Meet Krys

Archery GB field Support

Helping Out at the Archery GB Junior & Masters Events — Lilleshall 2023

Back in the summer of 2023, I somehow ended up trading my usual projects for a weekend surrounded by arrows, tents, and scoreboards — helping out at the Archery GB Junior and Masters events at Lilleshall National Sports Centre. It was part volunteering, part tech support, part controlled chaos… and 100% worth it.

Behind the Scenes at Lilleshall

Lilleshall is basically the holy ground of UK archery — imagine Hogwarts with fewer wands and more carbon-fibre arrows. The place is stunning, the organisation is military-grade, and the coffee is strong enough to keep an entire field party running from dawn till dusk.

Volunteering there meant getting an all-access look at how a national competition comes together — from registration to results. Spoiler: there’s a lot of moving parts, and sometimes they all decide to move at once.

What I Helped With

My role was a mix of field crew, technical support, and general problem-solving (a.k.a. “the person who gets called when something stops working”).

Here’s the highlight reel:

• Registration & setup: helping get archers checked in, sorting scorecards, and setting up the field for the first practice ends.
  
  

• Tech support on the field: fixing timing displays, checking the scoring tablets, sorting cables, and keeping Wi-Fi connections alive under heavy use. (It turns out, archery fields and Wi-Fi don’t always get along.)
  
  

• Arrow spotting & line checks: making sure everything was safe, targets were in line, and stray arrows didn’t decide to go on holiday.
  
  

• Helping juniors and masters: giving a hand to first-time competitors, answering questions, and making sure everyone knew where to stand and when to shoot.
  
  

• Tea and troubleshooting: my unofficial side quest — keeping everyone caffeinated while fixing anything that had a power cable.
  
  

The Atmosphere

The mix of juniors and masters made the event really special. The juniors brought endless energy (and occasionally lost arrows), while the masters brought calm precision and years of experience. There was plenty of friendly banter, good humour, and that classic British approach to unpredictable weather — carry on shooting and hope your target doesn’t blow away.

What I Took Away from It

By the end of the weekend, I had a new respect for just how much teamwork and behind-the-scenes effort it takes to run an event like this. From judges to scorers to the tech crew, everyone plays a vital role — even if half the time it feels like organised chaos held together by duct tape and caffeine.

I left Lilleshall tired, slightly sunburnt, and smelling faintly of field paint and network cables, but also with a sense of pride. It’s one thing to watch an event like that happen — it’s another to help make it run smoothly.

In short: Volunteering (and tech-supporting) at the AGB Junior & Masters events in 2023 was a mix of teamwork, laughter, cables, arrows, and just enough problem-solving to keep me on my toes. Would I do it again? Absolutely — but next time, I’m bringing a portable router and an industrial-size thermos.