President's Address

18 December 06

Season's Greetings to all,

As we wind down for the year and enjoy the festivities, the foremost thought on most archers' mind must surely be the AAS Outdoor Championship and the Standard Bow Competition to be held over the 29 - 31 December 2006. Well, train hard as the competition is going to be fierce.

Website Changes

Your webmaster, Alvin, is in the midst of upgrading the current website and we apologise for the intermittent 'hiccups' and any inconvenience caused along the way. Once the new changes are completed you will have a more personal website in that clubs and archers will be able to log in to look at results, register to own a bow-set, membership registration, etc. The old web host does not allow us to do these things and therefore we did a switch to a new web host.

Due to this switchover, the web site was down for a few days and so we have decided to extend the entry submission dateline to 20 December, 2006, for the year end events.

National Squad Briefing

Dr. Wong and Coach Choi will be chairing a briefing session on 27 December 2006, at the Zhenghua CC Auditorium, 7 pm to 10 pm. Nearest LRT is the Segar Station, in Bukit Panjang, which is about 150 meters away. Light refreshments will be served. There is also a food court on the vicinity.

All qualified squad members and archers intending to qualify for the December 30 shoot are invited with their parents and coaches to attend a briefing on the NTS scheme of things as well as to have the opportunity to find out more about the Head Coach plan for the squads in 2007/8. Club officials are also invited to attend to familiarize themselves with the scheme that will affect their club members.

During this briefing, they will cover:

So, please make it a point to attend and be informed correctly. Through such briefings, we hope to dispel or prevent any rumours or misinformation that might occur.

SAFSA Shoot

For those of you who spoke or wrote to me about the event I must again say that this event was not a sanctioned meet and even though some of our judges were there in their personal capacity to assist, AAS was not responsible for organizing the event. You must address your queries and issues with the organizers directly.

What I can tell you though is the difference between a sanctioned and a non sanctioned competition:

    Non-sanctioned event:
  1. No public liability insurance coverage
  2. Non-recognition of scores for awarding badges, etc
  3. Judges may or may not be qualified
  4. Cannot be used for submission of results for NTS purposes
  5. Standards of event organisation may be different from that set by AAS
  6. House rules may be in effect and may/will be in conflict with those set by FITA
  7. Classes and events may/will differ from those set forth by FITA
  8. The organizers do not want to pay the sanctioned fee of $200

Personally, I would like to see all clubs organize their events on a sanctioned basis so that we can standardize the competitions and not cause misconceptions or frustrations amongst the members. As such, I appeal to all clubs to register their events for 2007 early so that it can be included into the Calendar of Event and AAS can render you the assistance needed to make your event a successful one. The sanction fee is only $200 and if any club cannot afford this fee please let us know and we can work something out. Please do not let pride or personal politics affect or ruin any archers outing to an archery competition. Our foremost concern and though must always be for the archers' welfare and betterment. Remember, it is always about the archers and for the archers. If we fail to do this, the archers are going to get more frustrated and will be very selective about the events they want to participate in. Worse, they may just quit the sport completely and this will be to the detriment of the sport in the long run.

TBCC Training Ground

Effective immediately, Coach Choi will be based at the canteen of CHIJ Bukit Timah Primary School (300, Jalan Jurong Kechil) till further notice. In line with this, all squad members wishing to train with her are to report to the Flaming Arrows Range instead. The TBCCAC Range will still be available during the weekend for squad members but Coach Choi will not be there.

The reason for this change is to facilitate Coach Choi's interaction with all squad members' coaches and parents. In this, AAS would like to invite all squad members to visit her with their parents and coach so as to get acquainted and discuss on training matters if need be. This is a good opportunity for ironing out misconceptions and to get to know each other better. So, please make full use of this opportunity. Coach will be in from 9 am to 11am and again from 2pm to 5 pm.

Formation of Competition Committee

Following our call for volunteers to join in the Competition Committee, AAS is pleased to inform that the following have volunteered to help run the affairs of the Competition Committee:

We are looking for 3 to 5 more volunteers to complete the group. If you are interested please let us know. You need not be an archer or a member of any club. All are welcomed to apply.

Basically, the ComCom is responsible for the setting up of the National Range, its continued viability, standards of competitions, determining procedures and processes for the organizing of FITA standard competitions, organising the international competitions and on all matters pertaining to the organization of archery events in Singapore. It is a very important component of the wheel to improve archery for all archers. So, please volunteer and be part of the force shaping archery in Singapore (this call goes out especially to National and past national archers who want to give something back to the sport).

Archery - At Its Crossroad

Thank you Boon Chun for emailing us the Sunday Times (Dec 17, Pg 30, main section) comment about Archery being one of the sport that has the greatest potential for winning medals. All archers are encouraged to read the article for it is full of wisdom and foresight ( I am being biased here).

Archers, Coaches, Officials, we can do it. When we all pull together we can make the sport great and produce champions. AAS has and will continue to work with the various Ministries to promote the sports and make the aspiration of our archers and the Nation comes through with flying colours. The support being given to us has never been better and we must take advantage of this and dedicate more time to training and achieving.

This is just great and I am very happy for you all. Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

George Loh
President
Archery Association of Singapore