Kirknewton Archers

Once Upon A Time in a Village Hall Far Away.............

Kilham & Kirknewton Archery Club was started when a certain Neil Coles thought to himself "I think I'll start an archery club and call it Kilham & Kirknewton Archery club". So with this in mind he applied for an awards for all grant for our initial equipment and was granted a tidy sum for that purpose.


After the initial shock of getting the grant, a sudden realization dawned on him that his new archery club lacked only one thing. Members. So after ringing round assorted friends and relations, he mustered enough interest for the first beginners course.

The next little obstacle was that no one had ever touched a bow before let alone shot one so a few phone calls to various governing bodies and it was put in touch with Killingworth Archers. These band of trusty souls came up from Killingworth every week for the obligatory six week beginners course and put us through our paces.


A special thanks to Kath and Charlie Hall and Helen and Tony George for getting us up and running and firing up the initial enthusiasm that started us on the wonderful thing that is Archery. It's still nice to know that if we have any problems or queries we can just ring them up and they say "Oh no, not you lot again - sod off"- No, they don't, they are always there to help. Thank You.

I think that we had about ten people did the initial course and word started to spread. More and more people were inquiring so we decided that it was time for some "volunteers" to go on a Archery Leaders course as this would enable us to do beginners courses and so increase the membership of the club.

Neil Coles and Tom Wilson were duly dispatched to Keilder one snowy week in February. where they expertly tutored about everything archery by the one and only Mr Fred Hedley. Not only did they do the course through the day but they also shared a chalet with Fred too, so as the telly was bust, lessons continued at ALL night too. It was a fantastic week. Thanks Fred, you were a star.

So it was back to the club with shiney new certificates and a heed full of knowledge and our first beginners course was on the cards. Ready to impart our new found knowledge on the unsuspecting punters whether they wanted it or not.

Up to this point in time (several years later), we have done quite a few courses and have had 100's people doing the beginners course, not to mention lots of try out days, with still more coming forward wanting to give Archery a go. At the present moment, the club boasts around forty five shooting members and a few more associate members with beginners courses being held on a regular basis.

In late 2007, we decided to officially change our name to Kirknewton Archers as
a) The Kilham contingent moved house, and
b) It meant using less ink on our stationery. (Save the planet and
all that, you know)