Chairman’s notes.

Your three new committee members have already been hard at work:  Arthur and his son John have been doing a wonderful job in tidying up the boat house and keeping it clean.  Please will all members help them by putting litter, old loo rolls and water bottles in the bin rather than leaving them lying around.  Let’s all take pride in our smart boathouse.  Guy is also taking on the magnum opus of organising our premier event, the Yare Cup, which will take place in the autumn.

Pip has been busy scraping and painting the ferry ably assisted by Guy’s girls, Arthur and son John, Frank, Pippa, Sue, Tony and myself.  The ferry is now back in service; hopefully it will stay afloat for a few more years to come.

Thanks also go to the ‘towel fairy’ who has been spiriting away the dirty boat towels and returning them washed and folded.  We don’t know who the towel fairy is yet; rumour has it that it is Ellie?  Whoever it is many thanks for your very welcome efforts.

Nick has fixed up a washing line for the towels on the right side of the boathouse to save them being distributed about the area as does tend to happen.

Meanwhile enjoy your sculling in the summer months; there have been some really nice evenings, in some cases in spite of some poor weather forecasts.

The Come and try day

The come and try day was a bit disappointing in that only six came to come and try.  However, they were well looked after and it turned out that they were an enthusiastic little group.  Adrian, who was one of the participants, has joined the club and two others have said that they are going to join starting from July. Well done and thanks to everybody who assisted on the day.

New sponsorship.   The chairman writes:

The Club is pleased to announce that it has entered into a sponsorship agreement with the ALAN BOSWELL GROUP‘ independent insurance brokers of Thorpe Road Norwich who also arrange the insurance for our club boats.
Alan Boswell Group arranges all types of insurance including domestic, commercial, motor, life and mortgages.  Because they are completely independent, they can search out the best deals from all the major insurers.  My family and I have recently transferred all our insurances to them and have achieved significant savings with efficient service.

All you have to do is to telephone the Alan Boswell Group  (tel: 01603 218000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              01603 218000      end_of_the_skype_highlighting) and ask for Zoë Kerswill or Roy Himpleman when you ask for a quote for whatever type of insurance that you are seeking, and say that you are a member of the Yare Boat Club This can be done between renewal dates as well as at the renewal time.  If you then do the business with the Alan Boswell group, they will make a donation to the Club for every policy incepted or renewed.

Any YBC members who already insure with the group please ring them and identify yourselves as members in order to ensure a donation.
As a gesture of good will Alan Boswell has already donated £200 to the Club.

I thoroughly recommend this scheme to Members, as it has benefits for us as individuals, for the club and for the sponsors.  If anyone would like more information on the scheme, please talk to me or phone me on 01603 880541, or Alan Boswell group on 01603 218000
News of members.

Not such good news is that two of our stalwart members have suffered heart problems recently.  Peter Harrison suffered a problem whilst out sculling but toughed it out and managed to get back to the boathouse safely before getting help.
David Skipper underwent surgery to rectify an arterial blockage.  It didn’t go too well and he suffered some serious after effects.  However, both are recovering well and we have had the pleasure of seeing David on the river since.  I’m sure that we haven’t seen the last of Peter on the river either.
We wish them both well.

New members

Welcome to new members Lucinda Gooderham, Adrian Thompson, Frank Kearns, Casper James and Jonathan Drake.  Lucinda is an accomplished sculler and Adrian has rowed and sculled before.  Frank, Jonathan and Casper came to us as novices and we are working on them…all are improving greatly.

Prospective new members

Now there are a couple of prospective new members to bring to your attention.  Inger has become a Mum again and Richard has become a Dad for the second time also.  Both boys I think, we wish them all the best and may sleep be upon them in the nights to come.

Club Barbeques.

