St. Patrick Archery
State, National, & World Tournament Participant!

Dear Prospective Archery Team Parent,

With all the notoriety the Archery Team has received for qualifying for the State, National, & World Tournaments the last few years, we have been receiving a great deal of interest from prospective families for this upcoming season. The answers to the most-frequently-asked questions are contained here. This past season was a huge success, and this coming year could be even better!  The Archery Team is a member of NASP – the National Archery in the Schools Program. Believe it or not, more kids participate in NASP than in Little League!  As parents, your efforts are going to pave the way for countless students to become lifelong archers! And that is exactly what Archery is – a sport that one can do for their entire life – even into your 70’s and 80’s!

TEAMS:	A team consists of 24 archers.   Of those 24, the top 12 scores make up our team score.  Teams are Elementary grades 4 and 5. And Middle grades 6, 7 and 8.   Eligible grades to be a part of the Archery Team are        grades 4-8. Due to gym time restrictions, we only have a limited number of archers that we can accept.  That is why it is so important to get signed up now. We do not have the facilities to accommodate more archers than our maximum, so you need to register your archers as soon as possible!

PRACTICES: Practice will begin around mid-September. The season’s first tournament is around Halloween, and the season could go all the way until July (if we qualify for National and World again). Practices will be held each Wednesday evening, from either 5:50 – 7:20 PM, or 7:30 – 8:50 PM (depending upon which team your archer is on) with a parent/team meeting at 7:20-7:30 pm, in the gym. We will have up to 40 archers shooting at one time – 2 archers per target. This is how tournaments will be run, so our archers will be used to this when they get to competitions.  Of course, if there is any way that you can purchase a bow, arrows and target for your child(ren), so they can practice at home, this will greatly help their advancement! But official practices will be once a week. During Advent and Lent practices will move to Tuesdays at the same times. Please mark your calendars for our practice times – it is vital to be at each practice! To shoot in tournaments, attendance at practice on a regular basis is required.

SAFETY:	NASP has had over 18 million students participate in the program with ZERO injuries.      NASP and the St. Patrick Archery team has a zero-tolerance stance on safety violations. Archers who continuously participate in disruptive and or unsafe actions will be asked to sit out of practice and tournaments until such actions are no longer an issue.

TOURNAMENTS:	Tournaments will be held on weekends – usually on Saturdays, with a few on Friday evenings – and are held indoors. Times could be morning, afternoon or evening – just depending upon which time slots are available when we sign up. Your archer’s tournament will last approximately 1 hour. We ask that everyone arrive a minimum of 30 minutes before your time slot to let your archer get settled in and registered. Therefore, your total time spent at a tournament will be about 1½ hours. Some parents bring a good pair of binoculars, because you will want to see how your archer is shooting, and it’s hard to see their scores from the bleachers!  Tournaments are not optional, they are a part of being on the Archery Team.

We will attend numerous invitational tournaments, culminating with the REGIONAL Tournament. If we do well enough, we will move on to the STATE Tournament. Those teams who do well enough there qualify for the NATIONAL Tournament, and finally, those who do well enough there qualify for the WORLD Tournament! Believe it or not, the REGIONAL, STATE and NATIONAL Tournaments are all located here in Louisville (the NATIONAL Tournament is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest Archery Tournament in the World)! Prizes are given at each tournament for the top archers in each category, and archers can even earn college scholarships if they do well! I do not know of another sport where a grade schooler can win college scholarship money! Archers are able to advance both as a team AND as an individual.  So, if we have some incredible scores, but not enough for the entire team to advance, those archers could still advance individually.

We will host a tournament at St. Patrick the “St. Patrick Annual Cupid Shoot” is a two-day event held the weekend before or after Valentine's Day. Our tournament is our main fundraising event and as such requires a lot of planning and volunteers (before and during the event). We do ask that every parent help in some manner to make this event a success. Depending upon the success of the event additional fees (State, National, and World) may be waived.

SCORING:	A NASP target 80cm and consists of 10 scoring rings, numbered 1-10 (bullseye).  Archers will shoot a total of 40 arrows at each tournament – 10 practice and 30 “scoring.” They will begin at 10M with a practice round of 5 arrows. They will then shoot 3 scoring ends of 5 arrows each, all at 10M. They will then move on and repeat this same process, but at 15M. Therefore, archers will have 15 arrows that “score” for each distance – 10M and 15M. Adding the scores for the two distances will give the archer their total score. Since there are 30 arrows that count for “score,” and a bullseye is worth 10 points, the maximum score an archer can shoot in a tournament is 300.

