The club has members who shoot for both pleasure and competition, but whatever their reason for doing archery we find that people like to see their scores improving over time, so we offer a range of schemes and incentives for progression, in addition to keeping members informed about upcoming competitions.

Early on in the club's life we signed up for the Archery GB Progress Awards scheme, which allows juniors to earn badges for achieving certain scores for their age, sex and bowstyle. There are five badges available - in order these are White, Black, Blue, Red and Gold - and they are earned by shooting 36 arrows, with a maximum of 12 sighters, to achieve the required score. All junior members of the club are automatically registered with our badge scheme coordinator, Elaine Kelsey, and if they intend to shoot for a badge during a session then they will need to let Elaine know at the beginning of the session and ask a senior member who is not a relative of theirs to record their score on one of the club score sheets Elaine will provide; this is because the scheme is a national programme and we need to keep a record in order for Archery GB to produce the Roll of Honour for people achieving the Gold badge and work out which club has won the trophy for achieving the greatest number of badges each year. We present the badges entirely free of charge and they look great on quivers so it's well worth taking part and literally Going for Gold!

If you want to look up the scores needed for each badge from home so you know your aim when you come to a session, you can use the following links: Recurve scores, Compound scores and Longbow/Barebow scores, and Elaine also has copies of each of these tables if you want to check during a club session.

Durham and Northumberland Archery Association (the County we are affiliated to) run an online league throughout the indoor season, and it's open to both senior and junior members of the club, in all bowstyles. All you have to do is record your score for 36 consecutive arrows shot at 20 yards (our standard indoor distance) and then let our Logical League Coordinator, Lisa Kelsey, know your best score each month from October to March (where December/January is counted as just one month as a lot of clubs lose shooting time over the Christmas holidays). You can either see Lisa during a club session or email her your score at logicalleague@nortonarchers.co.uk, and all of the scores are sent off together to Tony George, who runs the league. Tony will then update the league tables so you can see how you are doing compared to others in your league (there are seven leagues and you are allocated an appropriate one based on your scores, with opportunities for promotion, so you're always shooting against comparable archers); we find this really helps a lot of people to progress as you're always trying to beat your score from the previous month, and you can use the league tables to track your progress throughout the indoor season. If you submit scores for at least two months then you receive a really nice certificate too, so even if you join the club midway through the season you can jump right in!

More information on the Logical League is available here, and if you're looking for Tony's Logical League News it's here.

During the winter months DNAA also organise three indoor postal leagues - one for Recurve archers, one for Compound archers and one for Longbow archers. We take part in all three, so for three sessions each month we set aside a number of targets for people shooting in the league, and anyone is welcome to take part, so just keep an eye on your email for details of the dates. The round for all bowstyles is a Portsmouth round and scores are to be recorded on score sheets obtained from Elaine Kelsey at the beginning of the session as we need a formal record. We then submit our top three scores for Compound archers, top four scores for Longbow archers and top five scores for Recurve archers to the relevant league coordinator and find out if we scored higher than the club we were paired with for that month. If we did, we win points, and if we didn't... well, there's always next month!

For more information on the Winter Leagues, including recent results, click here.

Archery GB have both an indoor and outdoor classification scheme; if you would like to know your current classification then send your three best scores for each of the rounds you have shot to Elaine Kelsey, our Records Officer, at recordsofficer@nortonarchers.co.uk. She'll also be able to calculate your Handicap score based on this, so if you enter any competitions where there is a Handicap Trophy up for grabs (like our own Club Championships!) then you can fill in your Handicap score on the entry form and give yourself a chance of bringing it home!

When we first set up the club we wanted to have a progression incentive in place very quickly, so we invented a mini competition to run every other Sunday, where the end closest to 5pm was designated 'Best Gold' end, and whoever was closest to the cross in the centre of the target for that particular set of three arrows would have the pride of knowing they won. The competition was so popular that we still run it today, and we even have trophies - one for Seniors and one for Juniors - for the winners to take home for the fortnight. People's concentration for those few arrows is unbelievable!