2015 01 newsletter

1

Fro

me

Ca

no

e C

lub

Frome Canoe Club is affiliated to the British Canoe Union and is a Registered Charity (Number 1104728)

Volume 39 Issue1: January 2015

P6 has the details

to all our members and their families.

Beckington Weir

had a great little

stopper today.

For more about

the Frome Trip on

30th November

see p8.

2

In this issue

3 Calendar in brief

4 Details of trips and one-off events

5 Details of regular club events

6 Club Social and Awards Night

7 AGM

7 News from the committee

8 River Frome

11 River Dart

12 Who won what at last year’s social

15 George is in Canoe Focus!

13 Bits and Pieces

16 Indoor kayak machines

CALENDAR: details

REPORTS

OTHER THINGS

FCC ‘THROWLINE ’ CLUB MAGAZINE

Send articles for the next issue to [email protected] by 27th January

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

President

Graham Warnecke

Vice Presidents

Richard and Jane Arney

Jim and Catharine Croft

Chairman

Alun Jones

Vice Chairman

Gareth McGiveron

Treasurer

John Kent

Secretary

Pam Dixon

16 Blagdon Walk, Frome, BA11 2YH

Committee Members

Arthur Belbin

Rich Carter

Richard Heal

Jonathan Howell

Tracey Lemon

Stuart Miles

Kit Officers

Tim and Sally Smiles

Strict adherence to the Club’s code of conduct is expected at all times on club events.

3

Calendar 2015


Date Event Standard Contact

January

1 New Years Day paddle Passport/One Star Rich C

3 No Saturday Club session All

11 River Exe or Barle Passport/One Star (+ 10 years or over)

Rich C

14 Rescues - an evening event All Jack S

16 POOL SESSIONS RESTART All Pam D

17 Club session: Saturday pm All Rich C

21 DVD night at the clubhouse All George M

24 CLUB SOCIAL and AWARDS All Pam D

28 Race Night - indoor kayaks All Pam D


February

1 Local River Trip Passport/One Star + Alun J

11 Quiz Night All Dave P


18 Race Night - Indoor kayaks All Pam D

20 NO POOL SESSION TONIGHT All Pam D

25 Annual General Meeting All Pam D


4

Calendar in detail


RIVER EXE OR BARLE

11th January Meet Market Yard: 8am Cost £12 Organiser: Rich Carter

We’ll decide in the run up to the trip which river it will be and we will let people know on the website and by fb.

Both rivers are good. The Exe has weirs and rapids to play on. The Barle has more continuous rapids.

Both trips need paddlers to wear spraydecks. Warm clothes and a good packed lunch are essential.

LOCAL TRIP

1st February Meet Market Yard: 9am Cost £3 Organiser: Alun Jones

A local trip, exact stretch to be decided on the day.

Whichever we choose, it will be a good trip. But could be cold so come prepared with plenty of warm clothes and a good packed lunch. Borrow any club kit you need on the morning.

We’ll be back in the early afternoon.

RACE NIGHT

28th January At the clubhouse 7pm for practice Race starts at 7.30pm

The race is on! In teams of four, or

individually, we will be

racing tonight.

RESCUES

14th January 7.30pm at the Clubhouse Organiser: Jack Smiles

An evening devoted to rescues.

We'll cover throwline practice, typical rescues in moving water and the not so typical ones too!

We'll keep it practical and as dry as possible! You might find we slip in the odd scenario needing a bit of role play, but nothing too dramatic. Should be good fun and useful.

5


Regular happenings

WINTTER CLUB SESSIONS

AT THE CLUBHOUSE

ON SATURDAYS

17th January 31st January

14th February 28th February

2– 4 pm EVERYONE IS WELCOME!

