ORANCO BOWMEN MONTHLY NEWSLETTER - MAY 2024 UPDATED
ORANCO BOWMEN ARCHERY CLUB
Club President   

By: Al Wiscovitch - Club President

Good evening Oranco Bowmen members,


I hope this will reach you well,

As of now most of you have gotten your new membership Invoices and asking is the new cost correct! We had not reviewed our bylaws in over five years and made a hand full of changes one change was the cost of membership I know no one including my self likes to pay more than we have too. But looking forward and reviewing all of our cost we need to increase our membership as to be able to keep our club in fair shape financially. As we look to the future one can see that many Archery clubs are in bad shape or can’t pay their bills or even replace targets as needed ask yourself do we one to be one of those clubs? I for one don’t want to see our club fall to these circumstances. Too many past and present members have work too hard to make our club a 5-start range and one of the best ranges in all of California.

As we move forward there are projects that will help to make our range a better place to shoot and practice our bows, and events that have made our range a five start place to shoot.

More news,

As most of you know we are days from our 76th annual banquet and should prove to be a great evening with our members. If you haven’t signed up yet you many want to reach out to me ASAP as we are getting very close to a full banquet. So please let’s make this evening a fun event and keep the spirit of our history alive.

Thank you for reading this newsletter!

Thank you for reading this newsletter!

Al Wiscovitch
(909) 322-3869
Club Vice President

By: Pete Whitworth - Club Vice President

Hi Everyone. I am Pete, the Vice President and as such it is my responsibility to run our club invitational shoots. Along with our President Al Wiscovitch, I also deal with the day to day running of the club in general, and specifically we handle any complaints or issues that any of you have. Naturally you are always free to voice any issues at our club meetings held on the second Tuesday of every month at 7:00 PM in the clubhouse, however; Al and I are here to keep things running smooth on a daily basis. So, when problems arise, you should always feel free to contact either of us for immediate help.

We just held the Big Game shoot on April 21st. Thank you very much to all of you who came out to help with setting up the event on Saturday the 20th, running the event on Sunday, and picking up the targets on Monday. This is always a big job, and it makes for a long weekend, however; I really enjoy the time I get to spend with all of you as we try to add a little something different for every tournament. Working with our 45 acre property, and needing to avoid the more hilly back area always creates a challenge to come up with different ways to do the same 42 target layout. I always come out on Saturday with an overall plan for the route that we will take through the range, but then I rely heavily on members of the crew to make the individual shots as interesting as conditions allow. This time around we had some fallen branches and trees that were able to be used in a creative way.

By the time June 22nd rolls around, conditions will have changed some. Branches and trees that have fallen will have been cut and run through the chipper, and new branches will no doubt litter the playing field in different places. The week prior to the shoot, I will be out there as usual looking over the current conditions and deciding on the loop that we will be following, so that you (the crew) will be able to hopefully make something unique out of the downfall.

Currently, I am enlisting the help of one of our new members, Jenny Blattner to speed up the scorekeeping process. Thank you very much Jenny. There are a lot of improvements that have already been made that will speed up data entry, most of which will make my job on the day of the shoot much more organized and faster. I will use the added time to my schedule to get back out on the Quad and drive the course, say hello and check on how things are going for the people shooting the event. Admittedly, when it comes to entering the scores as the shoot winds down, I am still restricted by when the last remaining cards are brought in to be entered. Once those last cards come in, I am typically left with just a handful of scores to enter, then the results are printed out. At that point I still have to look them over to find potential shoot-offs and any obvious entry errors. That usually takes around 15 minutes. As time goes by, there will be fewer entry errors because the new system remembers your style, age and gender. I am adding the information for everyone who has shot at the last few shoots, and will continue to build on that database as new names appear. I will still need to be aware of changes to your profile and will be looking for changes as I enter names for each shoot. If you make me aware of changes as you pass through the sign in line I can make note on your sign up sheet, otherwise I will just look for changes as I go. I will be looking for things like you moving from cub to youth, adult to senior, or BHFS to FS for instance. This will greatly reduce the chance for me to make typo’s upon entry.

