On Good Friday Berkhamsted Bowmen held their traditional Clout shoot.  This is a relatively informal event that has been held every Good Friday since the early 1960s and, to the members of the club, generally marks a transition between the winter and summer shooting seasons.  On this occasion there were 55 archers taking part; 19 from Berkhamsted and 36 friends from other local archery clubs.

The clout event is the longest distance shoot that a target archer takes part in.  It has a flag set in the ground at various distances; 180 yards for men, 140 yards for women and between 80 and 140 yards for juniors (depending on their age).  Obviously the aim is to hit the clout flag every time, but at these distances that is not as easy as it may seem.  So there is a 12 foot radius scoring zone set up around the clout.  However, during the first end of sighters, there was possibly a first for this shoot when Ray Choy (Berkhamsted) shot two arrows into the scoring zone and ended up with a `Robin Hood´ (one arrow down the back of another).

There were five trophies on offer for club members to win.  The Ladies Recurve trophy was won by Barbara Anscombe, Paul Dunn won the Gents Recurve trophy, Robert Ient the Compound trophy, Alan Poole the Longbow trophy and Alan Gasking the Junior trophy.  It should be noted that each of the gents retained the respective trophies they won last year.

In addition to the club trophies the efforts of our visitors are also recognised with bottles of wine or Easter eggs for prizes.  The prizes were awarded to:-

George Thair (Whiteleaf) - 1st Visitor Longbow
Andrew Dickson (Centaur) - 2nd Visitor Longbow
Toby O'Sullivan (Dunstable) - 1st Visitor Gent Recurve
Stan Seymour (Dunstable) - 2nd Visitor Gent Recurve
Tony Osborn (Pepperstock) - 1st Visitor Compound
Penny Bedford (Dunstable) - 1st Visitor Lady Recurve
Shirley Seymour (Dunstable) - 1st Visitor Barebow
Richard Eldridge (Dunstable) - 1st Visitor Junior

At the end of the shoot there is an Agincourt Salvo, where all of the archers line up together to shoot one arrow.  The aim is to get all of the arrows in the air at the same time to replicate the effect seen in the battles of the middle ages.  The club award an Easter egg to the most accurate Lady, Gent and Junior archers.  On this occasion the prizes were won respectively by Teresa Game (Centaur), Mike McGovern (Abbey) and Alan Gasking (Berkhamsted).

After the shoot the club were also pleased to announce the results for two other trophies.  The Ron Neno trophy is awarded to the archer with the three best handicap adjusted scores over the winter season, and, for the 2002 to 2003 season, was won by Neena Durrant.  The Beginners Champion trophy is awarded to the best newcomer.  This year there was fierce competition for this prize between John Durrant, Neena Durrant, Tom Clarke and Alan Gasking. In the end the trophy was won by a single handicap point by Alan Gasking.