POOL SESSIONS - FRIDAYS

8-9pm At the Frome Leisure Centre Cost £3.30 /£2.80

Restart on 16th January

WEDNESDAY EVENINGS

PACKED FULL OF ACTIVITES! ARRIVE 7pm for a 7.30pm START

At the clubhouse in the New Year

JANUARY 14th Rescues - Jack’s in charge 21st DVD night - Too High (see p13)

28th Race Night - kayak machines FEBRUARY 11th Quiz night (see p13) 18th Race Night 25th Annual General Meeting MARCH 11th Andy’s Talk 18th Coaches’ meeting 25th Refresher First Aid: Scenarios

CANOE POLO

AT THE POOL

8.30pm - 9pm Organiser: Jack Smiles

Two games a month: one is the contact game and the other is non contact. A good roll is an asset in the contact game because pushing in while tackling is allowed! The non contact game is good for inexperienced paddlers, both adults and young people alike.

Contact games Non-contact January23rd January 30th February 13th February 27th March 13th March 20th

6

CLUB SOCIAL


24th

January Our annual get-together for a social event

Adults £5, U-16 £4

Families are welcome

We don’t do dancing or games, we just chill and chat.

A buffet is available from 7.30pm and after that we celebrate

the successes of club members in our

Annual Awards Ceremony

Dress is quite informal.

Starts at 7pm ends at 10.30.

Food and soft drinks are included in the ticket price.

(Please bring your own alcohol)

Sign up on fb, or on the sheet, or email Pam

Ed: And one last thing! Those all important Copper Noseclip points have been duly added up for 2014 and will be revealed tonight! Where will you come? And who gets the Copper Noseclip?

See p12

for last

years

award

winners

mailto:[email protected]

7


News from the Committee

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

25th February 7.30pm at the Clubhouse 7pm for a complimentary drink

The AGM is your opportunity to hear what the committee did for you in 2014, and how we spent your money.

We vote in the 2015 committee, consider any proposals from the committee and then we listen to your views, good and bad!

Do come - the business part of the evening should take about 45 minutes and then we can mingle, chat and polish off the drinks and nibbles! (who let that cat in again?)

What has the committee been doing recently? John attended a British Canoeing Safety Management briefing last month and we have amended some of our procedures as a result. One of the things relates to procedure on Club trips and ‘next of kin’. So in the unlikely event we need to contact a parent or a guardian during the trip, we have introduced an simple system. When participants pay at the beginning of the trip, they just enter the phone details of the adult they would like us to contact. EASY! The trip leader then carries this information for the duration of the trip.

Club Mark Status and Top Club Paddle Ability. We have gained these two awards again, because of the way the club demonstrates its procedures and commit-ment to young people and to those with disabilities. Eleven club members attended a course run by British Canoeing recently and they updated skills and knowledge about how to help paddlers with disabilities.

What else has the committee done? Well, we have reviewed and updated our Development plan after we did a bit of ‘blue sky thinking’ in a recent meeting! See the new plan on the board at clubhouse, (or request one from Pam by e-mail).

See also p14 for a development about training on club trips.

8

Frome trip: 30thNovember


A NO-SWIM-FOR-JIM TRIP By Graham People arrived in dribs and drabs on this

rather dull and dreary Sunday morn-ing, hopefully ready to tackle the mighty River Frome. After the usual sorting, loading and checking of kit, we all set off for Oldford.

John was in charge today thus would get the blame if anything went wrong. The first to happen was at the start! Jim discovered he had left his helmet in the changing rooms. Well that was the last place he had seen it. Now, we all decided that due to Jim’s swimming record on previous trips it was wise for him not to go anywhere near the river without it. So Jack was delegated by popular vote, (the do-us-a-favour vote anyway), to go back and retrieve the helmet. He also got the bunny run. ‘Thanks Jack’ - I got out of this one.

The next move whilst Jack was roaring around the countryside, was to get everything and everybody through cow-muck alley, otherwise known as the field gateway, and across the field to the river. Here the muck was washed off everything from feet to paddles. Then followed a gentle and civilised launch, a rare situation for us.

It was a gentle and chatty paddle down to Lullington weir, the usual portage, then a bump and scrape out of the weir-pool and onwards to Beckington weir for a play on the stopper/wave at the bottom.

