Congratulations to Class of 2026!
Congratulations to our beginners who completed their Beginners Course in May 2026 when the last session felt like winter! All 11 survived the cold and wind on the last afternoon and now have their certificates to shoot at the club of their preference, although we are sure some will be back to shoot regularly at Ditchling. Good luck to Izzy who will be off to University – we wish her well with her new sport!
Winter League Barebow Winners
Congratulations to our Barebow Archers Mark, Mel and Simon who won their divisions in the Frostbite and Portsmouth winter leagues! Nice badges!
Indoor Club Championships
We held our Indoor Club Championships on Sunday, 29 March, 2026 at Linfield Rifle club. This was a handicap shoot to give everyone a level playing field.
Mens Recurve: 1st Neil Maclean, 2nd Ben Green, 3rd Alex Dunford.
Womens Recurve: 1st Julia Johnson
Barebow: 1st Robert Smith, 2nd Simon Mitchell, 3rd Dave Wright
Womens Barebow: 1st Mel Woolgar
Compound: 1st Vince Rudland
Many thanks to our Lady Paramount, Suzanne Green, who kept the coffee and cakes topped up all morning! Plus we all enjoyed a trip to the pub afterwards!
Winter League Results
We had some amazing Barebow results in our Winter League 2025/26 and our team – most of whom were beginners in 2025 – have made excellent progress since their courses. Congratulations to all!
Sussex County Indoor Championships
A number of club members entered the Sussex County Indoor Championships on 24th and 25th January, 2026 at Longhill School, Brighton. It was a UK Record Status Tournament over a single Portsmouth round.
Congratulations Ditchling Archers – Sussex results
Congratulations to our club chairman, Ben Green, who won the Recurve 50+ open category, Julia Johnson, who tied 1st place in the Recurve Ladies 50+ category and Vince Rudland who came 3rd in the Mens Compound 50+ Open.
- September beginners’ course welcomes a new generation of club archers
Eleven enthusiastic beginners joined us this September for three sessions of learning, practice and fun, and a record number of sign-ups for club membership followed!
Led by our qualified coaches and supported by club volunteers, the course introduced the group, age from 10 to senior, to the foundations of safe, enjoyable archery. They began by getting to know the range, its layout and safety commands, before learning how to hold a bow and shoot using the barebow technique.
As the sessions progressed, the beginners developed their stance, draw, aim and release, moving on to freestyle shooting and learning to use a sight. Alongside plenty of shooting practice, they learned how to score, collect arrows safely, and set up and take down their bows. Some balloon shooting added a fun challenge and a chance to put their new skills to the test.
Range and equipment safety remained central throughout, with time also spent discussing equipment and what to expect as a club member.
A huge thank you to our coaches and volunteers for the time, patience and encouragement they gave to make the course such a success.
We’re delighted to welcome our new members, whose enthusiasm for learning all aspects of the sport has been wonderful to see. We look forward to supporting them as they build their confidence, develop their skills and discover everything archery has to offer.
We usually run beginners’ courses twice a year. If you’d like to find out about our next course or joining Ditchling Archery Club, please get in touch through our contact page.
- Congratulations to our beginners
We’d like to congratulate all our beginners who attended 3 afternoons of instruction at Ditchling, on our 2024 Beginners Course.
Barebow and recurve training
A beginners course commences with the basics of bare bow and on the second session we introduce sights to the bows. On the third session, we also introduce scoring and give demos with a long bow and a recurve by experienced members of the club.
Longbow demo with arrow in flight 
Top archer, Ben with full draw demo We enjoyed everyone’s company and presented them with certificates to show they have completed a course and can officially join any Archery GB club. We hope to see them again soon at Ditchling.
- 2024 Winter League successes
Ditchling recurve teams did very well in the Selby Winter Postal League winning both Division 12 Portsmouth and Division 9 Frostbite, and our longbow archers came a close second in their division.
In the BA Postal League, recurve outshone their rivals in Division 6 with another first and made 3rd in Division 5.
Sussex County Indoor Championships – 28th January – Portsmouth round
Congratulations to all archers – we had some fantastic results!
Barebow Women:
2nd Mel Woolgar
Recurve Men:
2nd Ben Green
10th Josh Wild
Recurve Women:
7th Julia Johnson
Asiatic Bow:
1st Toby Cronshaw
Recurve under 14s :
2nd Shivaansh Garg
Recurve under 12s:
2nd Soham Garg
- Spring individual competitions
Ben and Jodie – Vince, Mel, Juli and Josh Congratulations to father and daughter Ben and Jodie Green for two gold medals at Forest of Bere Bowmen for York/Herefords.
Congratulations to Vince, Mel, Juli and Josh who all returned with medals from Newhaven’s Western shoot in May.
At a friendly handicapped shoot in Worthing against Blind Veterans UK – our team came a respectable second. This was due to Phil, one of our new members, who entered for the first time and did extremely well!
- Congratulations
Alex’s first 252 badge – well done! We look forward to seeing to get many more!
Welcome to new member Anna, and Venus and Nitin who completed their beginners course.