14 Apr 2026
We are pleased to announce our second speaker Bill Mackay, who will deliver a session at the 2026 Coaching Conference on 24th October at Sight Scotland Veterans Hawkhead Centre.
Bill originally came into archery as a family activity in 1986. Having spent many years in Scouting from the age of eight. His career in Scouting covered a variety of different aspects of Scouting. Scout leader then District Commissioner, leader trainer, reaching National Trainer and developer. Moving to archery as a family activity, with his background, he was asked to become a Coach. He also became a coach in Field Archery, completing the training and achieving Senior Coach AGB around 2000. Recognised as a National Trainer for Scouting Bill was invited to the AGB board as a Scottish representative, then became the National Coach Officer Education from 2002 till 2014. During this time, Coaching and Education were developed to work within our educational environment. Bill continued working with the Senior Coach education team. Working in Scotland with the development team. Currently with the Scottish Team as Team Coach and now looking at developing our teams and team support.
We are looking forward to having Bill deliver at our conference.
Our last conference took place in April 2025, which was delivered in partnership with Scottish Fencing, we had around 30 attendees.
The aim of the conference was to offer coaches the opportunity to come together to learn, share ideas, network, feel inspired and more knowledgeable & confident across various topics. There was significant value in this approach and looking forward to welcoming and bringing people together again for future events.
Development & Engagement Officer, Euan Murray shared his thoughts:
‘‘I am pleased that we now have dates confirmed for our 2026 Coaching Conference. It is always one of the highlights of the events calendar and we look forward to coaches coming together face-to-face to connect and share ideas. We are really keen for input from coaches on potential topics and content to ensure it meets the needs of those attending, so please let us know if there are any topics/subjects you are interested in.’’
We have taken feedback on board and decided to revert back to running an archery-specific coaching conference as well as moving the event from April to October. We would like to thank Scottish Fencing for working partnership for the past two conferences and will continue to explore other ways we can work together going forward.
Check out our 2025 Conference Feedback Report here.
Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months!