by Simon Hinnigan

Fairford and Lechlade are about to experience the once a year event when the barbarian hoards descend for the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford and terrorize the locals. With your help we can keep Bowmoor as an island of tranquillity when all around is going mad .

OK so they might not quite be barbarian hoards, and the levels of terror could be pretty low, but there will be a one way system in place, traffic queues in every direction and travel restrictions.  Every year we get strangers trying to come onto club grounds, sometimes worse for wear, and the club will be very, very busy.

As always, we’re going to prioritise for our members benefit and safety.  That does mean we’ll ask you to be extra vigilant, please read the section below about club rules and RIAT weekend.  Don’t forget your keys and fobs.  Don’t bring more guests than you are entitled to bring, due to the number of people on site we will need to turn away any excess guests (as has happened in previous years).

Under the Smoke Regatta – 20^th July:

On Saturday we’ll be running the annual RIAT regatta.  The format will be three handicap events (best two to count) with starts at 11:30, 13:30 and 15:15.  We’ll be prioritizing Sailors and the Race team in any queues for lunch so that they can get back on the water quickly.

Dogs at the club:

We’ve had an incident recently where an off-lead dog tripped up a member resulting in a doctor’s visit.  The club requires dogs to be under close control around the grounds, they must be on a lead around the club house, car park, powerboat sheds, race hut, deck etc.  Dogs must not be left unattended.  You must clean up after your dogs.

Dogs are not allowed in the club house when the galley is open except when the weather is bad.  For RIAT weekend the forecast is good so please do not bring your dogs into the clubhouse when the galley is open.

Club Maintenance:

We've had a very productive few days (it's Wednesday morning for me right now). I've just met with the Weed cutters and they have completed their cut across the sailing and swim areas.  They will spend today trawling the lake to gather the floating weed islands that cutting creates.  No matter how hard they try, there will still be some floating weed at the surface, but that will blow to shore over the next few days.

The electrical inspection is completed, as are the plumbing repairs and we've also finished extending the track through the boat park with a turning area at the end (this is not a parking area, please review the rules for car parking).

Many thanks to all the members who volunteered to make these changes happen, and in a compressed time.  Thanks also to the members who stayed away so that we could do this work safely.

The club and lake will be back to being its usual exceptional self from 16:00 today.

Looking forward to a very exciting weekend.

See you Friday,

Simon

P.S. if you're looking for a new wetsuit, Tom has just spotted that GUL have a 50% off sale right now https://www.gul.com/sale

This will be the busiest weekend for the club in 2024, and members tend to bring guests which means there will be a lot of new faces at Bowmoor.  To make sure that our members can really enjoy this fantastic weekend I want to remind everyone of our rules.

• You may invite up to 3 friends (or a single family from 1 address) to the Club on any given day, providing that the same guest is not invited more than 3 times in a calendar year.
• You must be present while your guest(s) are on site and you are responsible for ensuring your guest(s) comply with Club Rules and Guidelines.
• For insurance reasons, on arrival you must complete the visitors book for each guest; the book can be found just inside the front door in the clubhouse.
• All under 16-year olds must be supervised by a full adult member unless they are taking part in Club organised training activities. If in doubt, please contact the event organiser before the start of the event.
• Corporate/Group Membership does not include guests except for the purpose of the group membership. i.e. Scouts can bring other Scouts on site, but can't bring their family and friends.

Please do not bring more guests than permitted, we will need to turn them away.

We will be running a registration hour from 09:30 to 10:30 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the members bar so that you can sign in your guests and pay the overnight membership fee (£5 per adult per night).  Otherwise, come to the members bar when you arrive.  We’ll be providing a card for each visitor to put in their car.  We will be doing membership checks through the weekend.

Parking: As always, DO NOT park inside or within 5 meters of the boat park.  Do not block cruising section boats in the main car park.  Do not park within 25 meters of the western shore.

The Galley will be setting up an additional pop-up shop with extra staff for the weekend. The pop-up show will open at 9am Saturday and 8am Sunday closing 16:30 each day serving drinks and grab ‘n go food.  The main galley will be open until 19:00 for hot food (last orders at 17:30).  I want to thank Dave and Helen for the effort they’ve put in to set this up, it should make life easier for everyone.

As a reminder, the club house is for everyone.  Please keep it tidy.  Please remove your personal property when not in use.  For RIAT weekend, the members bar area will be restricted to the bar team only.  Washing up should be done at the outside sink.  If you use the club fridges, please label your food and take your leftovers home with you.  Please take your rubbish home with you.