For the summer the club is putting on barbeques on the first Sunday in each month after the morning session.  The first one was on April the 1st.  Twelve members returned from a long outing in three quads to find Guy Gibson and his daughters preparing a welcome lunch of sausages and hamburgers Jo Warns does them as well, also helped out by his family. The three barbeques run so far have been very popular and, apart from it being good to get together for some social chat, the club has benefited from a small bit of extra income.  Do come along, as they are very enjoyable.  We have a ‘meat barbeque’ serving sausages and hamburgers and a veggie one so there is something for everyone including a beer if you want one.  Kathryn Hurst does the cakes and Lotte Cooper provides tins full of brownies so it is well worth coming along just for those.  We put up a small marquee to keep the weather off. If it rains but fortunately it hasn’t got wet yet.  Many thanks to all those who lent a hand. Please note that there will not be a Sunday barbeque on 1st July.

Social events past and planned.

Anthony and Debbie opened the park and gardens surrounding their magnificent home at Berry Hall over Easter.  We were privileged to be able to stroll around the woodlands, farm, kitchen gardens and orchards as well as the lovely woodland paths regularly crossing the river Tud. We also watched the varsity boat race on a TV specially set up for the occasion.   Debbie was selling tea and cakes (but she wouldn’t take any money from us!) and there was also a selection of plants for sale.  The entrance fee was a very modest £3.00.  Anthony and Debbie kindly donated the money collected from Yare BC members and their families straight back to the club.  We are most grateful.
The event will run again next year so we’ll let you know in good time as a visit is highly recommended.
The Clubs summer party is to take place on Saturday the 30th June on the Island from 6.00pm.  Please contact Pip Colwell to get your tickets, as she needs to know the numbers for catering.  Tickets are ADULTS  £5.00, Children £2.00 (includes food but not drinks).  Also can anyone bring along any suitable large games (e.g. Jenga) to provide entertainment.   Pip Colwell is leading the effort on this one.

The plan is to have the party on the island with music, lights food, drinks and good company, with a couple of games thrown in for good measure.  Always a good one this one so pop the date in your diary and bring the family and friends… the more the merrier-literally.

I’d like to get a plug in here for St Neots regatta.  We like to get as many entries as we can for this regatta.  There are two days of racing.  The first days racing is over a 1000metre course with a bend to contend with and the Sunday events are run over a shorter course.  Now, I’m quite interested, as I have just discovered that I can enter Vet G events (a bitter sweet discovery but there it is).  Anyone care to join me?  It’s a good day out with bags of atmosphere.
The club will try and get the Deben Row up and running this year.  This is a non-competitive rowing event where we borrow some gig fours from Deben RC and row them down the River Deben to the sea and back, visiting a hostelry on the way for a bib and tucker.  More details to come on this one.

Further away the second club regatta, over a longer course, will be held in September so if you need to train for it…. get on your bike.

After that there is the Rockland row, which is a long distance non-competitive event

The Racing Squad,

There hasn’t been much joy so far this season for our ardent racers.  Wallingford and Peterborough regattas have seen a Yare presence but the silverware is proving a little elusive so far.  Simon managed a couple of seconds at Peterborough in big entry events but the competition seems very strong everywhere this year.  There’s plenty of time yet so we wish them good luck.

The Club Races (the Harvey Cup day)

The days racing rewarded us with plenty of incident including a couple of capsizes.  We have some keenly competitive scullers coming on and everybody who took part gave it their all.  In the event, Simon took the open men’s pot, beating Anthony in the final, Natalie beat Sue to take the open women’s event, Katherine and Simon took the mixed double against Sue and Ian and yours truly was given the Harvey Cup.

The best race of the day?  Ian’s young son Callum was competing as an honorary lady in the mixed doubles with Jo.  They were on course to beat his Dad and Sue but just clipped one of the moored boats and had to stop momentarily.  Callum gave it his all and he still only lost it by a couple of feet.  That boy has got promise. His Dad would not have heard the last of it had he have won.

Club coaching.

Pippa and Arthur have completed the theoretical part of the National Scheme for the accreditation of rowing coaches.  (Involving a considerable financial outlay on their part).  The practical element of the scheme is still to be completed to gain the award.  It would be good if we could all help them to gain the necessary number of trainer outings to satisfy the requirements.
Many thanks to both Pippa and Arthur for taking this on as the benefit to the club could be immense.

