Hello everyone, this is NUSensei.
Those of you who have been following this channel may be aware of a crisis that I’m
currently facing.
I’ve mentioned a few times that my own archery club has been suspended and faces a strong
possibility of being closed down.
The past few months have been incredibly stressful as we’ve been trying to utilise our limited
resources to fight for our survival.
Now that we’ve done most of the groundwork, mostly of a bureaucratic nature, it’s time
to be open and transparent about what is happening.
This is not intended to be a rallying cry or a call to arms.
This is a record of what has transpired so that those who have faced or may face similar
circumstances will be better prepared than we were.
Many viewers ask which club I’m based at, and to be honest, this is a question I normally
avoid answering.
While the work I do and the information I make available online would certainly be good
marketing for the club, I work independently and I’d rather keep it that way.
I am privileged to be able to use the club facilities for my purposes, but at the same
time I think it is a good thing to keep these things largely separate – just as there
can be mutual benefits, there can also be mutual detriments, and any issue or fault
that I have with my channel is something I would rather accept as my own and not put
onto a volunteer group that has nothing to do with my channel.
Nonetheless, I don’t make my club affiliation a secret, and I have at times worn my club
uniform in a few videos.
My club is the Southern Cross Archery Club.
We’re based in Melbourne.
The Club began in around 1947, originally along the Maribyrnong River, where it was
a popular destination.
It is one of the oldest clubs in the state and was a major part of the history of archery
in Victoria.
Things changed in 2001 when development of the surrounding property made the venue unsuitable
for archery.
The Club was relocated to its current location in Pennell Reserve, Braybrook in 2001.
With limited facilities and support, the Club experienced a large drop in membership by
2010.
I joined the Club in 2011, and have been its president since 2013.
This is where the story starts.
The Club operates on grounds owned by Maribyrnong City Council.
As with all local councils, the organisation is a complex bureaucracy with a decision-making
executive body and numerous teams and departments.
Most of the work done by the Council is handled internally and beyond the knowledge of the
people on the ground like us, so for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to all the actions
and processes under a single “Council” entity and not specific groups or individuals.
To make the location suitable for archery, Maribyrnong City Council installed a wooden
fence to act as a safety backstop.
The Club then erected permanent standing targets on the field, and in this arrangement the
field met the Archery Australia Safety Guidelines, namely that the field ideally should have
a safety barrier or have an overshoot distance of at least 50 metres.
The Club met both of these guidelines, and ran without incident for the next 12 years.
In March 2013, the fence collapsed.
This was reported to the Council, but the fence was not replaced, partly on the basis
that since the field exceeded the minimum safety guidelines from Archery Australia,
the solid backstop fence was not needed.
We, of course, know that additional precautions were needed to ensure that arrows do not skip
off the ground and out of the field.
Our concerns about the fence were conveyed to the Council over the next four years in
face-to-face meetings and at least a dozen emails and reports.
In August 2016, we recorded our first witnessed incident of an arrow being shot from our field
and through the chain fence.
This was immediately reported to the Council.
In this time, the Council had put up shade cloth over the wire fence despite the objections
of the Club, and this unsatisfactory solution in turn failed when the shade cloth became
detached within months.
This was reported in November 2016, and no further action was taken.
By the beginning of 2017, new housing was completed at the end of the range.
As was anticipated, the issues from the lack of fencing arose.
At the time, the Club was in the process of removing the standing targets and replacing
them with rolling targets that could be secured safely.
In February, an arrow was reported to be found in the driveway of the new residence.
This arrow was not from the Club, but was a significant factor in following internal
assessments and evaluation.
The final trigger was a critical incident in April in which a club member accidentally
released a shot, which presumably ricocheted off a mound or post and became embedded in
the wall.
While no significant damage was done, this was horrifying to all involved, and the Club
immediately pushed for urgent action to be taken.
The Council met with the Club and agreed with the necessity of the backstop fence, and the
Club voluntarily entered a period of suspension on the understanding that this work would
be completed.
The Club maintained permission to run the 10m Come ‘n’ Try session to continue some
operations while members could seek alternative activities and venues.
The suspension was not lifted and no progress was communicated to us.
Instead, we were informed of a total outdoor shooting ban with no explanation provided.
No further communication was received until mid-June, when we were first informed of an
independent risk assessment being done.
The Club was not contacted for this assessment, and the report was completed at the end of
June.
The Council met with the Club to discuss the report in mid-July.
The report declared that the field was unsuitable for archery and provided a number of recommendations.
I will make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that the report was outright incorrect in
a baffling number of areas and reflected a very low level of professionalism.
The faults were tremendous and, should this be allowed to remain on the record, poses
a threat to all current and future archery clubs.
