The Broken Arrow Archery Club was founded in 1969 by several local archers and bow hunters, reports club member Shawn Frankfurt.
The club, which has been around for a long time recently started a youth program which flourished, attracting upwards of 60 youth members, Frankfurt says.
On the flip side, there has been a serious decline in adult membership over the past winter, he points out.
Frankfurt would like to see more adults get into archery to bring some enthusiasm back into the sport in the Yorkton area. He sees many new people moving into the area who might well develop an interest in archery. As well he'd like to bring back many of the older former members, whether bow hunters or competitive archers, back to the club.
The membership fee of $25 a year, is relatively inexpensive, Frankfurt suggests.
The club offers a variety of activities for members. Bow hunters can use the outdoor range to practise their archery skills before the hunting season, the early bear season or the elk and deer seasons.
The outdoor range located west of the city offers groomed trails and three dimensional targets and a broadhead target hunters can use hunting equipment on.
The 3-D targets are equally attractive to competitive archers who regularly shoot in the 3-D circuits. Currently a number of centres host 3-D shoots, including Canora, Melville, Willowbrook, and Yorkton. The different shoots typically start in April and run through until August.
The youth program, started in 2006, started small. Many of the youngsters have stuck with archery so that the club has grown to about 60 youth members, Frankfurt reports.
The Broken Arrow Archery Club offers instruction every Wednesday night at the Yorkton Gun Club indoor range at York Lake starting in November and running through the winter months, Frankfurt points out.
Many of the youth club members also participate in the National Archery in Schools Program. Some become serious competitors with two, Brayden Jarvis and Hunter Frankfurt both winning provincial and national archery titles. Others get into bow hunting.
The Broken Arrow Club doesn't require a specific kind of equipment. "We have a lot of archers who are traditionalists and they stick with the very traditional bows and arrows," Frankfurt acknowledges. The outdoor range caters to both traditionalists as well as those who prefer the newer style of compound bows, he says. "The targets are set up for both styles of equipment," he adds.
When the club started years ago, there was no archery store in the city. Currently Bird Dog Archery on Betts Avenue, run by Mike and Leanne Jarvis offers a wide range of archery equipment and accessories.
Anyone wishing to join the Broken Arrow Archery Club can stop by Bird Dog Archery complete membership forms and talk to Jarvis who would get prospective archers started or update equipment of experienced archers.
Club members receive a key to the outdoor range which is open from April until the snow flies in late October or early November. Members can avail themselves of the facility which includes groomed trails, targets, both 3-D and broadhead targets, and the campsite/picnic area for an outdoor meal.
Archery seems to be a family sport with the majority of members being family. Additionally the club also has younger members ages 18 to mid-20s. In addition to Mike Jarvis at Bird Dog Archery, anyone interested in more information about the club can talk to Shawn Frankfurt at 783-8006.