The Web Site.

Phil Smith is the web master for the club site and he puts in a lot of work on it to keep it up to date. However, it helps if we can supply him with updates as they occur. They can be sent to him at the address on the website.  Do have a look at the site at regular intervals there’s lots of interesting stuff on it.   www.yareboatclub.org.uk

Work to be done.

We haven’t got a programme of work parties up yet for the summer but there is always work to be done in the way of general upkeep and maintenance.  If there are any larger projects that you think may be beneficial, please contact a committee member and we will see what can be done

Boat and equipment news.

The club has purchased two further sets of Concept II blades to be set up and used by competing doubles crews.  These are not intended to be general use club blades so please do not use them if you do not qualify.

Club Sessions.

Club sessions are now on Saturdays at 8.30am. for the competitive types, Sundays at 10.00am and Thursdays at 6.00pm for a more general purpose session.  There are also recreational sessions on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 9.30am.  Senior members may, of course, use the club facilities at any time during daylight hours.
Novice scullers are requested to use the Thursday evening and Sunday sessions, as people are available on those days to give coaching, supervision and advice.  On other days members are involved in their own personal training sessions so may be unwilling to interrupt their training schedule to help you.

Safety.

Even though the water is warmer at the moment and the sun is shining, please don’t let your guard drop regarding water safety.  This time of the year is the time of increased river use by all sections of river users.  Fisherman and hire cruisers abound as well as increased use by rowers and scullers.  Please ensure that you keep a good look out and keep to your own side of the river.  There is also a lot of debris in the water so take care.

Book Corner.  A new item from Guy Gibson

I know that all we really want to do is row and that reading about it can be a form of torture, either because it is written so badly or because you are jealous of their experiences. The aim of this column is to review books connected, loosely or not, with rowing.
As the first book I have chosen “Rowing it Alone” by Debra Veal.
The tabloid précis of the story goes along the following lines: couple decide to row The Atlantic, couple plan together, train together, start together, husband wimps out after a few days and gets off, wife carries on and having taken 112 days makes it.
Fortunately for all of us the actual story is so much more. It starts with the crunch, the point at which they recognise that Andrew, Debra’s husband, is not just a little scared but beyond terrified of being in a tiny boat bobbing on a huge ocean (a very sensible fear in my opinion).

Back to the lead up.  Debra takes us through the preparation, but this is not some dry list of equipment and deadlines.  The power of this story is based on the hopes and fears of the protagonists.  We are taken through the full emotional range.  It is fascinating to see what motivates people and appreciate the drive and self-confidence needed to undertake something as enormous as this crossing.
For those interested in the details these are also covered: 8,000 calories per day, 24 foot boat made from 6mm ply, cost of the crossing £83.800, etc etc.  The mixture of detail and spiritual awakening prove to be a mix that doesn’t always work but on the whole I recommend this book to anyone interested in what makes people do remarkable things and push through their perceived limitations.
Feel free to write your own book review for the next Newsletter.  How about a club library?  If you are interested contact me: Guy Gibson.

Anthony Meynell responds: That sounds easy, Debra Veal didn’t have to negotiate any locks!
10 years ago this month I and my old wooden boat, Curstaidh, which I still use, sculled the whole of the non-tidal Thames from Teddington to Lechlade and back in 5 days. The trip consisted of 250 miles and 90 locks, The weather was dreadful, rain and cold northerly gales, but we made it. Debbie was my support crew equipped with victuals, van and bicycle.  As far as I know, nobody else has been mad enough to attempt this journey.  We started from Eton, went downstream to Teddington then upstream to Lechlade and back staying at hotels and a friends house en-route.
Why did I do it?  Well it was something of a unique achievement and we also raised £5500 for charity so it was well worthwhile.

Well that’s it for this time.  Any contributions, news or articles for the newsletter will always be gratefully received and published.

Articles can be emailed to me, Word documents preferred, at:

phil.rolph@dsl.pipex .com or given in long hand to any committee member.

Enjoy your Summer.

Phil Rolph