Club news
Chairman’s Report for Penrith Canoe Club AGM – 1st Dec 2017Queen’s Head Pub, Tirril. Combined with Christmas meal/social
- Now into our 6th year as a club and as I said in last year’s report, still growing!
See folder of press articles.
- Currently around 40 members, mainly due to a large influx of scouts, who have joined after Luke & Morven’s sales drive. Therefore 1st Award of night goes to Luke & Morven as “Most Successful Sales reps” (This year, they are Ball Awards)
So let’s look at last year’s achievements :-
- Ladies First – In fact the Ladies team did come first, in the Ladies Div2, under the guidance of Hilary, who gets our 2nd Ball Award (good for training up your kids – got to think of the future).
- Penrith A team won National Div 4 North and were promoted to Div 3. So next Ball Award to Chris as team organiser…….
- A similar Penrith A entered Regional NW&C Div 2 for the first time, and came a respectable mid table in their first year. Jack organised that team.
- Penrith B team entered Regional NW&C Div 3 and also came a respectable mid table.
Hopefully this is the beginnings of a team structure that allows people to progress and gain tournament experience at appropriate levels, but more of that later.
All these successes have definitely been contributed to, by the extended pitch and time on the water, that training at Ullswater Yacht Club in the summer has allowed. The yacht club are very supportive, the air is clean, the water is fresh and there are no time restrictions. We don’t really understand why we get less people coming down there in the summer, than to the pool in the winter?
This training and the new Tuesday night training that we’ve started for team members, as a pilot, this autumn, have been largely driven by Jack & Dan, so well done to them, Dan’s here, so a Ball Award to him. (sorry Jack, got to be in it to win it!)
When discussing training and improvements, we have 2 prestigious awards that we award annually for the most improved player. In the Junior Category, it was a close run thing, with 2 very strong candidates, but for shear commitment, coming every week from way up in the hills, arriving at the club as very much a novice, and now coming to the second pool session, playing for the B team and also going along to the GB development squads, resulting in a huge improvement over the year. The award goes to James……
However, with similar commitment, training with the adults all summer at the yacht club and displaying a huge improvement in confidence, we want to give a special mention to Rhys (& also a Ball Award to aid his practice)…….
In the adult category, again showing real commitment. Always focussing on the training drills and ever keen to learn new techniques, which has resulted in a significant improvement, & again, playing for the B team, the Most Improved Adult Award goes to Ryan……..
With all this emphasis on improvement, as a club, we have definitely moved up at least one more notch this year, if not more. Both Katie & Caitlin represented GB U21 Ladies at the European Championships, coming 4th. (applause!) Then also along with Morven, Luke & Joe played in the Junior World championships in Belfast, with the various GB development squads. All this resulted in Border News running a piece, filmed at the yacht club last summer. Excellent publicity and further cementing our place on the canoe polo map.
Katie also played at the European club championships in Essen, although with FOA Ladies team, and Jack played in Belgium at the Depaddle tournament with a combined Red Rose team. So…..quite an international representation this year!
Then although he’s been keeping it quiet, Jack has just been invited to train with the Men’s GB team. Fantastic achievement– I think that tips the balance. He needs another ball for land training! (Ball Award).
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As a club, this year, we entered all the summer open tournaments.
In Liverpool, there weren’t enough teams for Div 1, so they mixed them into Div 2. We were therefore given a proper lesson in top flight polo! In other words, a trouncing!
In Hull, we entered 2 teams, in Div 2 and Div 4 and had a good social weekend. Great event. Book your place next year.
In London, we again entered 2 teams and according to Hilary played our best polo of the year, by actually following the plan!
Also of note, is the fact that we won the Tiger boat trophy back again this year. 3 wins out of 6 years is pretty good.
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A new development this year, has come from Twill, who has started running some rivers skills sessions and linked in with the Cumbria Canoeists sessions. He’s also been running general kayaking skills sessions on the lake in the summer, although I’m not sure developing Luke’s play-boating skills was such a good idea!!!? However, I’m sure Twill is keen to develop that side of the club further, so talk to him if you’re interested.
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Each year, we often have a fun award about who got the most referee’s cards. Well, Katie managed quite a significant one, but as the general feeling is that she shouldn’t have got it, and she’ll want to forget it, we’ll ignore it, so instead, we’ll go for quantity, which was clearly Connor. However, he’s moved back to Tees Tigers, so we should get more free shots from now on, playing against him!
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We also have given an award for the loudest spectator, but we can’t have Brocky winning it every year, so this has got to be a challenge to the parents and supporters of all the new members to get cheering! There’s prizes to be won!!!
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So that’s last year, but what about the future:-
This year, we are entering the A team in National Div 3, having got promoted and Reg Div 2.
And Regional Div 3 again with the B team.
There is no ladies team this year, as they’ve all moved away or started playing with other teams! So, we need to start now, building the female side of the club, as we have become a bit male heavy. There’s a possibility of running some women only sessions, on Saturdays in the new year. Any other ideas about encouraging women would be helpful.
