This is what it looked like today:
Frozen Basin
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Category Archives: News
Saturday Paddling and next Pool Session
Just in case you have been indoors for the last few days, the canal is frozen and there will be no paddling at the club tomorrow!
A small team are racing at the Barrow event in the morning.
There is however a Pool Session on Tuesday at the President Kennedy 7.45 to 9.15- details on the website. The new fees are £5 per head to cover the pool hire charges.
2012 Fees
At our annual meeting held on 28th January we agreed some minor changes in our fee structure, effective immediately. This is to reflect the various increased costs we are facing in 2012.
In brief, the annual membership fee for adults is increased by £5, while that for children is left unchanged. The visitor’s fee (payable by non-members only) for adults is increased by £1, while that for children is left unchanged.
Boat storage fees are left unchanged.
Pool session fees are now £5 for everyone.
Annual Meeting
A reminder that we will be holding our annual meeting on Saturday 28th January at 3 PM, so we will be closing the club a bit earlier than usual and decanting to the Canal Basin Committee Room upstairs. All paid-up members are welcome to attend!
The committee members will be reporting on last year’s activities and finances, and discussing what we should be doing this year, so feel free to come along and have your say. We will also discuss the membership and visitor fees for 2012.
If you don’t wish to or are unable to attend but have something you want to say, feel free to drop us an email ahead of the meeting.
New Year Trips
The first trip of the New Year was a not too difficult paddle on the Severn from Newtown (Powys) to Abermule – around 5 miles with one portage around a lethal looking weir but generally- Grade 1-11 with some flat. The river was suitably high and Andy took his Canoe onto moving water for the first time. One lesson – always bring some spare kit, which we did! You don’t get far without a deck on moving water.
Our next outing was to the Dee. Not the classic Town Falls and Serpents Tail but a more modest venture from Llangollen to Ty Mawr Country Park. Starting below the Town Falls, going through Trevor Rocks, a relatively easy grade III, we paddled under the impressive aquaduct. It was cold, very cold and we appreciated the sun. Less important things were left behind today, just a coat. It was a long walk out and up from the river. See Nigel’s Post for more info.
Is It Flashing?
… was what I kept asking people about the strange object attached to my helmet.
That’s because Sunday’s trip to the Dee below Llangollen (Matlock was cancelled due to a fishing competition) also marked the début river trip for the new club camera, a GoPro HD Hero 2, and I needed constant reassurance that it was working! Worried about the adhesive pad on my helmet coming adrift, I had stuck a bright orange “floaty back” to the case, and improvised a leash out of an old pull cord. Belt and braces. As it turns out, it was fine, and the water wasn’t fierce enough to provoke one of my periodic inspections of the river bed with my head. Although it would have given an interesting new perspective.
Paddlers for the day were myself, Nigel W, Jo, Tim, Nick, Adam and Aaron. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, but it was rather cold! Fortunately, everyone had brought pogies apart from Nick, who wished he had. At some point (honestly!) I will get round to editing down the 90 minutes of video (I wanted to see how long the battery would last) to something worth watching, but in the meantime I’ve grabbed a few frames to give a flavour of the trip – these are in the photo gallery. Here’s a selection:
Festive Frolics
I was hoping that somebody else (he knows who he is!) was going to write this post, but as he hasn’t, I’ll have to do it. Just don’t expect it to be very jolly.
Some people decided to dress up their boats for Christmas. More pictures in the photo gallery (thanks to Mike Beaumont for the photos). There are rumours that next year’s display will involve Santa’s sled being towed along the canal by a herd of reindeer-kayaks…
Bah, Humbug!
Cold Basin
The club recently agreed to take part in two short films about Olympic sports that you can do in Coventry. Members put on a short demonstration of the slalom and flat water racing disciplines and gave interviews to the film crews. The slalom poles have a woodworm problem! It was a cold but sunny day and most of us felt like penguins at the end of an unusual day. I have since been told there was a problem with the sound recording..whoops!
[I've changed the title. It wasn't really frozen. That means ice. It was merely cold. And now I've got a picture of the basin actually frozen, which I've imaginatively titled "Frozen Basin" (njp)]
Barrow Series – Event 1- Dec 18th
A small team of Mercia Paddlers took the honours with a second (Laurence) and equal third place (Mike and Nigel) on the Barrow river race. It has a narrow twisty start and follows a flat back loop of the River Soar, north of Leicester. The course is only 15 minutes and we hope to get more paddlers there for the next event on Jan 14th. You can paddle any boat you wish, as long as it has no rudder. I overtook a coracle! Start and finish is at a pub!
Avon Descent 2011 Photos
I’ve added the photographs I’ve been given to the gallery. If you have any more you want added (directly, or via an external link), let me know via one of the contact email addresses.