15 Sept 2025
In partnership, Largs Archery Club (LAC) and Inverclyde Archers (IC) together have been demonstrating the inclusive nature of archery. Their efforts to collaborate with groups like Leap Sports Scotland and Help for Heroes is a fantastic way to make archery accessible to a wider range of people.
It's great that they are focusing on reducing barriers to participation. This kind of community outreach is so important for making sports more welcoming and diverse. By providing opportunities for new people to try archery, they are not only introducing them to a fun and challenging sport but also helping them build confidence and connect with others.
Great work from the volunteer team at LAC and IC, look forward to seeing what they have planned for the future.
Check out below article produced by John Divers, Club Secretary at Largs Archery Club.
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By John Shields
Pride Youth Games
Pride Youth Games (PYG) is a yearly weekend residential for 16-25 year old lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, non-binary, queer and other diversely identifying young people.
The weekend includes taster sessions of activities provided by different sports organisations and groups. Pride Youth Games rotates between Scotland, Wales, and England and is held in a different place each year. This year the event, organised via LEAP Sports, took place at the Sports Scotland National Sports Training Centre in Largs from August 8th to 10th. This year over 100 young people took part in the event and took the opportunity to try out various Sports including Archery.
On Saturday August 9th, coaches from Largs Archery Club and Inverclyde Archers provided Come and Try sessions, 88 people took part across the 4 sessions. A good time was had by all and our sessions received excellent feedback from the participants.
Pride Youth Games - Feedback
"I just wanted to thank you again for coming along to Pride Youth Games! It was so great to have you along representing a local club and introducing so many people to archery. The participants loved the sessions, and many have said in our feedback form that it was their favourite activity. I hope you and your team had a nice time as well."
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Help For Heroes
On Saturday May 31st, coaches from Largs Archery Club and Inverclyde Archers provided Come and Try sessions for the Help For Heroes UK Sports weekend being held at the Inverclyde Sports Centre in Largs. Around 35 veterans were taking part in the event.
During the four sessions, the coaches managed to ensure everyone was able to try Archery and also roped in the event staff to have a go at Archery. A good time was had by all, which was especially pleasing given some of the particular challenges faced by some veterans when wishing to try Archery. We had archers with upper and/or lower limb issues, which meant supporting wheelchair archers, seated archers, and archers with a variety of issues that required one to one assistance.
One particular veteran had to shoot using a mouth tab, fashioned at the event, by two of the coaches to enable him to be able to try archery. This proved to be very successful and the archer was extremely happy when he was able to burst balloons when shooting at the fun targets at the end of the session.
This particular veteran was very pleased when we suggested that we take a video of him shooting, in order that he could show at future, Help For Heroes Sports, events that he was able to take part and how it was done. The coaches gave him the mouth tab they had made for him so he could look to use it at the next Sports event which was to be held in Cardiff.
Help for Heroes feedback
"Thank you to all the coaches for giving up there spare time to such a worthy cause, everyone had a blast"
To find out more about both clubs you can head to their Facebook pages - Largs Archery Club and Inverclyde Archers.
