From Stroke to Worldchampionship Gold — Support Jo's Journey
Jo Boardman lost her sight to a stroke in 2025 — now she's training to represent New Zealand as a blind archer at the World Championships
Auckland
From a stroke to a shooting line
In September 2025, Jo Boardman had a stroke. She survived but the damage was in her visual cortex, and she came out the other side with cortical blindness. Her eyes work. Her brain can't read what they send it.
She was 48. She runs a successful Wellness business in Auckland. She was the person other people leaned on.
Recovery from cortical blindness isn't the kind where you wake up one morning and things are back to normal. You rebuild a life around a different set of inputs. You learn to trust touch and sound and spatial memory in ways that sighted people never have to think about.
Blind Low Vision NZ introduced Jo to archery a few months into her recovery. It's a sport with a formal pathway for blind athletes tactile sighting, a spotter to call the arrow, a foot marker to square the stance. The target doesn't move. The process is repeatable. It turned out she was good at it.
Now she's training to represent New Zealand at Para-athlete level. The goal is gold in all events.
Wayne Boardman's involvement (page creator)
I'm Jo's husband. I'm running this page to support her campaign and will manage the funds, post regular updates, and make sure every dollar goes directly to her World championship participation
Use of funds
Your donation funds specialist VI archery equipment, coaching, club fees, competition entries, domestic and international travel, a trained spotter at every shoot, physio and strength work, and classification costs on Jo's road to the World Championships.
Other page links
Latest update
A consistency milestone 21 June 2026
Today Jo trained with coach Caroline, and the focus was grouping and consistency rather than scores. The result was exactly what we'd hoped for at 10m the arrows landed in tight, repeatable clusters, group after group.
For a visually impaired archer this matters more than any single score. Jo can't see where the arrow lands, so everything rests on doing the same thing, the same way, every shot. Tight grouping is the proof that the form is holding together and it's the foundation every future score is built on.
With the equipment setup now complete, sessions like today are where the real progress happens. We're genuinely excited about the direction this is heading.
Thank you, as always, for being part of Jo's journey.
Latest donations
Thank you so much for your donation, and luck on your archery journey, hopefully our paths will cross in the archery scene.
thank you so much for your donation.
Thanks Team Redfern, your support and donation are greatly aapprciated.
Who's involved?
Help Fundraise
You can create your own page to help fundraise for this cause.Page Q&A
Ask a question hereAny concerns?
Report this pageThank the donor
Your message will be displayed on the page and emailed to the donor.
Your new message will also be emailed to the donor.
Saving a blank entry will delete the current comment.