The leader Within

Chapter 14: The Archery Club

Archery club is another one of Rick Hansen's most popular sports club. Rick Hansen encourages students to actively participate in many sports. Students who don't take gym or take parts in regional competitions are provided an opportunity to join archery club to get better at it and have fun while doing something they like. This club has a fee requirement of $30 because the school provides with bow and arrows too. Students in this club are required to meet up for archery practice twice a week before school. Students who excel at archery and demonstrate clear growth to the teachers are then nominated for regional levels where they can compete with other schools too.

Since I wanted to be more active and liked archery, I paid the fees and started joining the club practice which was held twice a week. I was responsible for taking attendance and setting out the equipment such as targets, bows and arrows in the gym. I was also responsible for creating a chart tallying scores for each player since the teacher used that to help nominate a student for regional level. I was also responsible for collecting all the arrows and bows and putting them back accordingly. I also helped the club coordinator make sure that everyone was being safe and not fooling around (such as targeting other students with their arrows).

I joined archery, but I was horrible at it from day one. I would not hit my target or be close to hitting my target even once. I was very frustrated with the results of my practice and then stuck more to organizing and cleaning the gym instead of practicing. A lot of other students left the club too. However, my friend who was equally as horrible at archery stuck to practicing and got better at it. I realized after a little time was left in the school year being over that I should have not given up so soon. However, I took this opportunity as a learning experience instead of thinking of it as a failure. This taught me that to be a good leader, I needed to have a positive attitude towards failures and think of it as experiencing something new. I also learnt to reflect on my past mistakes and learn from them, so I could avoid such mishaps in the future. This kind of attitude would inspire other people too who are not as motivated and help them strive to get back at their feet again. I realized that it was partially the club teacher's fault too because she wasn't as committed to helping the students get better at archery. If she had motivated students and encouraged them to keep trying, that would've helped the students believe in themselves and have more confidence. This helped me develop as a leader myself because it was a lesson for me that as a leader it is my responsibility to make sure that my team mates are not having any troubles with what they are doing. If they are having any problems; it is the leader's duty to solve them, support and mentor their follower so they can be as efficient too.