GGBC hosts Sport in Mind

For the second time Goring Gap Boat Club hosted a Waterside Festival for local charity Sport in Mind on a beautiful summer’s day. Sport in Mind started in Reading 13 years ago and now operates in many parts of the south of England, providing sports and physical activity opportunities to aid recovery from mental health problems.

GGBC volunteers supported the event by coxing and crewing the Charles Stanley boats, launching the canoes, paddle boards and Water Vole and providing teas, coffees and cakes for all to enjoy. The Waterside Festival provided the chance to enjoy a day in a lovely setting beside the river with the opportunity to try rowing, canoeing and paddle boarding. About 25-30 people came along and had a wonderful time on the river. And we saw an otter!

A wonderfully chilled-out few days in Wales

15 club members and friends spent 3 days yomping around, riding horses, lying in the sun, strolling along shining rivers contemplating but never actually swimming, cooking meals together and generally having a splendid time in the Brecon Beacons. All organized once again by Alison. Happy Days.

GGBC goes to the Seaside

The Coastal Barbarians Rowing Club gave 21 GGBC members an experience to remember in Studland last Sunday. Over 3 sessions, in singles (for the brave or just plain unlucky) and doubles for the rest, we splashed about in the surf trying to look like we knew how to row!

The weather was amazing and the beach packed with day trippers watching in awe as GGBC took to coastal rowing like the proverbial ducks to water. Or maybe like a bunch of yappy dogs to water, paddling furiously and trying not to cry or laugh hysterically as the waves threw the boats about.

We zipped across the bay and back, under Old Harry Rocks and back to the beach, surfing in on the waves, each of us swearing never to mind a bit of boat wash on the Thames again.. or some simply swearing!

Big thanks to Peter for organising 20 of us, herding cats with aplomb, and the Barbarians who were extremely supportive and hospitable. And thanks to Mel for the pictures.

It was a superb day out, helped by the weather, good company and a great experience all round.

Learning how to save a life

Eight club members took a great 2 hour First Aid course in the sunshine last Sunday -finding out what to do in the event of cardiac arrest or having a heart attack and practicing with the defibrillator which is an amazing piece of kit. It’s next to the first aid cupboard in Bay one if you are unsure.

Suzanne our instructor made it practical, talking in terms of real life scenarios and we all left feeling a little more empowered and capable.

One useful bit of information is to have What Three Words downloaded to your phone so that if you ever do have to ring the emergency services they can pin find you easily.

Suzanne will come back and run another course for anyone interested later in the summer. I can’t recommend it enough.

A Poem for the Coxes by Colin

GGBC – The coxes’ song.

Tricky Stream

That flicks you round

I’ve lost that heron on the corner

Plastic on his slimy post

Upstream turn right or risk a bang

Downstream turn left or mighty twang

Will gather you, your boat an’ all

In an embrace you’ll long recall.

Tricky days with tricky light:

That’s a bugger I can’t see

That hidden Eight and nor doest thee

Look where the lower margin of the trees

in winterbrown meet winter water…

………greeny-brown and black with silt;

Brown deadly reeds and good black earth

merge in the grey of Winterlight

In lifting fog and mist opaque in slanting springtime sun

There’s bugger all a Cox can see

but reference memory and so shalt thee

or damage safety and your crew’s morale.

Green buoy and hanging branch, weeping willow, creeping sallow

none of these deserve my verse.

Out there, there’s gorgeous colour.

Green yellow, chestnut brown and darkling blue, deep water’s friend

Or Rippling Blue from coach’s launch,

add reds to form our merging brown

That flows through banks of varied green

And if the light is right you’ll see

Reflecting yellow starpricks – water lily – fleckling on the darkling blue.

The truth you’ve guessed is in the birds.

Crested Grebes in mating dance, Kingfishers

owning chestnut brown in flight

Kingfisher blue in downwards strike

Gold in Goldfinch, other Yellow Starpricks, fleur-de-llys in bud,

White for Loddon here enfenced

The blacks and browns in white front geese and evil cormorants, not shags.

It’s all out there, outside the boat

My Cox’s realm, coxing GGBC

Alas, dear rowers, yours is watching me.

Colin Edgar, May 2023