EQUIPMENT:  NASP uses ONLY the NASP Genesis Original compound bow.  No other bows are allowed!  They also do   not allow any sighting devices or release-assists. Your archer will become a “purist” – shooting without having to rely on anything other than their own eye and concentration. They also only allow the NASP Genesis Arrows to be used. This allows for ALL archers to have the exact same chance as everyone else – the only advantage any archer will have over another is their drive, dedication and amount of practice they’ve put in.

St. Patrick has made a substantial investment to begin this program, and has a number of bows, arrows and targets available for practice at school.  We can also lend bows to students for the weekend tournaments.  YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY YOUR OWN BOW… BUT… if possible, we highly recommend and encourage parents to purchase their archer(s) their own bow, arrows and target. Not only will this enable your archer to have a bow that is exactly suited to them, but it will also allow them to practice at home, since one night of practice a week is not the most desirable situation.   Archers who have their own bow have a distinct advantage over those archers who do not.

If you do decide to purchase your own equipment, we recommend purchasing your equipment from Bent Arrow (Gene and Bonnie Culver) at 220 Gonza Clark Lane, New Haven, KY 40051 (502-549-8119). While it is true that you can purchase it from Dick’s, Academy, Wal-Mart or Cabela’s, Bent Arrow has much more expertise with NASP. When you purchase a NASP bow from them, they will actually check eye dominance adjust the draw weight for your child, right there in the store.   Your child can then test fire it on their indoor range, and make sure they have it set at a draw weight that they are comfortable with. They’ll also give you some great pointers while you’re there.

If you have your own bow, please bring it with you to practice on Wednesday nights. Also, by having your own bow, when you shoot at a tournament, your child is shooting a bow that they’re already familiar with and is already perfectly tuned for them.

Please understand that it is NOT a requirement for you to purchase your child(ren) their own equipment! It will just give them a much better advantage over being forced to rely on what is available to them at the time, plus allow them to practice more, by also being able to practice at home.

That being said, if we are inundated with new members this year, then our supply of bows at St. Patrick may be used up. If that happens, we will have no other option than to ask archers to get their own bows.  Trust me – it will be worth it!!!

FEES:   The fee for participation on St. Patrick’s Archery Team is $195.   While a small portion of this fee goes to cover   the general equipment that St. Patrick has purchased (bows, targets, arrows, safety nets) and a cool uniform shirt, most of the fee goes toward the registration fee for your Archers to participate in numerous tournaments (we participate      in approximately 20 tournaments!). There will be some tournaments that we must qualify to go to, namely State, National, and World, and these are not covered by this fee, but we’ll let you know well in advance if we are able to go. But the fee will cover all the regular tournaments. The cost of the tournaments is actually what 90% of your participation fee is used for!

Coaches:

  Diana Blaine	502-500-7605	dianablaine.archery@gmail.com
  Eric Kraig
  Larry Heck
  Lev Weinstein
  Kathleen & Jason Mullins
  Tammy & Jeff Kessler
  Lisa Murphy
  Joe Powell	Founder and Lifetime Honorary

PARENTAL HELP:	We have an AMAZING coaching staff, and they are great with the kids!   We really encourage parents to become involved with the team and their individual archers, in any way that they can! This is a great sport that you can truly participate in with your child! Many of last year’s parents purchased equipment for themselves as well and shot “tournaments” at home with their kids! And many times, the kids won! This is not a requirement, but we will gladly accept any and all help and involvement you would like to offer! We do ask that parents help in some manner with our tournament held in the spring.

OTHER SPORTS:	We understand that many students participate in numerous sports and activities.      We make every effort to accommodate this, but everyone needs to be aware that Archery is a year-round sport and commitment. As mentioned earlier, the season runs from September through July (hopefully!). Please keep this in mind when considering signing up for the Archery Team. We are looking for individuals who will be with us all season long – not just until Winter or Spring sports start up! Again, we can work with you on this, but it’s not fair to the rest of the team to abandon the Archery Team once another sport starts up!

LET’S GET STARTED!!! Our anonymous parental surveys from past years have showed OVERWHELMING parental AND student satisfaction with their experience with the Archery Team! It’s going to be an AWESOME experience for your child as well!  Please join us!!!

To register for the Archery Team, go to the St. Patrick website (www.stpatrick-lou.org), and click on “Youth Ministry Site,” which is in green at the very top of the St. Patrick Home Page. From there, click on “Additional Youth Ministry Programs,” then scroll down until you find “Archery.”  Once you have paid your fee online, you will officially be reserved a spot on the team!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Coach Diana Blain 502-500-7506 (m) text or voicemail, or via email at.
 Dianablaine.archery@gmail.com

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right. “
-Henry Ford