There are 3 Cumbria tournaments planned so far for this season, the first was last weekend, the next on Jan 27th in Kendal and one in April in Barrow (outdoor). We also need to work on how to run one in the summer at the Yacht club, although a lot of weekends are already taken up with the summer open tournaments.
Talking of Cumbria tournaments, we didn’t actually award the Novice trophy last Saturday, so here it is now. It was a mixed team of Penrith and Duddon players, but our Penrith players can share it till the next Cumbria Tournament. (Brodie & Rhys?)………
We currently have a reasonable club team structure, but want to develop it, to give a clearer progression for players to work their way up the teams (and then back down when you get to my age!) In particular, we are really keen to get a youth team into tournaments and leagues if they run, as we have a really strong bunch of youths at the moment!
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In terms of club weekly Mon evening sessions, we are currently full to overflowing. So much so, that players in the second session only get a half hour of polo each, and the first session is quite overcrowded. There are several solutions to this on the table, which we are looking at:-
1, A second club night. The problem here is finding another night when we can have 2 hours of pool time. This will obviously be easier in the summer at the yacht club, but is a problem right now.
2, To split the Mon eve pool time into 3 sessions of 40 mins, instead of 2 hour sessions, so we have a beginners session, to teach basic kayaking and polo skills, a developers session, to teach and develop polo tactics & skills, and a team players training session, to push standards. We would have 3 squads of people who attend the different sessions and we tell people which session to attend and when to move up to the next session.
Comments? ………..
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So, as a whole, we have a healthy club membership and strong pool attendance, which means we are financially secure. We’ve kept the fees the same for the last few years and have built a bit of capital. Nobody, likes collecting and recording money, so again, a big thanks to Jonathan for doing the treasurer job. And after that goal on Saturday, there’ll be no stopping his training, so we’re Awarding a Ball to train with!
As a committee, we don’t see the point of a healthy bank balance. The purpose of the club is to play polo, so we’ve decided to start building up a set of composite boats to keep at the lake as well as the pool ones. We sold the heavier plastic boats, that we started the club with, and have ordered 3 new DB Hydro composite boats. We intend to keep adding to this stock and will try to get different makes and models, so players can try them out, before they buy their own. We’ve also ordered a few new paddles. The job of maintaining the boats and paddles is certainly a growing one, so again a big thanks to Brocky for doing that job…..and so to make sure he develops the famous ‘Brocky Pass’ into a more controlled one, here’s a Ball Award to train with……..
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Club Profile and team/club pride has always been something I’ve pushed from the start.
[I hope you get chance to look through the file of press articles which I brought along].
It definitely makes a difference, when we apply for grants etc. However, sometimes getting people to write the articles is harder than getting year 9 to do homework! So, please all chip in. You don’t have to write much, just a few words and a photo. Keep the club profile high.
We’ve also ordered a bit more club merchandise again this year and some more rashies. The team organisers are keen to push everyone wearing blue rashies (team colours), to give that confidence and team pride, so we ordered a few extras if anyone wants one. We can always order more!
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So with all that to look forward to, we need a committee to organise and manage the club, so the only formal part of this agm is to elect those people:-
I have been club chair since the start and have asked every year, if anyone wants to take over. I’m happy doing the job, but feel that for the long term benefit of the club, the chair shouldn’t become so fixed that no one dares challenge the role. To that end, I am going to stand down at next year’s agm. I don’t want to do it suddenly, because I want the club to continue to thrive and develop, I therefore propose we have a ‘chair elect’ to work with me this year and take over next year. That seems to work well for AMI.
I’ve had one person put their name forward, but am aware of the problems of communication, despite having email, facebook, website and a noticeboard! So, does anybody want to or know anyone else that would like to, stand for this role or any of the other committee roles?
(in that case, I (Tim) nominate ……… Chris Archer as ‘Chair Elect’ to work with me & take over next year. Seconded Jonathan Stables)
Could we have proposers & seconders for :-
Me (Tim) as Chair this year:
Treasurer : Jonathan
Secretary : Andrew
Coaching organiser : Dan
Team A Regional Div 2 organiser : Jack
Team A Div 3 National organiser : Chris
Team B organiser : Brocky
Ladies Team organiser : Hilary
Youth team / rep : Luke
Website and communications: Chris
Welfare Officer : Paul
Social secretary/organiser : ?
“Here’s to another good year! Let the fun begin!”
[Christmas meal. £15- 2 courses, £20 -3 courses. About 30 people coming for meal.]
Games
- Block/Shoot (head or tails)
(give out the 12 days of Christmas words, people make up actions etc)
- Rapido with ‘playdo’.
(words: kayak, paddle, goal, BA, 3&1 defence, pass, referee, penalty, supporter, star(attack), shot clock, water bottle, helmet, spraydeck
- Sing 12 days of Christmas with actions!
(drink up and move glasses out of way!)
- Indoor snowballs.
( Team of ~10, sat in 2 rows, facing each other with balls and bucket at one end and shooter at other end. Balls passed down line, criss crossing to end person, who shoots. When they score, all team moves round one, so new shooter. 5 min time. Team with most in bucket wins.)