This was the site of the first three points of the day: Summer was follow-ing dad’s instructions on weir paddling when the points were collected. It all happened so quickly that it was hard to tell if dad had given the wrong instructions or Summer had got the instructions wrong. Who knows?

Clifford and Shawford weirs were in a good mood today, thus no mishaps for anybody. But the fun was about to begin at Scutts Mill weir (Ed: we com-monly call this one Woolverton weir). Andy V shot the weir and positioned himself as rescue boat for the others.

Dive! Dive! As someone so aptly put it on fb recently!

9


Frome trip continued

Now this is a weir that I personally have great respect for, as many years ago, back in the mists of time before poly and kevlar kayaks, a time when you could carry your kayak on one shoulder without gym training - this weir took 18 inches, sorry .5m off the front of my fibre-glass kayak during a trip. It took four evenings in the work-shop to fix.

Today a repeat performance was about to happen, but to John, not me. John shot the weir, dropped over the sill, nosedived straight into the weir-bed and that’s where he sat at a nice 45o-ish angle. It used to be called the hanging bottom position in the old days, rather more colourful language don’t you think?

Despite Andy’s rescue attempt John sat there just waiting for the ridicule. I didn’t disappoint him, though I would call it help and advice. ‘Nice one John’,

I called. ‘Got that wrong then? ’This encouraged him to get out of the situa-tion by rocking side to side until he dropped sideways into the weir-pool. He didn’t even get wet, and unlike me, his kayak only bent a bit due to modern materials.

Not to be outdone in the performance stakes, Mike got in on the act and collected three points here. You need to keep your kayak in a straight line on a weir shoot, dropping sideways into a weir-pool means either a good support stroke or wet hair.

From this point on all we had left was Rode weir and the arch at Langham, nothing to cause any problems then. Wrong! Mike collected three points by Scutts bridge. I missed this bit of fun though, as I was with the forward

Mike - is this the weir you swam on?

Summer - no problems this time!

10

Frome trip continued


Paddlers and Points Girls Summer V (3) Boys Jos M (3) Women Kath N, Pam D Men Alun J, Andy V, Graham W,

Mike H (9), Jack S, Jim R, John K, Rich C, Rich H and Stu M.

Ed Yes you chose a good title for your article Graham! Big Jim did have a lovely, points-free paddle today. And just to prove a point he did it again on the Dart Loop in December's trip! Great news Jim!

Below is Jim in said trip, in a canoe this time, and no swimming again!

group at the point. But not to disap-point, he showed me how to capsize below the bridge at Langham Farm. As did Jos who was playing here!

That was it then. The weather had got better as we paddled down. The sun even came out which was nice, especially as we all had to change in the open in the field at the finish. The water level was just right to avoid a rock bash but not enough to grab at the weirs. And there was the usual banter at the less fortunate en route. Thus all in all, it was a good Frome

trip, both club and river.

I’m not sure, but I think there may have been more points picked up but I missed them if it happened, though no doubt the points chart will reflect the truth as someone else deals with that.

Stu at Shawford Weir. Does he get three points next?

11


River Dart trip - 21st December

Pictures from the Loop section - Alex N

12

Last Year’s Awards


BCU / UKCC Awards

REC first aid course 14 & 15 Feb £125

2 Star Training 10 & 11 March £129

2 Star Assessment 23 March or on request £69

FSRT 13 April £69

UKCC L1 Coach 14 – 17 April £275

UKCC L2 Coach 27 – 30 April £275

UKCC L2 Transfer 6 May £95

Kayak Skills Coaching 10 & 11 March £69

Canoe Skills Coaching 10 & 11 March £69

Coaching the mind 12 March pm £35

www.dorsetforyou.com/woec

Our STARS at last Year’s Social Here are the people who won the awards in last year’s Social for their successes in 2013.

Ben Nicol Bayman Trophy

Jack Overhill Langham Farm

Trophy

George

McGiveron Volunteer

Summer Vowell Youth Cup

Janine Masters (now Mead)

Coach Award

Gareth McGiveron

Copper Noseclip

Jonathan Howell

Editor’s Trophy

Ben Trippick Best Adult Newcomer

http://www.dorsetforyou.com/woec

13


Bits and Pieces

Thank you Linz, for organising the Christmas meal at Whiterow Farm.

