Compton Archery is a group of new and experienced archers who meet at the Downland Sports Center in Compton near Newbury.

We focus on being a friendly, inclusive group who all simply share a passion for archery. For us, competition is less important than progression.

We welcome all ages and abilities and have a number of families who all shoot together.

We are affiliated with the Archery governing body; Archery GB and follow their shooting standards and best practices. We form part of the County of Oxfordshire Archery Society (COAS) and the Southern Counties Archery Society (SCAS).

The lead coach Rick took his GNAS Archery Leader qualification in 2012 after being asked to start archery as an activity for the local village scout group. Over the coming years the club grew and grew. Given the success and popularity of this Rick took his Archery Coach Level 1 course in 2014 and went on to pass his Level 2 coaching course in September 2019. Since then committee members Leon and Natalie have both passed their Archery Coach Level 1 course in 2021 and we have a number of very experienced archers who are always on hand to help beginners and intermediate archers.

We are very lucky to be able to shoot whatever the weather as we have access to both an indoor and outdoor range on the same site. Indoors we practice in a fair size sports hall which provides a 20 yard (18m) range which is standard distance for indoor archery. Outdoors we have access to a fully enclosed school playing field giving us a 100+ yard range potential. During the indoor season (Oct-Mar) we shoot indoors every Friday evening from 6pm and alternate Saturdays from 10am – 2pm. During the outdoor season (Apr-Sept) we do our very best to shoot outdoors on the field the whole time, regardless of the weather, but we will retreat into the hall if it’s particularly wet or windy. We also move indoors on Friday evenings during the outdoor season when there isn’t enough daylight to shoot long enough.

The majority of archers shoot Olympic style recurve bows but any type of target archer is welcome; bare bow, freestyle, longbow, American flat bow & compound. All except Crossbows. We have recurve club equipment to cover all elements of a beginner’s course for both adults and juniors alike. We shoot mainly onto traditional Egertec straw bosses, but do have some layered foam bosses available when needed (e.g. Compound archers). We generally prefer National rounds outdoors and Portsmouth or WA18 rounds indoors and we encourage the GNAS coloured arrow progression scheme and the 252 progression scheme, plus Portsmouth score badges. But we are quite flexible and do shoot rounds like a WA60 and WA70.

We run archery every Friday evening from 6pm and alternate Saturdays from 10am. On Saturdays we run 2 or 3 separate sessions throughout the day depending on numbers. The different sessions enable us to balance the number of new archers borrowing equipment and helps us set the appropriate pace for those shooting. Session times vary a little depending on numbers, but 1st session normally starts around 10:00, 2nd session at 11:30 and 3rd session at 13:00. When a 3 session format is used the first session would normally be beginner orientated run at a slower pace with closer instruction. The second session would be intermediate archers focusing in improvement with a little coaching and the 3rd session would normally be a little longer but without much coaching focusing on shooting full scored rounds. Friday evenings alternate each week between a single session and a double session. The double session attempts to split Juniors and Novice archers from more experienced archers so that we can provide appropriate coaching. Those sessions are normally 18:00 – 19:30 and then 19:30 – 21:30. The single session Fridays are open to all and don’t make provision for any coaching and are only open to members with their own kit. The club is entirely run by volunteers and as such we don’t charge for coaching which is simply done as archers request it.

As as AGB affiliated club, our archers must be members of AGB (we will arrange this for you) and have passed a qualifying archery beginners course with us or with another club that they can demonstrate proof of completing. Then shooting is simply £3.50 for a session for adults and £3 for juniors. If you wish to join us, let us know via email and we’ll add you to the archery emailing list. To be added to the mailing list – please send an email to compton.archery@gmail.com

Existing Archery GB (AGB) members are very welcome to visit us for open practice. £6 per session. We will need confirmation of your AGB membership and you maybe subject to an equipment inspection. Please email us for details and to let us know you’re coming. Thanks.

We look forward to seeing you on the shooting line!