CHRIS WELLS
DEPUTY EDITOR 2009-11. NOW HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS AT WORLD ARCHERY
I used to read Bow when I visited my friend Jon Nott’s house, in the early days of it being owned by Blaze Publishing. I started writing for the magazine when I was still at secondary school. I studied at Warwick University for a little while, which is close to where Blaze used to be based. I did more work for that publisher and then ended up as deputy or assistant, editing a couple of magazines, Bow being the one that was most in my camp. I also worked a lot on Airgun
Shooter and a few other titles.
I did about three years – and 20 or so issues. When I started, we did six issues a year and by the time I left, we were doing eight. James Folkard was the editor at the time. Dean Alberga was the main photographer – and I still work with him now. A lot of the contributors are still around today.
The thing I enjoyed most was the small redesign near the end of my tenure. We added circles. Archery is all about circles. I like circles. I learned a lot during that time, from writing to editing and designing to photography. A lot of the principles of content I discovered then I still use today. My least favourite was competition reports, that’s for sure. There wasn’t the same amount of information available from events that there is now and adding something for the reader, beyond interpreting the results, was challenging. Fortunately, I often had second-hand accounts from people so there was something to say. But I would have loved to do more. My favourite thing, however, was probably trying to make reviews more objective. I never managed it. I miss that feeling of relief getting any issue of the magazine done.
I was writing competition reports when the Archery World Cup was a year or two in. The effect of an established international tour cannot be overstated, I believe. At the international level, I think how the sport is presented has progressed in leaps and bounds. I think that has also shone a bit of light on the disconnect with archers in clubs and something of a split camp between competition archers and recreational. Bow International is obviously aimed more towards the high-end recreational and competition level but I think we all need to work hard to make sure that archery remains accessible (while pursuing the kind of business objectives that will take the sport to the next level).
One thing that has not changed is the strength of the community, the passionate network and deep sense of belonging that comes with being an archer. I’ve always thought that it’s really quite special.
My own archery? I shot mid-1200s FITAS and represented Great Britain as a junior at a couple of international field archery events but then I stopped shooting actively while I was working at Bow International. I enjoy studying archery, writing about archery and telling people about archery more than I actually enjoy doing archery. But I still love the sport.
The most memorable person I ever met was the late English actor Robert Hardy, who had written a book about longbows and needed a ‘modern’ opinion for a TV segment at Warwick Castle. He pretended to know who I was. He absolutely did not. I think I was cut from the segment.
I’m now head of communications for World Archery and based in Switzerland, responsible for the content output of archery’s international federation and promoting the sport worldwide. Most of this work is digital and video now, rather than print-based, but some of the things I’ve done in this role were seeded as ideas back when I worked on Bow International.
The #Shootlikeme video series, for example, was initially going to be an almost identical photography project.
I’m very lucky to work in archery. I’ve had some phenomenal opportunities to travel and work at memorable events, like the Olympics, for the sport that’s been my passion since a young age.