Today is the 13th, and our banquet is this coming Saturday the 18th. Our president Al Wiscovitch always spearheads the banquet, and this year despite a few issues that have commandeered his time he has been right there getting us ready for another outstanding celebration of ORANCO history. This is where we honor the people who built this club, those who work hard to keep our club alive, and you, the members that we are dedicated to doing this for. As usual, there will be great food, some degree of pontification 😉, awards for our club championships and an amazing raffle featuring prizes from some of our most valued supporters.

We will be out there this Friday setting up the tent and tables, etc. So if you are around and want to lend a hand, I don’t think we will send you away.

That’s all for now folks.
Pete.

Pete Whitworth
(909) 223-5822
Club Secretary

By: Amanda Duchardt - Club Secretary

Nothing to report.

Amanda Duchardt
Treasurer

By: Louie Lopez - ob.treasurer@outlook.com

Nothing to report.

Louie Lopez
(714) 538-7202
Range Captain
 
By: Jose Lara - Club Range Captain
 
Nothing to report.

Jose Lara
(909) 706-1149
Hunt Chairman

By: Chriss Bowles - Club Hunt Chairman  

Nothing to report.

Chriss Bowles
(951) 757-4571
Range Secretary

By: Mark Houston - Club Range Secretary

Hey Oranco Bowmen,

It looks like we're out of the spring showers and we'll soon be into the dog days of summer. I hope this letter finds you all well and doing fine. 
 
The heavy winter and spring rains this season has bolstered an extremely heavy bloom of grass, weeds, mustard, and artichoke plants as high as 5-6 feet throughout the range, especially on the mountain ranges. Now that its dry enough to mow, we got a lot of work ahead of us. Please be sure to check your email for work party opportunities, or contact Al Wiscovitch, Pete Whitworth or me for week day work parties.
 
The Oranco Bowmen Banquet is this coming Sat. evening, there's still some open tables if you wish to join us for dinner and festivities.

The Oranco Bowmen Champ Shoot and Bowhunters 3D Championship awards will be presented to archers who participated and placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in these tournaments, along with many other awards and special presentations. The scores for both shoots will be posted at the Banquet, then soon to the website on a later date. 
 
We hope you don't miss out on spending a truly magical evening with great friends, great food, great entertainment and a great raffle with lots of great prizes!

Contact Al Wiscovitch Club President to reserve your reservation.

On a more serious note, I'd like to request prayer for Al Wiscovitch's brother German. He suffered severe life threatening multiple injuries this last Sunday at a family get together from a bicycle accident and is still in the ICU. 

Al could use prayer as well, he's still fighting an infection from surgery he had over a month ago and is in alot of pain.

I know we have some prayer warriors in our club, and we thank you for your heart felt prayer. 💞 🎯

Mark Houston
(760) 605-1155
Tournament Chairman

By: David Bacon. - Tournament Chairman
This article is long overdue, my apologies.
It is hard to believe but our JOAD program is almost eight years old now and thriving. Some of the youth archers who were there in the beginning are now in college. Time goes by fast.
Our JOAD program is a little different than most in that our youth archers are not only practice Target archery but also Field and 3-D archery. Our goal is to produce well rounded archers who feel comfortable at any type of archery event so they are not only well trained for USAA Target events but have also competed at in NFAA event like the State Field, State Indoor, State Target and 3-D events as well. A few years ago I even chaperoned 3 of our JOAD students at the State Broadhead. They knew they were disqualified from the start because of their equipment but said they wanted to do it anyway for the experience.
From our club tournaments, state championships, USAA events and even the Vegas indoor, they have done very well and have been great ambassadors for our Club and have brought home some top honors. That said, from the beginning our goal was not to focus on the scores but we figured that if they were well trained in proper form and worked hard, the scores would follow and they have.
We are very proud of their accomplishments
Proper instruction is the key and our JOAD Coordinator, Vernie has worked very hard and volunteered a great deal of her time and energy to our education programs. Along with her dedication to the JOAD program we have given countless beginners classes that are open to the public and had many scouting troops out to our club for instruction and even some camping on the range. As I said, proper instruction is the key and who better to instruct our future youth archers than the students themselves so to that end Vernie has certified ten of her students as level 1 or level 2 instructors who are ready help teach beginners classes. 
Our JOAD archers are very dedicated to their sport so sometimes we forget they are kids so Vernie and the parents make sure they are rewarded for their dedication and have several celebrations throughout the year for holidays, birthdays and such at the club…remember, it’s supposed to be fun too.
Of course, it isn’t hard to see where they get their inspiration. Vernie really gets into it and makes her own costumes.
Arizona Cup by Chantelle
Hi everyone, my name is Chantelle and I’m part of Oranco Bowmen’s JOAD Educational program. For the past few months, my team and I have enjoyed having our practices on Sundays for our tournaments and the opportunity to go to them and represent our club as Oranco Bowmen members. These tournaments range from ones hosted within the club, such as the Champ Shoot and Rendezvous, and go as far as national and international tournaments, like The Vegas Shoot and Indoor Nationals. Multiple of our members can be seen competing, not just the Elite team, often bringing back scores and medals to be proud of, as well as in NFAA and CBH/SAA tournaments alike.
 
