2024/25 Membership Renewals.
A reminder that membership and boat fee renewals for 2024/25 were due by 1st April and if you haven’t renewed yet, please can you do so now. All 2023/24 memberships expired tomorrow (31st March).
The usual Renewal emails were sent out on 02-Mar-24 with your membership details and link to access your WebCollect account. If you can’t find your email also check your junk email folder and if it’s not there let the Membership Secretary know to send it again.
When renewing please check:
- your personal information on your WebCollect account and Dutyman are up-to-date.
- You are renewing the right membership category especially categories which have an upper & lower age limit.
- You have a Boat fee for all your boats sailed on the lake, whether kept at the club or not.
Some changes you’ll see this year are:
- Boat Insurance – all boats must be insured in accordance with Club rules (Club Bye Law 6). There is now a mandatory Boat Insurance field on the Boat Form to complete to confirm you have adequate insurance.
- Renewal payments – will be collected by Direct Debit (through GoCardless). If you renewed by direct debit last year, please remember our direct debits do not automatically renew and you still need to renew for 2024/25 through your WebCollect account and tick ‘Pay by Online Direct Debit’ to authorise your payment.
- New Additional Boat Space Fee – a new annual fee for members wanting an additional boat space above the normal allocation for their membership category e.g. a Single membership is normally allocated one boat space, and a Family membership two boat spaces. The fee for 2024/25 is £65, only one additional space can be purchased per membership, you still need to pay the £95 Boat Fee covering the Bristol Water Permit for each boat kept or sailed at the lake. The Boat Park Manager (Austen boatpark@
chewvalleysailing.org.uk alloc ates the extra space. There are a maximum of thirty-five available spaces at present.
Not-renewing? –please let us know if you’re not-renewing by completing this form: https://www.
Rosie Bowers, membership@
Lunch On The Lake
The first Lotl is scheduled for Saturday 06-Apr-24, weather permitting as usual.
Dust off those camping stoves, picnic hampers and thermos flasks, flex those anchor ropes and join us for lunch on the water from 12:30.
If you are new to the club and are thinking ‘what kind of nonsense is this?’ then just ask here, or for some general info visit https://www.
Club Duties Update
Once you are assigned (or volunteer for) a duty, please confirm that you are able to do it (or request a swap) on Dutyman as soon as possible after you receive notice of the duty.
Dutyman only works using email to send notice of duties and 2 email reminders (28 days and 14 days before your duty). It is not possible for Dutyman to send out text reminders to everyone automatically.
In theory you can set up personal reminders through push notifications on your phone by following the tab on dutyman “Sync with your phone” though there are a few steps to set it up. This also allows you to download your duties to your phone calendar.
If you aren’t getting emails from Dutyman, then you should sign in and click on the tab that says “Make sure you receive emails”.
If you are having difficulty logging in to Dutyman or still unable to get emails, please let me know
Thank you
Mark Dinwoodie
Duties Secretary
duties@chewvalleysailing.org.uk
New Showering Regime
Following on from recently introduced green measures such as the electric Rigiflexes, I am pleased to report that another bold new initiative has now been approved by the General Committee for immediate implementation.
Starting this week the club will be introducing a new Wim Hof showering regime that will involve the shower temperature being regulated to an icy maximum of 14ºC. Not only will this initiative reduce our carbon footprint and our heating costs by around £1000 per year, but regular cold showers following the Wim Hof regime have also been proven to boost the metabolism, promote healthy weight loss and increase general wellbeing.
Chew Valley will be the first sailing club in the UK to adopt the initiative and, maintaining our momentum, a second step will follow next winter with the installation of a freezing 2º C plunge pool to be installed off the end of the existing RIB pontoon. The pool will be completely enclosed to provide protection from the RIB traffic and will be available for all to experience the ultimate Wim Hof ice bath experience, with just a short dash needed from the changing room to the icy plunge before making the return journey, no doubt to raucous encouragement from the gathered throng in galley and club bar.
To see Wim Hof explain more of the benefits click here
New Information Videos
Damian, Jeff and the rest of the production team have continued to produce new information videos and 2 more are now available on:
- Use of the RIB radios and new trailers
- Use of the new Rigiflex Electric boats
The videos and the others on the site are a great way to learn and see how to use and operate things around the club and can all be viewed here
Committee Boat user instructions
I am pleased to report that we have now successfully restored the committee boat mooring, and also added a further sheltered mooring to the north of Denny Island in the vicinity of mark 2. The boat will normally live on the mooring in front of the club but we plan to move the boat onto the new mooring in advance of any forecast southerly storms, which are proven the greatest risk to the boats safety. Race Officers please take note and consider the forecast in the week ahead when putting the boat away at the end of the day.
