Middle Earth Ranger Forum

So there's such a thing as the Worshipful Company of Fletchers. A friend from childhood is married to (or maybe just dating) a guy who is a gold-medal winning archer in the Paralympics.

He just received his 'Certificate of Freedom" from the WCF. I had no idea they existed, but am not surprised that they do.

They are U.K only and I know that Richard Head of English Longbow fame is one of the Governors of the board

Sounds interesting, I would like to know more about them!

Aside from their perhaps pretentious-sounding name (but they're English after all, so we cut them some slack, haha), this "company" sounds intriguing. Does anyone out there have any more information on them, and what it is they do, exactly?

Manveruon wrote:Aside from their perhaps pretentious-sounding name (but they're English after all, so we cut them some slack, haha), this "company" sounds intriguing. Does anyone out there have any more information on them, and what it is they do, exactly?

The Worshipful Company of Fletchers is one of the oldest of the City of London's 109 Livery Companies (see our history). But today very few of our members are involved in arrowmaking and so we exist to uphold the traditions of the City in ways that are appropriate to our heritage. For example, much of our charitable fund is used to support disabled archers at all levels - we were proud to support the British Paralympic Archery Team in Athens in 2004, in Beijing in 2008 and in London in 2012, but we also give much help to more modest disabled archers.

We have not forgotten our roots, and, in conjunction with the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers we award Certificates of Excellence in the Fletchers' Craft. Fletchers must present a box of finished arrows which are checked for length, weight, balance and spine, in a procedure reminiscent of a mediaeval apprentice presenting his masterpiece at the end of his apprenticeship.

http://www.fletchers.org.uk/index.html

How cool! Thanks for the enlightenment!