There was a record attendance this year and it showed clearly as we all squeezed onto a shooting line with, unusually, no spare places anywhere in sight. Having no team and being ineligible for the county both Ian McGibbon and Paul Williamson opted to do a little experimentation, with Ian shooting some 'fat carbons' that he had recently borrowed and Paul using some new limbs that had never before been shot! Paul got off to a slow start but soon found a new sight mark and started to shoot well enough to match Linda Garner, who eventually won the ladies compound division and a claim on the national record. By the end of the round though the increased weight was starting to tell and he finished on a fairly respectable 558. Ian meanwhile was shooting well and enjoying the line cutters that were more readily available with the larger arrows.

Despite (or maybe because of) using the borrowed arrows Ian went on to shoot 574 and win the middle session. He was not alone in his success however with Eleanor Daplyn (London Archers) scoring 548 to take second place in the session (behind a very strong 572) and eventually securing third place for the day. The students, refusing to be outdone, produced some strong shooting that resulted in Tim Bond and Angela Ko (Imperial College) both shooting new PB's of 552 and 507 respectively. By the end of the day their scores proved sufficient to secure a first and second in their respective handicap sections. Imperials team also faired well with another good score from Tim Sheldon (566) being added to the two PB's to give a team result of 1625. This was enough to secure third place visitor team and overall sixth out of the twelve teams submitted. Scottish Graduate Bowmen, I feel obligated to point out at this point, would have won the visitor team award with a lass shooting 524 or more, and could have won outright with a 562 score, perhaps next year?

Having done the session presentation, and Gavin Simmons (Imperial College) having won at the raffle again, it was decided (unusually) not to descend on the leisure centres bar but to get back to various commitments in London. The weary troop once more squeezed themselves into the cars for the journey back to civilisation, this time without diversions. A short drive later and we were all safely back and dispersing to various areas of the Village. The competition was, as ever, run very well by the experienced team from Woking. Their computerised system made short work of the session results, producing them in relatively little time and accurately, something that is becoming quite rare these days. The main results were (I'm told) also produced very quickly and the final draft was posted out a couple of days after the shoot. All in all a good day was had by all with some successful results to back it up.