3 Oct 2024
Aberdeen University Archery Club (AUAC) have been working in partnership with charity Finding your Feet to run a series of taster sessions for people with a disability.
We spoke to Rebecca Leigh, AUAC Head Coach about how the partnership came about, the impact it has had on participants, learning for coaches, future plans for more activity and any tips for clubs looking at becoming more inclusive.
· How did the partnership with Finding your Feet come about?
Way back in February 2021, while attending a webinar run by Scottish Disability Sport on Embedding Disability Sport, I brought up that the club were looking for opportunities to learn how to be more inclusive of people with disabilities and the area representative for SDS expressed she was happy to help and keep us in mind if anything specific came up. She then contacted the club in May 2021 to ask about getting a Taster Session together for a group in the area called the Ampu-Teas, run by the charity Finding Your Feet, whose members had expressed a desire to try archery. At the time we were eager but a little apprehensive as we didn’t have any experience of working with amputees and were worried that our status as a student club meant we couldn’t offer any sessions to non-students. Thankfully, our Students Union was very supportive and more than happy to let us use our usual venue to run the session, with no extra cost to the participants. In July 2021, after a lot of planning and adjusting due to the COVID restrictions at the time, we had a very successful taster session outside at King’s Pitches. We had 3 participants from the Ampu-Teas and also volunteers from Links Archers supporting us to deliver a successful session.
The group wanted to set up something more regular but at the time the club were using the Sports Village as our venue and were not able to get any more time for indoor sessions to accommodate this. We stayed in touch with the odd email every year and eventually, at the beginning of this year, I reached out again to see if they were still interested as, having settled into our current venue (a whole other story) we were finally in a position to offer regular sessions to the group.
Fast forward to July 2024, almost exactly 3 years after the first session, we hosted another taster session for the Ampu-Teas. The 5 participants had a great time and we have had them back twice since, last session was at the beginning of this month and doubled as an opportunity for a member of the group who is also a local archer at another club (and I believe medal winner at this summer’s disability championships, Bernie) to practise his new skills as a trainee Session Coach.
• Why did the club decide to get involved?
We are passionate about bringing archery to everyone interested and wanted to improve our knowledge and skills to be able to feel confident when someone with a disability wants to join or when we advertise ourselves. Finding your Feet were very understanding of our lack of experience and reassured us that the participants would be able to help us navigate their individual abilities. We were excited by the opportunity to gain experience as coaches and to run a session for a group in the disabled community.
• What impact has it had on the participants?
From what I can see the group seem to be having a great time at our sessions and some may take up archery as a sport and join a local club. They love to compete with each other and seem to enjoy learning the new skills archery brings as well as the time socialising and having fun together.
• What has the coaches enjoyed most and is there any learning taken place for the coaches?
The coaches are enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere and the one on one time that comes with working with a small group, something rare in the university archery scene.
One coach said “the challenge of adapting my own training style to fit the needs and capabilities of the archer really breaks from the more typical way I train able-bodied people, and it feels more like a discussion between me and the person shooting to figure out what’s best.” I think this comment really shows how coaches can learn to work in a more person-centred way, encouraging autonomy, and adapt their skills for the archer in front of them.
Watching the progress the group have made in only 3 sessions in two months has been really rewarding, several have commented on the good feeling they get from seeing each person gain confidence and just generally how enjoyable the sessions have been.
• Are there any future plans to continue this?
We plan to continue monthly sessions for now with the opportunity to become fortnightly or more if the group wants that. If they wish to shoot more often then once each archer is ready they can join AGB and come to our club as visitors as often as they like.
• And tips for other clubs looking to become more inclusive and support people with a disability into archery?
Our tip would be to go into it with an open mind about how you teach someone to shoot a bow and what it means to be an archer. We approach the sessions with the goal of allowing the participants to have fun while taking part in archery, this means we adapt our coaching style to suit the individual. This could mean instead of focusing on getting the archers to competition distance or teaching technique in a set number of weekly sessions, we work out together how that person can participate and learn at their own pace while still keeping them safe and giving them as much independence as possible.
Thanks Rebecca for putting this together. To find out more about the club, click here.