           Usually, our Elite Team has practices on multiple days of the week except for Fridays, and other times by ourselves. As we are finished with the indoor seasons, many of our members, myself included, need to shoot farther distances at the Practice Butts because the maximum distance the Educational Area supplied was 30 yards, with a limited amount of space for our growing program.
 
           As a member of the club, I am grateful for being able to use the range for my training and practices, especially being out in the open with the weather conditions and being able to shoot longer distances required at our tournaments. The most recent tournament our team has been to was the Arizona Cup. As an Olympic Qualifier and a USAT (United States Archery Team) Qualifier, this experience is extremely crucial to our training. With this comes the need for practice, as seen from the morning and often into the afternoon on the week of at the FETA Target marked in meters, the common measuring system for tournaments.
 
           Recently, I’ve also been accepted into USA Archery’s Regional Elite Development Program (RED), as well as Logan who’s been in the program since last year. We had our first development camp last week on April 13-14. Our goals reach as far as being accepted into the National Elite Development Program (NED) and being able to represent our country on the USAT team. In the future, I can confidently and proudly say that more of our members are likely to be accepted into this prestigious program too, especially with more frequent, substantial practices as members of the club. Currently, we are preparing for our major tournaments coming up in the summer, such as the SoCal Showdown, State Games, and the Outdoor Nationals hosted in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
 
           With up to 8 team members on our Elite Team, including both compound and recurve, it can also be expected that we will be found training in groups. I think this way of practice is extremely beneficial to our training, helping each other and bringing each other up, receiving the best guidance and instruction there is. Thank you for this opportunity to write our very first newsletter, with many more to come!
 
Thanks,
Chantelle Yang
David Bacon
(909) 217-4441
Membership Chairmen 
 
By: Mariela Gonzalez - Club Membership

Nothing to report.

Mariela Gonzalez
League Chairman

By: Brad Belvedere - League Chairman

Nothing to report.

Brad Belvedere
(951) 545-9462
Two Year Board Member

By: Bill Waltz - Two Year Board Member

Nothing to report.

Bill Waltz

Flint League

The SoCal archery community has been busy lately with one tournament after another beyond our own humble gates. Brad and I, along with a healthy contingent of fellow Oranco Bowmen (and women) shot the Break The Barriers tournament in Fresno a couple of weeks ago. This was the first time I’d ever shot this particular tournament, although I’d been hearing good things about it for years. What is usually a “hot and dusty” tournament turned out to be an extremely wet and challenging shoot. Saturday began with a handful of clouds in the sky and only a slight breeze. Perfect archery conditions, right? Well, that pleasant weather was quickly replaced by rain and hail and a significant drop in temperature with the wind picking up considerably. Good times.

After the first day of the shoot, and an afternoon of rain - the road leading into the assembly area was a veritable mudslide that a lot of cars were simply unable to best. To their credit, the organizers stayed until 11 PM ensuring that every car was towed out of that mud-bowl. Since the rain continued throughout the night and was expected to continue well into Sunday, only vehicles with 4 wheel drive were allowed to drive onto the property for day two, and everyone else had to park on the street outside of the private ranch and get shuttled in by an extremely busy crew of side-by-side drivers. I don’t know what the attrition rate was on day two, but a lot of archers decided to skip the second day of this national event. Those of us who remained took turns holding umbrellas for each other while shooting in an attempt to keep optic lenses dry. It was definitely a learning experience and I’m looking forward to shooting this tournament again next year. Knowing what to do when the weather suddenly affects your bow is part of being a good archer, so I stand in awe of the handful of our club members that managed to have podium finishes, despite the inclement weather.  
Back at home, we’re gearing up for our own upcoming tournaments and league shoots. Next month in June, we will be hosting the Flint League starting at 7 PM every Thursday night. This league is open to all members and prospective members in good standing - and there is no cost.
Show up early to sign up, get your scorecard and target bale assignment.
Mark your calendar - June 6th, 13th, 20th and the 27th.