It was a really good night out! And gosh, don’t we all scrub up well!

Manoeuvre of the month (1)

’Twas on a Saturday club session in December when Jos offered to show us how to spin a kayak! Instead of going right to left, he went from top to bottom. Ouch - how cold was that? He did come up smiling though!

WE SO LIKED THE LAST ONE, WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN

QUIZ NIGHT

WEDNESDAY 11th FEBRUARY

AT THE CLUBHOUSE

IN TEAMS WE WILL PIT OUR WITS AGAINST EACH OTHER.

What am I?

I always run but

never walk.

I have a mouth but

never talk.

I always travel down

and never up.

All in all you can fill

me in a cup.

Answer on p15

Was this the best cracker joke from the Christmas Meal? (We all blame Stu!)

DVD NIGHT

WEDNESDAY 21st JANUYARY THE NEW DVD

Since we failed to get the DVD player to work last time, we will try again in January. This DVD is highly recom-mended - so we just need to find the zapper to make the DVD play!

14


Bits and Pieces

Manoeuvre of the month (2)

A vertical pin on Woolverton weir on the Frome trip, had this paddler high and dry and no where to go. Andy was there to help and said “I tried to unpin his bow but it was stuck fast. I had my hand on his end grab and pulled, to no avail. He was stuck. In the end he had to self rescue and swung his stern sideways to come off.” Phew! It was very nearly two points, John.

A new baby, Rory, born on 18th December

A little brother for Megan!

Good News! Our Top Club Paddle-Ability status has just been re-validated for another year.

River Access for All

Here is the latest from the campaign for River Access for All.

www.riveraccessforall.co.uk

Another thing from the Committee: For those newish to paddling - If you want to join a river trip but didn’t manage to get some moving-water training at the Tiverton weekend, you can join some of our other trips and sign up for some training. For example when we run the Dart trip choose the Lower Section for training. And generally if you want training on any river trip, we can do this: there is a section on the sign-up sheets to let us know.

http://l.facebook.com/l/YAQEYslu8AQER15qRKH0lc4KvBq-HafR6Hb1a8h9hLNbrmQ/www.riveraccessforall.co.uk/news.php

http://www.riveraccessforall.co.uk

15

Bits and Pieces


Newsletters: past copies can be found on the website and FROM NOW ON you will also find the current one there too!

Here he is in this month’s issue of

(the national British Canoeing newsletter), when he picked up the 2014 Volunteer of the Year award last October.

ANSWERS P 13. What am I? I am a river.

Last month’s GUESS WHO?

For the months of January and February, Frome Asda has chosen the Club to be one of the three charities that you can vote for with those little green tokens. The tokens are given out when you use your own bags. Please tell family and friends to vote for us!

George!

16

Canoeing and kayaking are “Assumed risk” – “Water contact sports” that may carry attendant risks. Participants should be aware of and accept these risks, and be responsible for their own action and involvement.

www.frome-canoe-club.org.uk

Check out the photos of club events on the website. And refer to the calendar for all the club activities.

Follow us on

facebook

CONTACTS

Chairman: Alun Jones 01373 823513

Vice Chair: Gareth McGiveron

Treasurer: John Kent 01225 765168 [email protected]

Secretary: Pam Dixon 07740 472982 [email protected]

Head Coach: Rich Carter 01373 864623

Youth Reps: Tracey Lemon and Stuart Miles

Volunteer Rep: Jonathan Howell Kit: Sally and Tim Smiles, assisted by Tracey Lemon

INDOOR KAYAK MACHINES

Two indoor kayak machines are here for us all to use through January and February.

Come on Wednesday evenings and do a 10 minute training to keep your paddling fitness in peak condition over the winter season.

The clubhouse is also open on alternate Saturday afternoons, so you could pop in and get some sneaky training in then, too!

2015 01 newsletter

Documents

club session

club social

club kit

details of regular club

river frome

frome trip

good trip

local trip