ATA Sponsors An Educational Event at The National Recreation and Park Association Congress and Exposition

The ATA hosted an Off Site Institute on Friday, October 29, at the National Recreation and Park Association Congress and Exposition in Minneapolis, Minn. The institute, Archery for Everyone and Everywhere, was one of 15 offered during the congress and exposition.

Archery instructors were made available to help participants try several different types of archery shooting equipment. Participants, hailing from seven states, also had the chance to shoot with the same equipment used in archery programs across the country.

Archery For Everyone and Everywhere included:

Tours. Tours of three archery ranges in the Minneapolis area; City of Eden Prairie, Carver Park Reserve (Three Rivers Park District) and Bunker Hills Regional Park (Anoka County Parks and Recreation Department). Helping organize this event from these entities were Stu Fox of Eden Prairie, Larry Gillette  of Three Rivers and Jeff Perry of Anoka County helped organized the tours.

Urban Deer Management. Discussion and critiques of urban deer management.

Shooting. Most participants had no prior archery experience. Event instructors showed participants basic shooting techniques used in beginning archery programs like After School Archery Program (ASAP), National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) and Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD).

Adaptive archery. Dan Erickson, a member of local archery club, Rapids Archery, led discussions and questions on adaptive archery.

Explore Bowhunting. Program purpose and materials were presented.

Janet Mosher of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe was selected as the winner of a $5,000 grant. Mosher hopes to use the grant to finish the construction of an archery range and purchase program equipment. The National Alliance for the Development of Archery (NADA) provided two archery education sessions at the event. With the 3 events, archery continues to gain more exposure in the parks and recreation realm.