My 11 year old son Sam chose to celebrate his birthday by inviting 6 friends plus his parents and Uncle to an archery party with Bows & Arrows at Crowfield, Suffolk.
Ken Robins met us at Crowfield and lead us to the Archery field. Almost immediately it was easy to see how passionate Ken is about his sport. We found him to be very patient with the children. He is organised and extremely safety conscious. We found Ken to be a very engaging person and nothing was too much trouble.
After initial safety checks and bow handling techniques we were allowed to venture on to the range where in teams we shot at different targets including a dinosaur, an orc and dragons, that proved to be great fun.
Sam and his friends found the whole experience to be awesome and Sam exclaimed that this had been the best ever party and could he book again for next year. At the end of the party Ken showed the children some of the bows that had been used on film sets including Eragon and the Golden Compass.
If you're looking for a party with a difference Ken's Bows & Arrows parties are unique.
Sam's Mum, Helen, East Bergholt
Having met Ken at West Stow Anglo Saxon Village, my boy was really excited at the prospect of his archery party. In fact he became so interested in the archery that we'd already had a visit to Ken's field archery centre as a family to get some earlier tuition.
The party started with getting the children kitted up with their arm guards and some safety points. Each child in turn then was given some individual instruction and fired a few arrows. Despite some of the boy's understandable exuberance Ken remained patient with each child and helped them improve as they progressed around the targets.
One of the highlights which came next was bursting balloons - that was a real hit! In teams they took turns to aim at the different coloured balloons. Having all enjoyed this they then went further onto the course encountering lots of different targets from a dinosaur, a magnificent dragon and an ogre.
The party finished up with more balloon bursting, then the children being offered a selection of different film style bows to use - the Mongolian Horse Bow, little orc bow and Legolas' bow were popular. Then to cap all that the birthday boy got to fire a crossbow - that he found really cool!
We were really pleased with the way that the party went - comments from the children ranged from "this is the best party I've ever been to" to "this is in my top 10 parties" to "Awesome" to I'd give this party 10/10". That's always nice for a parent to hear but especially nice for the birthday child.
It's a wonderful thing as a parent to have created some wonderful childhood memories, we have lots of photos and will certainly remember this party for a long time!
I would recommend these parties to other parents, whose children are looking for something different and exciting.
Party hint - ours worked well feeding the children first then taking snacks and drinks with us to eat there - they got very hungry going round.
Helen, Colchester
FLORENCE'S FATHER D.B.
Both the children and the adults had a brilliant time at Florence's archery party. Ken was a great teacher and made it fun for us all.