Your best three out of four scores gets recorded and awards will be announced and presented on the final night during our potluck dinner on June 27th.
Categories are simple. All compound archers in one category.
All recurve and traditional archers in another.

Each round consists of 7 ends, shooting 4 arrows per end shooting 4 arrows per end from varying distances up to 30 yards. This is a great opportunity for new archers to ease into a league competition and for more experienced archers to sharpen their skills in a nighttime shooting environment. Depending on how many people show up to participate, each nightly round is usually finished well before 9 PM.
For those of you who participated in the winter league and are anxious to find out how you placed, those awards will be announced and presented at the club banquet on May 18th.

If you haven’t already paid and sent in your RSVP to Al Wiscovitch, please do that ASAP and join us for what is always a memorable night. Tatiana Raines, an excellent singer and guitarist will be providing the entertainment for the night and we will have our usual good food and good times while awards are handed out for last year’s individual accomplishments.
Mark your calendars with the necessary dates and we’ll see you there!

-Jim Teel and Brad Belvedere League Chairmen
If you are looking for photos of previous shoots, check out Tony Nguyen's fantastic photography in the link below! He has an amazing gallery organized by shoots and dates he's participated in:




Oranco Bowmen Archery Range

Occupying about 45 acres, Oranco Bowmen Archery Club is a NFAA certified 5-star range. This is the highest certification given by NFAA. We are the only range in Southern California with practice butts from 10-80 yards in 5-yard increments. If you need a place to "dial in" your bow, this is it! 

Oranco also has two NFAA roving courses: Our Valley Course is a level 28-target course, consisting of 14 animal and 14 hunter paper targets. For those who desire a bit more of a physical challenge, our Mountain Course is a hilly 28-target course offering 14 Field targets and another set of 14 animal paper targets. The Layout changes occasionally.
Oranco Bowmen Archery Club - Range Map 
Oranco is not responsible for lost or stolen belongings.

Please remember to lock your vehicles when you are not present and always take your equipment home with you. We have received reports about stolen equipment, and want everyone to understand that you alone are responsible for your belongings. We advise you to put your identification information on your belongings and try not to leave anything unattended.

Remember: We are open to the public on Sundays and during shoots. During these events it is much more difficult to track who is on range property, especially if people do not sign in at the office.

Be safe and responsible everyone.
 Announcements 

Range Beautification Party: We would greatly appreciate your help and support to the upcoming Work Parties. Keep an eye out for the email blast. All Club Members and their families are invited. Per Al Wiscovitch, Club President there will be an “ALL YOU CAN EAT LUNCH” served for ALL of our Volunteers who come out and help.

Your assistance ensures that the Oranco Bowmen Archery Club remains the best in Southern California. There is a reason why people travel from all over California to shoot at our Archery Club. Get involved and help us out.  
 
Cook Shack Workers Needed: Positions are still available for volunteers to help out during the upcoming shoots.

Please contact Steve Baker in order to reserve your spot at: Cell# (951) 285-1550. First Come, First Served.  

Target Camping: This is NOT Allowed...Period. Your Membership will be terminated for doing this! The Practice Butts are for sighting in, improving your archery skills, and honing your accuracy. The Roving Range is just that, Roving. Shoot 4 arrows, Score them, then move on to the next target. 

You have been warned. Don't do it. It is not worth it. 

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 NEWSLETTER GOAL 
Mission Statement:
My Goal as Newsletter Editor is to help Members stay informed with the Operations and Activities that are going on in and around the Oranco Bowmen Archery Club. Your suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Check out our Club Website: Oranco Bowmen Archery Club Website