next weekend.



Target shooting finally got underway on Sunday 30th October. Your scribe was away for this weekend so this momentous occasion did not get pictorially recorded. There is still a lot of work to do but we will now do our working bees on a Saturday morning with shooting taking place in the afternoons. On Sunday afternoons the range is fully occupied by beginners courses.

3rd December 2005

During the period between this report and the previous one that covered Labour Weekend routine work has been taking place at the range, but behind the scenes preparation work for expanding the range facilities has been taking place. With target space being at a limit when the first beginner's course took place work began on the pre-fabrication of another five target butts.






On 3rd of December the new butts were transported to the range and the crew had them assembled in less than three hours.





By the end of the afternoon the new targets had been filled with softboard and moved out onto the range. We now have ten usable targets which should cover our needs for quite some time. They are pictured below resplendant in their weather protecting blue covers.

In the meantime the Field course has been safety checked to satisfy Defence Force requirements and Field Target butts are starting to appear on the course.








Pictured on the left is the No.1 target butt in position on the field course. Shooting distance for this target is 15m maximum across a small ditch.

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