The new boat is very easy to use but all club Race Officers should please familiarise themselves with the brief user instructions club bosun John Rogers has written, which can be view in the racing documents section of the website here
Advanced Rescue Helm Safety Course
Have you got your RYA PB2 and want to take the next step? Then the Clubs Advanced Rescue Helm Safety Course is for you. It is NOT an RYA course but is run by RYA Instructors using RYA techniques. It is the aim of the Club that all rescue helms will hold the RYA safety boat certificate or have completed this course.
It is one day, it is free and you get a certificate from the Club. We will show you the 7 methods of recovering people and a range of dinghies, a windsurfer and wing foil.
There are spaces on the course on Saturday 6th April and Saturday 11th May 2024.
We also need some helpers so if you don’t mind getting wet and want a free lunch please get in touch.
To book the course, or offer to help, please contact jeffstratford@btinternet.com
First Aid Course
We are running a RYA first aid course at the club on Saturday 8th June 2024. This is the full RYA course run by a RYA instructor, it covers everything you are likely to encounter on the water, it is a requirement for all instructors but in my view recommended for all water users, outstanding value at £30 including first aid manual and certificate. Please book via your Webcollect account.
Members Travels
March has been relatively quiet on the travelling front, but a few members have managed to get away to events both in the UK and abroad.
Firstly, our junior members made up over a quarter of the fleet at the Topper Open at Bristol Corinthian YC across the 5.3 and 4.2 rigs. Great to see Toby & James Colls, Anna Gribble, Leo & Ethan Griffiths and Dylan Pritchett all representing the club so well.
Tom Jeffcoate took a step back from his 505 speeds to step in to a Squib. With usual crew Mark Hogan they won the Broadland Regatta at Waveney & Oulton Broad Yacht Club, winning 4 out of the 5 races.
Ed Baker attended the 2nd ILCA Qualifier at Weymouth in the ILCA7 fleet, followed a week later by Giovanni Bianchi taking part in the 3rd Qualifierat the same location in the ILCA6 fleet. Meanwhile, Oli Allen-Wilcox was in Majorca at the U21 European Championships in the ILCA7, finishing 4th in the silver fleet.
Bill Chard and Josh Preater travelled to Grafham Water for the Ovington Inlands, achieving 2nd and 3rd place race finishes in the Flying Fifteen fleet.
Reports are sure to come in from numerous Easter weekend events, which will be covered in the next newsletter.
Club Racing Changes
The changes described in the last newsletter come in to effect from the start of April, so beginning with the Wednesday Evening practise race on the 3rd. These covered the shore based start line, introduction of PM sprint racing on Sundays and change in start sequences. I plan to get some notices printed and up in the Declaration Room to give the details if you missed the last newsletter and there will be tnnoy announcements to describe what’s going on to begin with.
Come and find me (James Williams) or our PRO (Adam Broughton) if you’re not quite clear on things. Updated documents are on the club website as well.
Coming Up
above: Weds eve Start line action
There’s loads of sailing and activities kicking off in April. I can’t list it all, but some of the highlights are:
- Wednesday Evening racing kicks off with the practise race (18:30 start) on the 3rd, with the series proper (19:00 start) beginning on the 10th. This is our most popular series and (as with all club racing) is open to all. The galley and bar will be open on all Wednesday evenings with racing, so come and break up your week in the best way possible!
- Both adult and youth sailing courses kick off in April, with RYA Level 1/2, RYA Stage 1 and Chew Crew all fully subscribed.
- Lunch on the Lake and Lake & Cake both have their first session of the year this Saturday (6th).
- Two of the club’s fabulous trophies are up for grabs this coming Sunday (7th), with the John Jarrett Trophy in the morning (all in handicap) and Commodore’s Cup in the afternoon (70% pursuit).
- CLADS have their first weekly session on Saturday 27th and they are always on the lookout for helpers. Do get in touch if you would like to help in getting CLADS sailors on the water.
- This and more of the other usual activities
Andy Jones
Commodore