Liverpool University Canoe Club

Cheers Tony and Kaylia for a top night out! If you have a fuller report, with actual gory details of who got chocolate handprints left where, then post it.

Hello, has anyone got a report on the Christie Cup? Especially any photos? Hooray that Liverpool won!

For now, you’ll just need to make do with the view from the enemy camp.

If you’re lucky, your easter bunny will just be some wiganese madman dancing round in a kilt. Have a good break guys, and see you next term! Remeber to put the important dates in your diary ready for some paddling over easter and in the new term. Important dates are

• WWSafety 31st March with Will,
• Scotland 5-9 April have a great time guys!
• Then BUSA polo the weekend just before term starts, i.e. 21, 22 April Cmon our teams!
• Then first Pool Session is Thursday 26th April, after which some nightclub disaster seems inevitable.
• First Excellent Trip of Term is a minibus to Slalom oughtibridge on the 28 29 April, suitable for all including beginners, see Medic Dave,
• Second Excellent trip of term Sat 5th May is Nev’s marvellous adventure to Angelsey-land, where there will be Whales and Mermaids. Or maybe just excellent surf, suitable for all, including beginners.

By Mary H and Martin

Committee Meeting Minutes 22/03/07

and here ladies and gentlemen are the minutes!
Items discussed:

Topics:
1. Intro Hannah Whitton
2. Kit
3. Trips and Dates
4. Courses
5. Miscellany

Committee Meeting Minutes 22nd March 2007

Present

• Vanny
• Martin
• Andy R
• Lloyd
• Rob
• Jimbob
• Phil
• Helen
• Medic Dave
• Laura
• Naomi
• Kim
• Nev
• Hannah Whitton

Apologies

• Cath
• Dom
• Lil Nic
• Tamsin

The Minutes

Topics:

• Intro Hannah Whitton
• Kit
• Trips and Dates
• Courses
• Miscellany

1. Introduction of Hannah Whitton

   New Sports Development Officer (job to assess club budgets, increase Liverpool University BUSA points, arrange sports scholarships)

   • Main Aim - Work with Bryan (Sports Centre Manager) to create a service agreement setting out the centre’s duty to us as a club.

2. Equipment

   Selling and Replacement

   • 4 boats have been sold (x3 Dancers, x1 Microbat) àtotal £124 to club funds (Woo back in the black!)
   • To Sell; Dancers (Blue), Vega Surf Shoe (Sparkly Green), One of the two C2s.
   • Suggested the latter could be replaced with a plastic version (£375ish for new fibreglass)
   • Ends to be removed from dead C1 to be resurrected for pool use [ANDY]
   • Method Air – is OOA but salvageable
   • Fibreglass polo boat – to be fixed by Dave Brown (£35) [ANDY]

   Pool Kit

   • Survey of pool boats required to assess repair [LAURA – now completed]
   • Pool Boats due to be stored in “complex” at poolside (arranged over the summer)
   • Long Term Aim = completely separate pool and outdoor kit and achieve better quality of kit!
   • New Polo Goals in the workshop – aim to be done by Easter

   Inventory

   • Complete Inventory of everything owned by the club needs to be done [LAURA + PHIL]
   • Identification of what the club is losing/damaging more of
   • Kit wish list can be derived from this for sponsorship purposes [refer to Dave]

   The Big Strap Debate

   • Purchase of x10 straps (+5m long) with “Liv-Uni” written on them [VANNY]
   • Suggested that Dom does rope tying master class as rope is free!

   Cath’s Points

   • Face guards on helmets by BUSA
   • Ade has worked his magic with most of the paddles

   Polo balls – £5 bag from clubs? - [ANDY]

3. Trips + Dates for the diary

   21st April

   • BUSA polo – we’re in there!

   27th April

   • AU Dinner
   • Launch of new sports organisation

   28th April

   • Oughtibridge; Sat/Sun [DAVE + TAMSIN]

   5th May – ‘Ghost Day’

   • Examtime……. [NEV]

   19th May

   • Poss to the Tees [ANDY]

   28th May

   • St Davids [ANDY]

   October – essentially a course of how to run a university canoe club à interest/organising?

4. Courses

   1st Aid Course

   • Ian Bell instructing
   • AU to pay?
   • Email to gauge interest [HELEN + MARTIN]

   White Water Safety – CST Qualifications [NEV]

   • Hannah Whitton suggested this could be built into next years budget
5. Miscellaneous/incompletely resolved points

Extra Polo Tournament (University leagues)

• To replace that cancelled on 18th April – TBA

Trip Reports

• Plea from Helen to submit them to the website

Roof Rack

• Needs to be removed to make space à minibus?

Talks

• Possibility to draft in Charlotte’s Himalaya adventuring friend

Guild Film

• Requested film footage of the club in action (To be taken from Aussie Dave’s stuff) [LAURA]

over and out!

BUSA polo is the weekend just before term starts.
Going to be an exciting BUSA polo - after winning Christie cup, high hopes of doing well this year, go teams!
For details of transport etc, or if you want to go along and support see Andy Rahoo.
In fact, rather than support, you could also play in the B team? See Andy or Helen (Cost to enter in B team = £20)

By MedicDave 

A quick summary from the 2006-2007 committee.

Who’s now who.

Information from Stuart Wade, the AU sport development manager.

There’s a committee meeting this Thursday- both the new and old committee are to attend.

