Skills and Frills Weekend 2008
Click here for pictures of the day

IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN - Time to show off your boat handling skills and put your posh gear on. May bank holiday, what will the weather do? Going on past events I think we can guess.

A lot of boats arrived at Bablock on Friday night and people kept saying have you heard the forcast? Apparently Sunday is going to be bad with wind and rain. We’ll monitor the situation we said. However on Saturday the forecast was not improving in fact a severe weather warning had been issued for the south. Dennis and I had a discussion. Should we bring the competition forward to Saturday? But there are still people not here who want to compete. Lots of radio and phone calls made, where are you? when can you get here?. Another discussion but being the democrat that I am I let Dennis make the decision. OK let’s move it forward.

Now you’ve done it, lots of rushing about getting things ready plenty of tips from bystanders on how to bang a pole into the ground. Paul Hayes (Mister Pimms) took on the task of organising the judges who were Paul himself John Hawthorne, Nigel Stanton, hang on we need another one. Ollie will do it says Nigel You sure, yeh, yeh course she will, no hang on maybe I’d better check. 'Fait accompli' thanks Ollie.
Now we need an idiot volunteer to be rescued from the dingy. Joan doesn’t fancy the competition that means John Douse is at a loose end.

We had nine contestants in all. The first exercise of a classic mooring went very well for the most part considering it was quite complicated and Dave (Moppett) and Dennis nearly came to blows over it the previous weekend. The rescuing of the dingy also went well, luckily for John, only one boat tried to sink it and several tried to bribe him with cans of beer. As the afternoon went on I’m sure John was slurring his words and his head gear had slipped to a jaunty angle. The less said about the shorts the better. All in all most people seemed to enjoy themselves and everybody put in a very good effort. In third place was Just Julie second was Zaca and the winner was Moppett II with only 6 points separating all three.

Many thanks to all contestants and a big thank you to the judges for another successful competition.

And so to the evening. The pork roast went down well. A big thank you to Helen (John Bishop) for preparing all the salad and to those who helped carve and serve. John Douse (he gets everywhere) again managed to give us some entertainment. We had John on his base John Hill on vocals and his friends Steve on sax (can’t spell saxaphone) and Teresa on flute, our thanks to them. John also ran a game of bottle top bingo which was won by somebody from the Lechlade branch. There were cries of more, more but the Commodore (who loves bingo) said no, one game is enough. John Hill finished of the evening with an excellent disco. Wait a minute everyone - don’t peak to soon we’ve got to do it all again on Sunday night.

Although it rained Saturday night Sunday wasn’t such a bad day after all. Because we had already done the competition people were able to have a lazy day sitting out and socialising etc.
Posh gear on for the evening, the ladies looking lovely as usual. The meal was very good as was the entertainment provided by Seventh Avenue Express. Judging by the dance floor everybody enjoyed themselves with lots of good comments. Thanks to Bob (John Bishop) for organising the evening and to those who helped decorate the hall.

It rained again on Sunday night so a lot of boats left early Monday for fear of what the river was going to do but another successful weekend and all for £18 per head. On the subject of money the committee would like to thank you for supporting the raffles as the profits go into club funds which helps keep the cost of the events down.

Alan (Sea Chimes)