Since the formation of Toad Hollow Archers in 2006 everything that the club owns (of which there is a lot) has been purchased with income made by the efforts of all of its members
One thing everyone notices in field archery is how much stuff you acquire and then need to store, so on our move to Flete Estate we purchased our first container, we had an offer from the company selling the container that if we paid for the paint then they would paint it for free, 5 years on and it still looks great
For security we fitted huge security padlocks that wouldn’t look out of place on a bank vault, we also fitted motion operated night vision cameras on all possible access routes to the container area so if anyone did come onto our land we would know all about it.
We also positioned some motion infa red cameras to monitor our deer herd that resides in the woods, it would have helped if we made a note of where we put them, so if anyone comes accross a security camera strapped to a tree at the top of the course please bring it back
Next on our list of things to build came our toilets, with no running water on site it was decided that what we needed was a composting toilet, one for men and another for women
As not one of us ever built a composting toilet before the Internet got a hammering for ideas and information, then we decided on the design and thankfullt Terry the Chippy Toad got stuck into the job and it ended up a tremendous asset and it saves the club a small fortune on loo hire
Now we had to decide where to place our new and so far invisible toilet, our research online said we needed a 3 foot hole for the poop to drop into, after 2 minutes digging we hit rock and gave that idea up
The next idea we found was to create a raised composting toilet and that is how the build was started, and eventually finished, huge thanks go to Terry the Chippy Toad for his skills and everyone else that helped by cutting and screwing wood together, it was very satisying building our composting loo, we now are looking for something else to build
The best facility any field archery club can have is a full woodlands course that they can shoot 24/7, and we have got that
With more woodland area than we have ever had before it was time to start working on the woodlands, clearing shooting areas, removing some dangerous or dead trees, inserting targets and then changing our minds on what worked best for that shot, we have 2 permament practice course areas, a range for setting up bows and distance shooting practice
We were lucky that there were already paths in the woodlands, but as always they never go exactly where you want them to go, so we had to clear a lot of scrubland to get to the areas our initial course design had set out
As always the club members got together and got the clearing done, and Bren kept everyone fed with bacon butties and teas
We then started putting our courses into place and we so enjoy shooting them, it always feels good when you get to see the result of your hard work
This may seem a little random on a field archery web page but this is our custom made chainsaw sawmill which we have used to cut and plank many many trees
The runner for the chain saw to travel on is the rail from a stairlift that was salvaged from a house when it wasn’t needed anymore
The chainsaw is mounted and modified to be fixed onto the chairlift chassis where it slides along doing its job for what could be several hours at a time
We can sawmill trunks up to 16 inch diameter and 11 foot + in length
All of the wood you can see (apart from some plywood) came from this sawbench and over the winter 2021 – 2022 it will be running a lot again
Next thing on the list will be making a huge bandsaw