Membership Sec Candidate – Malcom Brook

Posted: 7 October 2025

I first became interested in Archery when my son joined a group at his school and I went along as a
parent to help out. I thought about getting more involved but my work as a Chartered Electrical
Engineer and other matters got in the way and my son gave up archery has he grew up. Move on some
40 odd years, with thoughts of retirement, when I found an advert in a local magazine for an Archery
Academy here in Devon and thought it was time I tried again. Luckily I had found a great trainer and
he soon had me deeply involved and bought my first bow, joined a local club and progressed from
there.

About 18 months ago I took over as the secretary of my local NFAS archery club, here in the South
West, and since then have been handling general administration, dealing with club membership, and
as part of a team helping to arrange our annual open shoot and grow our club membership to almost
double our original size. Other administration tasks include updating our web site and arranging a
monthly handicap challenge for the members of the club.
As an engineer working in a variety of industries I finished up running a small firm which meant I
became more involved in administration and I think my ability to take a logical approach to tasks and
try to find the simplest solution to a problem, will be put to good use within the NFAS.
Like our President I believe we should be less elitist in our approach and we should reduce not
increase the number of classes, I also think some of the classes are inappropriately named, I currently
shoot as Traditional Bow Hunter, and often wonder what is traditional about the requirement to shoot
with carbon arrows.

Here in the South West we have an annual challenge open to all archers of all classes with a handicap
system to compensate for the differences in shooting style (a system I appropriated for our club
challenge). As well as class medals there is a perpetual trophy for the highest score, it is a great draw
and in my view something that could be promoted on a national basis.

Voting deadline – 13.10.2025