The Easton Salt Lake Archery Center was awarded the “Best of 2016 in Salt Lake City” in the Archery Ranges category. This makes it 2 years in a row and has placed us in the Business Hall of Fame for Salt Lake City. We are very proud to accept this honor and will continue to keep the center at this level.
The center has been busy with site tours, birthday parties, scout groups, youth groups, members, and general public using both the indoor and outdoor ranges. We have had a wide variety of activities that have helped grow the sport of archery, which include; team-building activities for many organizations as well as private lessons, a winter league, and weekend practices for JOAD. We hosted the Beehive – Wasatch Bowhunters youth league, a spring fling shoot, try archery, and basic 2 and basic 3 classes. We anticipate an increase in the intermediate class coming from basic 2 and basic 3 shooters.
During January and February, a 3D league was held in our indoor range for HOYT and Easton. These shooters spent a few hours together each week and they were in charge of the set up and take down for the 6-week league. It was great to see everyone working together as they created the indoor 3D landscape as the animal targets were put into place throughout the range. In March we were pleased, once again, to have the opportunity to host the 2016 JOAD and Indoor Nationals. Hundreds of archers participated and the energy level was evident from the start. It was great to see our center full of competitive shooters and help them have an awesome experience. As the weekend event progressed the center transformed into a community of shooters, meeting new people and being reunited with friends and family. The judges and staff put in many hours and did a fantastic job in facilitating these events. The picture
s on our Facebook page have captured some great aspects of the national experience. Our Facebook page reaches so many people and is a true showcase for the versatility of the center.
Shortly after the National events, The Junior Dream Team set up shop for a week and had an enjoyable time being coached while utilizing our indoor range for shooting and working on balance. Many of the team used our workshop for their bows, and our high-speed camera for technique and shot analysis. As a result, each team member heightened their individual skills as they worked together as a team. As their camp concluded they were the first group to have fun with one of our latest acquisitions; an archery skeet machine. Not only did the JDT campers shoot flu-flu arrows at foam disks in the air, but the JDT coaches did as well. It was great to see the competitive nature of the coaches’ surface.
New landscapingLandscaping modifications are evolving at the center. We are eliminating all of the grass at the back of the property around the outdoor field and replacing it with turf that will extend to the west and east sides of the property. In the long run this will reduce the amount of money spent on watering costs, landscaping costs and controlling the mosquitos during the warm weather. We are also adding rock to the back berm and clearing out all the berms on the 3D range to create one big open space. This area will be used as the practice field during the World Cup and will open up more opportunities to hold larger outdoor tournaments. We will still be able to utilize the space for our 3D range and shoots. We now have the ability to create larger and different animal layout scenarios.
We are looking forward to opportunities to grow the sport of archery over the next few months and into the summer. Our center activities calendar is filling up and we look forward to playing archery tag as well as using our archery hover ball game and archery skeet machine.