Present: Vanny, Martin, Naomi, Laura G, Kim, Dan, Dom, Moley, Laura M, Dave R, Pete, Kaylia, Will, Nev, Rachel, Andy R, Phil R, Mary, Claire, Helen, Jimbob, Rob, Lloyd, Penny, Dinny, Cath, Stuart Wade
Apologies: Simon, Tamsin

Summary from the 2006-2007 committee
It was agreed that the committee for this year have been very supportive of each other and that it was overall a good year for the club.

Voting
No official voting took place as there was one person nominated per position. Voting consisted of a general agreement that everybody who attended was happy about the people nominated.

Elected
Positions for this year (nominations shown in brackets)

Captain
Martin Renvoize
(Dom, Kaylia)

Vice Captain
Andy Raho
(Martin, Claire)

Communications(Previously know as secretary but now called communications in line with the AU)
Mary Hancock
(Vanny, Dom)

Treasurer
Kim Porter
(Laura G, Laura M)

Polo Officers
Women’s team- Claire Peasley (Laura G, Andy R)
Men’s team- Nick Whitwham (Andy R, Mary)

Slalom Secretary
Tamsin Saxton (Andy R, Helen Hulme)
Nicola Smith (Helen Hulme, Rachel Walker)

Social Secretary
Phil Rutherford (Laura M, Jim-bob)
Lloyd Nicholls (Dom, Moley)

Equipment Officer
Laura Mercer (Laura G, Nev)
Phil Rutherford (Laura M, Moley)

PR (this role will now also include external sponsorship and club clothing)
Laura Gould (Cath, Laura M)

PR (for internal communications, which includes the email list and website)
Helen Hulme (Vanny, Will)

Ordinary committee members- OCMs
Dominic Clarke (Vanny, Martin)
Neville Cartwright (Martin, Will)
Vanny (Dom, Naomi)

Other Business
Stuart Wade, the Athletic Union’s sport development manager was at the meeting and informed those of us at the meeting what the changes that would be happening to the University of Liverpool’s sport scene.
In summary:

• 3 more full time staff are to be appointed, in addition to Stuart, to help manage the AU.
• The University of Liverpool wants to improve its sports in comparison to other universities, and will assess the improvement based on BUSA points
• The University of Liverpool will select a handful of focus sports, which will receive additional investment
• A scholarship scheme will be set up to encourage those that excel at sports to come to our university. The money (between £1000-2000) will go towards enhancing their sport through the buying of equipment etc.
• The fees to join the AU and a sports club will now combine, so there is only one cost to pay. This cost will be £25 for a student of the university, of which the club will receive £15.
• Each club must fill in a Club Development Form to further assess the needs of the club
• Each club must be open with non-Liverpool University with regards to entering competitions (such as BUSA) and that ultimately students at the University of Liverpool will take priority over non-students (for example, pool overcrowding).

Please don’t forget to attend the committee meeting this Thursday, 22nd March.

By Will

Saturday 31st March 8am meet at sheds 830am leave for paddling!! This course will cover defensive and offensive swimming, throwline usage, boat chasing, setting up safety and basic river leading skills. Open to everyone to come along and have fun in a safe river environment and probably learn some things as well Will

Hi just posting to remind you that the two biggest trips of the year are coming up - if you haven’t booked your place yet, then do it now - collar Will and Ade at the AGM or mail them

Scotland is Thurs 5th Apr-Mon 9th April with scottish burns, scary easter bunny (will), bunkhouse madness and swim-whiskies. You need to see Will, pretty much now, or sooner!

Alps (France contingent, minibus trip) is Friday June 8th - Sun June 17th and you need to see Ade. This trip to France is aimed in general at everyone, and involves paddling silvery water in the french alps in continuous sunshine - a somewhat different experience to blighty! (NB The subsequent “peaches trip to austria”, in individual cars, is just for the more capable people, chat to Will if you are interested in that extra week, but note that places are very limited.)

Both these trips are going to be great. If you are an, er, less confident paddler, then to get the most out of these trips, do try to go on as many weekend paddling trips beforehand as you can fit in. There will be rivers of various grades to suit all abilities, and the main aim is to get you paddling.

Note that Will is running a safety day in preparation for these trips, and in general for all of us to get/keep our safety skills up-to-date.

happy paddling

This was a hugely inspiring talk, big thanks to Fiona for driving all the way to see us and for sharing her pics and adventures. Great stuff.

Fiona gave us background of how she got into the sport, and of her experiences of testing out solo sea-kayaking on the SW coast of Australia. The surf there is something else. Which means that planning stopping-points involves finding the elusive micro-gaps where you can actually get to the beach or out again without being pulverised.

What would it be like to back loop a sea kayak …. full of equipment …. on your own ….. ?? Not a nice thought. You’ve got to find that gap and do it right.

Australia offers fascinating marine life, temperatures in the high 30s and amazing scenery all to yourself.

Next was the circumnavigation of… Wales. Its not an island? Someone should tell Fiona and her friend, cos they managed it.

Then for the main part of the talk: Circumnavigaion of Britain and Ireland. Two committing sea crossings, challanging tidal races and every kind of weather our islands can throw at a sea kayaker. Needs a truly determined mind-set and obviously some top notch sea-skills. A six month trip with plenty of challenges to take the place of the hassles of everyday life.

Thanks for giving us some insights into what is involved in such an amazing trip. What an inspiring talk!