We are delighted to announce our partnership with Balinakill Country House - one of Scotland's foremost self catering venues, based in the beautiful Argyll countryside.

Balinakill Country House nestles on a hillside in six acres of peaceful grounds on the west side of the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll. This impressive baronial country house retains a wealth of period features and is set in mature gardens on the edge of the village of Clachan, one of the oldest settlements in Kintyre.

MRM has been appointed as the only supplier of Archery activities for the guests at Balinakill Country House and we are delighted that we have been chosen as a key partner in the provision of archery for their guests.

Several months ago MRM Directors Michael, Rona and Moira assisted with the filming of a programme for the CBBC TV channel to be shown this Olympic year. This was a fantastic opportunity for archery to be given media coverage once again. We were unaware of when the programme would go out however we were advised last week that the programme was being broadcast from 28 January.

The programme, entitled ‘Ultimate Sports Day’ is a search to find the UK's top young athletes. Four teams will be mentored by sporting stars who will test their core skills of speed, strength, agility and control through exciting sports-based games to find out who will become Ultimate Sports Day champions.

Archery is featured in the series as a specialist sport and we have been told that the archery will probably be featured in the first 2 programmes. The series was broadcast on Saturday 28th at 9am on the CBBC Channel (Freeview channel 70 or SKY Channel 613) and will be on every Saturday at the same time. The show will also be repeated on BBC2 at 7:45am on Sunday mornings. It should also be on BBC IPlayer for a week after each episode.

This is the link to the website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/ultimate-sports-day

With only a few hours notice MRM was approached by the producer of BBC Radio Scotland's Out of Doors programme to do a feature on archery and for the producer to have a taster session at archery - the programme was to be broadcast on a Saturday between 6.30am and 8am. The programme went out on Saturday 7 January and, if you missed it you can hear it again on BBC I Player.

An outdoor venue was arranged courtesy of Falkirk Council and Moira set up an archery taster session for one. The morning was very windy and wet which made it difficult to be heard by the microphone however a variety of questions were asked ranging from the history of archery to how big the sport is in Scotland and the UK to how to get involved. Moira answered all the questions with ease and signposted listeners of the programme to the Scottish Archery website to find a local club if they wanted to try archery.

Because of the wind the microphone had to be right at your lips and the producer wanted to talk whilst she was having a shot - this made it challenging to get a consistent reference point as she had the microphone tucked in the top of her jumper! However despite the difficult weather conditions she managed to hit the target with all 18 arrows and was very pleased with the result.

She also wanted to get the sound of arrows hitting the target so she put the microphone at the top of the target and Moira was to shoot as close to the microphone as possible. All the arrows grouped well together and there were sounds of arrows ricocheting off one another - and only the last arrow knocked the microphone (undamaged) to the ground!

Moira said "We saw this as a fantastic opportunity to promote archery and archery clubs across Scotland and it will be a great opportunity for clubs to raise awareness of archery in their communities as a result of the radio broadcast."

When a national company, Foundation TV were looking for assistance in filming archery for a children’s TV programme they naturally approached MRM Archery.

As part of the build up to the Olympics in 2012 in London Foundation TV is filming 4 teams of 8 children between the ages of 12 and 16 years old from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland undertaking a variety of the Olympic sports – one of which was archery. The filming took place in the Time Capsule in Coatbridge.

All of the participants are acknowledged high flyers in their own individual sports and archery was to be seen as a new challenge for them all to see how transferable their sporting skills were to a sport that few had even tried before.

We had a number of challenges to contend with during filming but with the help of a detailed plan designed by MRM the children were given maximum opportunity to practise their archery skills.  Some of the participants were totally new to the sport whereas some had very limited experience of archery. We introduced the participants to the sport, provided them with key briefings and individual coaching. This helped the children identify the importance of transferring their own sporting knowledge and experience about relaxation, focus, stance and the importance of having a clear view of what you are trying to achieve into archery.

Each team was accompanied by a Mentor – a sporting superstar in their own right. Northern Ireland’s mentor was Barry McGuigan, who represented Northern Ireland in the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games in boxing.

England’s mentor was Dean Macey who is best known for competing in the decathlon, winning World Championship and Commonwealth Games medals. Since 2008 he has been a member of the GB bobsleigh team.

Scotland’s mentor was Seonaid Kerr who was a Scottish ice dancer who represented Great Britain with her brother John as her partner. They were two-time European bronze medallists and represented GB at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics.

Wales’ mentor was Christian Malcolm, a 200 mts runner who won the title of World Junior Athlete of the Year in 1998. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi he won the 200m bronze medal for Wales.

The mentors supported their teams during the competition session but when the children had finished it was time for the mentors to have a go! As they are all keen sport people the competition was fierce but with first class coaching from Michael, Moira and Rona they shot some high scores. On the final day of filming Christian narrowly beat the other mentors to win with 28 points out of a possible 30.

We understand the programme will go out in 2012 and it will give archery a fantastic opportunity for publicity. We will keep our readers updated about when it is likely to be shown on TV.