At Southside Archery we know that a lot of people who are interested in archery struggle to get involved and we know there are lots of barriers people come across when trying to get started.
Simply finding a club is a huge issue – many clubs are full and have long waiting lists to join them. Then if you are lucky enough to find a club with space, the costs involved are often massive. Firstly you need to pay for a beginners course which is often in the region of £75 then there are the club fees (which will include your affiliation fees) so you could be looking at around £200 just to become a member. Every time you turn up to shoot you will also pay a few pounds shooting fee and you will be forced to buy your own equipment within a set period of time (and you may need to pay to hire some to complete your beginners course!).
At Southside Archery we feel strongly that cost should not be a barrier to taking up sport. We therefore provide all equipment needed for the use of our members – although we do suggest members buy their own finger tabs and arm guards as these can be customised for each person and everyone will have their own preference.
We charge just £20 for our beginners course and our ongoing weekly fees are kept as low as possible for our members – we will never charge you a joining fee and since we are a non-affiliated club, there are no affiliation fees to pay!
In order to keep the club running and keep our costs as low as possible we rely on fundraising. We have received grants from Culture and Sport Glasgow which allowed us to get some of our initial equipment and we continue to fundraise by applying for funding from different sources and raising funds ourselves.
One way you can help us do this is by using Easyfundraising when you shop online. When you shop at certain retailers, Easyfundraising will give us a donation based on how much you spend – 100% of that money comes straight to the club there is no fee for us or you to raise money this way and it doesn’t affect the amount you pay. All you have to do is sign up to them and use their site to direct you to where you want to shop, or you can download the handy donation reminder so that whenever you visit a participating site a reminder will pop up asking you to activate your donation. You can find out more by visiting our easyfundraising page https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/southsidearchery/
