The Society Seasonal Archery Challenge, SSAC for short, is to provide more unique and continuously changing shoots which are still standardized such at every archer SCA wide is shooting the same competitions, for one season at a time. This idea was inspired by Atlantia"s Seasonal Challenge. The competition is sponsored by the Quivers & Quarrels, the SCA Archery Community.

The purpose of the SSAC is to provide a series of interesting archery competitions that test different shooting kills. The current scores of the competitors will be posted on the SCA Scores Site, so that all archers will be able to compare their scores against other archers, society wide, in a variety of archery skills. At the end of each year, archers will be able to see the overall standings of all archers in each competition as well as their overall standings in all four of the year`s competitions.

There have been many good competitions mentioned over the years in posts to the SCA-Archery. The goal is to pick some of those that are suitable for a SSAC and set up a schedule so that all may shoot them for some friendly competition. Each shoot needs to be easy to reproduce, set up, run, and score. Different shoots should test a different aspect of archery skill such as; accuracy, speed, distance, moving targets, different shooting positions, etc. Shoots should not require too much time to shoot, so that they will fit into most event schedules and also be possible to shoot more than once in the same day if the marshal in charge wishes.

Thought should be given as to different divisions, e.g. Open and Period and different categories, e.g. hand-bow, crossbow, period, youth, etc. In addition, some small prizes such as scrolls or tokens may be given to the top scoring archers in each division. The type of scroll or token and the number awarded is up to the originator of the competition.

Each SSAC`s should test a variety of skills and archers should be encouraged, but not required, to shoot in as many divisions of each competition as they can, either with their own different bows e.g. modern recurve, period longbow, crossbow, etc, or with borrowed equipment if it is available.

The scores will indicate those archers that excel in more than one weapons form. The competitions could be shot more than once per day, if time allows, allowing archers to shoot more than one score per day and to shoot using more than one weapons form if they wish. An archer may shoot a period hand-bow or crossbow in the Open Divisions. However, they may not shoot a non-period bow in the period divisions.

If you have a competition that you would like to have used for the SSAC, please post it to the SCA-Archery group or to Sir Jon. There anyone with comments or suggestions for improving it may post their comments and the originator of the competition many make any changes that they feel would improve the shoot. Once a shoot is reviewed by the group, it will add it to the list of Proposed Shoots. The Scorekeeper, Sir Jonathas, will manage the shoots and individual scores once the community has chosen.

A month before the beginning of the each Season a vote will take place to select the next shoot from the list of Proposed shoots. Once selected each competition will last for one Season, three months. Word of the competition would be forwarded to all the other archery lists and to the kingdom archery officers. Those who have a competition should be encouraged to join this group and post it here.

Beginning with Winter 2014 the 'Seasons' will be:

• Winter - December 1 to February 28
• Spring - March 1 to May 31
• Summer - June 1 to August 31
• Fall - September 1 to November 30

In an effort to give each season a differnet flavor shoots must meet the following rules to be included in the voting. If any given season has less then two qualifying proposed shoots, then the shoots from the season on either side of it would also be considered. If any given season has more then 10 qualifying shoots then the most recent new suggestions will be used for the vote.

• Winter - All ranges must be 20 yards and under, thanks to many using indoor ranges
• Spring - Fifty percent or more of the ends must be timed, hurry up stuff is growing!
• Summer - The Average of the ranges must be greater then 30 yards, get out and stretch your legs
• Fall - Fifty percent or more of the ends must be moving targets, because the leaves are falling! Targets must either be physically moving, or must force you to change your aim point with every single arrow.

These General Rules apply to all Society Seasonal Archery Challenge (SSAC) component shoots. The various component shoots will have their own rules and target definitions within this framework.

There are two categories: Open and Period. Each category has two divisions: Handbow and Crossbow.

The equipment rules for the Open and Period divisions would follow those of the IKAC for Handbow and Crossbow with the exception of the Period Crossbow Division which is defined as the following. To be classify as a Period Crossbow all the following conditions must be met: 1) The stock must be made of wood. 2) It may not have a rifle-style butt. 3) It may not have a modern style lock (period forms of self-resetting mechanisms are fine, however) or a modern style trigger. 4) It may not have modern style sights, but may have a period style rear sight only (no front sight allowed).

In addition, there will be a Youth division. Due to the short time frame of each shoot there will only be a single overall Youth Division. This will be defined as: ages 15 and under, and not competing as an Adult in any other recorded Archery Competition (RR, IKAC, SSAC, etc). The ranges, targets, etc, will be defined for each season, some may be identical to the Adult some may be adjusted as needed for the Youth Division.

Questions regarding the competition should be addressed to the originator of the competition, whose contact information will be included in the rules. The rules for each of the SSAC shoots shall be determined by the originator of the competition, but should fall within the guidelines of the General Rules and the guidance of the SCA-Archery group.

The rules for the Crossbow Divisions may vary from the rules for the Handbow divisions. However, the rules for the Open and Period categories will remain the same.

Scores will be submitted to the SCA Scores Site for tabulation within 30 days of being shot, and within 7 days of the end of the shoot so that the final standings may be included in the next release of the Q&Q Newsletter. All information required by each competition must be included or the scores may be considered void, this includes; Event Name and Host, Event Date, Marshal, as well as the Archers Home Group, Mundane, and Scadian names. When a shoot includes negative scores per arrow, total scores for the end may be negative and should be recorded as such. For scores submitted to the Youth Division, it must include the age of the archer.

The winners of each division will be determined only by the single best score (lowest or highest depending on the shoot) of each archer in the division. There will be no `three score average` for the SSAC. No winning kingdoms, only friendly competition among like minded archers. Though kingdoms are encouraged to recognize their archers appropriately.