In response to the 5000 word risk assessment, I wrote, on behalf of the Club, a 15,000 word
response.
I will go through this in detail in another video.
In addition to this, we also completed an interim plan to re-open short-distance outdoor
operations.
With the help of Archery Victoria, we consulted our plan with the Council and cleared several
significant areas of concern, and we were finally able to use our outdoor range again
in September, nearly five months after the initial suspension, albeit with a 40 metre
maximum distance.
The Club then submitted its official response to the Council.
As of this video, discussions with the Council continues, with a meeting planned in the coming
week.
Up to this point, I’ve been very calm in delivering the factual and verifiable timeline
of events.
From here on, the opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the club.
This is the single worst thing that could happen to any archery club.
The last five months have been absolutely miserable.
I don’t know about you, but when I signed up for archery, I didn’t expect to be up
at 4 in the morning typing up a thesis to respond to a report that is so wrong, it’s
almost criminal.
Just imagine getting a phone call that tells you that the club is shut down until further
notice, end of discussion.
And then you have to relay that information to dozens of confused and angry club members,
cancel all events and wave away all new community participants with no explanation.
For five months, our doors have been closed and the field has been empty, and we’ve
been waiting, agonisingly, watching our members disappear.
We have kids who have been turning up, eager to become members and buy their first bow,
and every time we have to say “Sorry kiddo, not today”.
It’s disheartening.
At a time where the Club should be growing and expanding and getting even more people
to enjoy the sport, we’ve been hit hard with the suspension, and we have suffered
emotionally and financially.
We’ve seen the sport depicted as “unusual” and “dangerous” with extremely high risks,
all of which are completely baffling to anyone who has worked with an archery club.
In what is supposed to be our 70th year as a club, we’re fighting not just for our
survival, but for awareness and respect for the sport.
We’re not a giant organisation with limitless resources.
We’re a grassroots club, the only archery club in our area, with around 30 regular members
and run entirely by volunteers.
The efforts of certain Council staff may have brought the Club back from the brink of extinction,
but the Club was placed in this situation by prior inaction, and that is what makes
me upset – that the triggers were predictable and preventable.
I could rant on about how angry and upset I have been for the past five months, every
night thinking that it is the end of my club and the end of my archery career, but I want
to keep this short and to the point.
I want to be fair to the people involved and the work they have done, but also represent
the pain and anguish that we have been through.
There are two major sticking points here.
The first is that this is a fairly typical example of working with a bureaucracy.
Everyone at every level thinks they know best, and information is seldom shared and communicated
to other departments, or to the people below.
If the people responsible for handling this case are barely getting the right information
and direction from the top, then it isn’t hard to imagine that our club, our members
and our community are getting even less information.
Naturally, this lack of communication will cause a lot of confusion and friction.
The reality on the ground is that we don’t know who we’re dealing with.
We don’t know who’s laying out the risk factors and concerns and who we have to appease,
because they’re not the ones who are communicating with us.
It’s a convoluted process, and we have a right to be upset at this process.
Secondly, the lack of proper consultation has been a continual source of frustration.
It’s no secret that the Council is unfamiliar with archery as a sport.
However, until recently, consultation with the Club has been nearly non-existent.
If the Club is not reliable or credible enough, then we have our state and national archery
associations – in this case Archery Victoria and Archery Australia.
I’ve been criticised for not involving AV or AA sooner.
After all, they are the people in the best position to evaluate safety and provide the
resources and materials.
In my defence, I did not realise at the time that this would escalate into a five-month
suspension.
The last thing I was aware of at the time of the suspension was that the fence was going
to be put up.
Once the total outdoor suspension was on, I immediately opened the opportunity for the
Council to sit down and have a conference with the Club, AV and AA along with parent
and community representatives.
Instead, the assessment was done by an assessor with no knowledge of the sport while the expertise
and experience were on standby.
In the Council’s defence, the last few meetings over the past month have been made with more
active effort to involve the Club and AV.
However, on our end it’s been nothing but damage control and playing a waiting game.
Every minute of my archery time for the past five months has been dedicated to protecting
the Club and doing everything that is necessary to prove that archery is a valid sport and
one that can be safely run.
At this point I would like to acknowledge and thank everyone who has been involved in
the case, particularly Archery Victoria and Archery Australia; councillors and staff members
of Maribyrnong City Council who have been liaising with us and supporting our case;
and fellow archers from Victoria and around the world who have been monitoring the situation.
I believe that this is a landmark case that, should it be successful, can provide a template
for other clubs to follow.
If it fails, then we should all be worried.
I will keep you all updated in the decisions that will happen in the near future.
Right after this, I will be uploading an in-depth analysis of the risk assessment report and
our response.
This is NUSensei, and I hope to see you around next time.