Anyone Know of United Bowmen of Philadelphia

[2fletch]

Recently I had an interesting and informative  conversation with Dave Baier of the United Bowmen of Philadelphia club. He told me of how they were the oldest archery club in the country going back into the 1800s. They also started a "United Bowmen's Round" tournament way back then when the first arrow was launched on June 23, 1835.

Each year they have a competition that is open to anyone around the world. It's based on 4 man teams shooting lots of arrows at a FETA 48" target at 80 yards. There are different catagories but I won't try to go into to much detail at this time. There is some tradition and ceremony involved since it is a historic event but I believe that is left up to the individual organizations. There is no charge to participate and the results are shown on their website . I don't know the time frame for participating but will be following up on finding out when it occurs.

Any form of archery/bowhunting gets me excited. Now I want to find 3 other local guys who want to be part of the team, find a FETA target to practice on, and find an area big enough to shoot 80 yards.  
 
I wanted to share this with my fellow Tradgangers. You may want to check this out also. The idea of being part of something that has been around longer then myself is exciting, especially when it involves archery which I hold in high esteem.

[mmisciag]

Don,

i'm close and heard of the club. When is the competition? i could find some more folk to shoot.

Martin

[Craig]

Do these guys shoot English Longbows and is the shoot down by the docks in Philly? I use to make arrows for a fellow that shot down in Philly. They have to be dressed in all white and shoot out to 80 yards. He told me he used to use the power lines as his aiming point.

[2fletch]

According to the website they are now located in Reading, Pa. I don't know what the cutoff date is to let them know your scores, but you apparently set your date to shoot at your location. They have a catagory for compound, olympic style recurve, and longbow. Also,you can have women on the men's team but you can't have men on a women's team. A longbow team has to have all 4 members shooting longbows. If anyone shoots anything else then it's a different catagory. You can check their website for more details at <www.unitedbowmenteamshoot.com>

I'm looking forward to doing this. Now, what to call the team?