By Brandon Wikman
Our industry’s largest household names, ingenuous manufacturers and key distributors will be herded to Indianapolis, Indiana this coming week for an archery hunting expo on steroids. The long anticipated 2011 Archery Trade Association trade show will be launched this week in full swing!
The Archery Trade Association, formerly known as the Archery Manufacturer and Merchant's Organization (AMO), is a non-profit trade organization for the promotion of archery and bowhunting through the sale of equipment, projects in archery education, the standardization of equipment measures and the sponsorship of events. It includes manufacturers, distributors, retailers and other companies associated with these industries.
The ATA has served its members since 1953. It is dedicated to making the industry profitable by decreasing business overhead, reducing taxes and government regulation and increasing participation in archery and bowhunting.
The ATA Show has been the industry’s largest and longest-running trade show worldwide. In fact, they have boosted, raised and given to so many incredible resources back to our hunting and outdoor lifestyle. In 2004, the ATA began providing implementation grants to state wildlife agencies for the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP). To date, nearly every state has an active program that originated from individual ATA donations of $15,000. The total support provided for NASP exceeded $800,000 as of mid-2009.
As part of its cooperative work with state agencies, ATA launched the Community Archery Programs (CAP) in 2006. This strategy promotes archery in urban areas as a recreational activity equal to other sports enjoyed by most Americans. ATA’s CAP grants have helped develop shooting facilities, including archery parks and indoor/outdoor shooting centers. These facilities help promote introductory archery programs, primarily NASP, although the ATA also works to establish After School Archery Programs, Explore Bowhunting, the Junior Olympic Archery Development Program and other archery programs nationwide. In fact, from 2004 through mid-2009 alone, the ATA provided about $884,000 in funding. This included grants provided through CAP to initiate NASP in the United States, Canada and Australia. At the same time, ATA contributed nearly $960,000 in CAP grants, equipment and direct aid to state wildlife agencies to grow archery and expand bowhunting opportunities.
If you have a chance to make the ATA Show, do it. This is an experience of a lifetime to see the latest and greatest of our wonderful industry.
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