Most Improved Slalom Paddler - Matt Whittle

Hasler Marathon Shield - Dave Barnes and Kate Jinks

Karan Porter award for most improved whitewater paddler - Dave Reevy

Swimmer of the Year - the Wavehopper K5 team of Ellie Barnes, Tim Bevan, Will Bevan, Marcus Whittle & Hayden Gauge

Comedy Moment of the Year - Dave Barnes & Kate Jinks

Open Boater(s) of the Year - Christine Barstow and Dorothy Haughton

Young Boater of the Year - Florence Whittle

The club also recognised the achievements of all its paddlers across many disciplines - Slalom, Marathon, Sprint, White Water, Open boating, Bellboating and Recreational.

Finally, thanks were expressed to everyone who has been involved in the club during the course of the year - through coaching, fixing things, driving people around to races and training events, organising trips, raising money, working on the rebuild of the shed or just through coming out and enjoying their paddling!!

The last one worked just fine so we’re not changing much and so we’ll split the evening into three chunks.

We’ll start from 6 with just an open social event. Like last time please bring along your own food and drink and enjoy sitting having a natter with friends and team mates. If you have Photos from any of the year’s events can you let Andy or deb know and we’ll try and put some kind of display together.

At somepoint in the evening we’ll move onto the awards ceremony where we
* Review all the good things we’ve got up to over the last year or so
* Bring you up to date with what’s going to be happening over the rest of this year
* Hand out a few awards for various things to deserving people

Finally we hope to be able to give you all the opportunity to get up and dance the rest of the evening away and work off your dinner - well it was either that or bring the Ergo along ! Watch this space for details.

Hopefully we’ll see lots of you  there on the 30th. Any questions or queries (or things you think I’ve missed out) then please give Deb or Andy a shout.

Midlands Duathlon Winter Series 2010

Dates & Times
SUNDAY 6TH DECEMBER 2009 - ANKER VALLEY
SUNDAY 24TH JANUARY 2010 - LEAMINGTON
SATURDAY 20th FEBRUARY 2010 - BURTON
SUNDAY 14TH MARCH 2010 - SHROPSHIRE

There will be an entry fee of
£4.00 per adult,
£2.50 for lightnings.

All races will start at 11:30 a.m. Further details from the relevant club contacts below.

The Format
A continuous Run – Paddle – Run over 3 different courses
4k Run – 6k Paddle – 2k Run (Div 1-6 on separate starts)
2k Run – 4k Paddle – 1k Run (Div 7-9 Paddlers)
1k Run – 2k Paddle - (Lightning Paddlers)

Points
1st place 20 points, 2nd place 19 points,down to 20th place where everyone after that scores 1 point.

Prizes
Prizes will be given for the first 3 places in each event At the end of the series there will be overall prizes for the first 3 clubs and first 3 competitors in each category.
NB: The overall prizes will be based on the best 3 results from the 4 races.

Entries
Entries can be made on the day or by email to the club contacts who are:
Anker Valley: Liz Franklin 01676 542705 liz.ef@btinternet.com
Leamington: Tibor Herbent 024 76592247 tibor@herbent.co.uk
Burton: Bill Lawrenson 01283 542324 bill.lawrenson@bcu.org.uk
Shropshire: Deb May 07747 535341 deb@shropshirepaddlesport.org

Arriving at 10am we warmed up by running around a football pitch then moved onto the water to practice a full length course which was split into three sections.

After an eventful lunch at Morrison’s when David Reevey was dissapointed with the amount of toast he recieved compared to Gari we headed back for the second session of the day.

In the afternoon we practiced doing staggers with using the option of doing them either forwards or with a spin or a back-off.

Everyone found the day useful and we were lucky enough to be able to use the club house at Stafford & Stone Canoe Club to get changed in.

The next moving water slalom training day will be at Stone on Sunday December the 6th meeting at Stone at 10am.

It would seem that we were not the only ones as the results show an unfortunately low number of entries and lots of consolidated classes.  Hard luck to all our friends at Trentham - as I said in my email to Phil, no-one expects blue skies and sunshine in November, but we’d like a reasonable chance of staying ON the lake Fingers crossed for better next year.

The BCU Marathon website is in an even worse state than usual at the moment (apparently they’re rebuilding it again) but the Trentham results are here

Anita and Gari were promoted to Division 6

Connor and Joseph were promoted to Division 6

Dave and Kate were promoted to Division 8

Congratulations everyone.

The race took place yesterday in very low conditions resulting in approx 5 lost rudder blades (Mick Nadal managed to lose 2 in the course of the race!) and at least one was badly bent.

However the SHP crew completed the 18 mile race in 2.56.26 and came 16th which is a very good result.  They were the only div 8 crew to enter in a field where most crews’ divisional average was div 5 so well done Kate & Dave!

Shropshire Paddlesport improved their result as a club for the 3rd year, this year finishing 18th out of 21 clubs. Bring on next year!

A few results to mention… David Reevey & Phil Bevan jumped up a number of divisions to compete in the Premier mens event! David finishing 18th/21 & Phil 20th - negotiating the course carefully on his 2nd run, not missing a gate!

Matthew & Florence Whittle both picked up a nice stone ashtray type prize for finishing top under 14 in division 3.

Will Bevan competed in the division 2/3 C1 & managed to get every gate on his 2nd run, impressive for his first time on moving water in a wobbly boat with one blade!

Marcus Whittle jumped a couple of divisons competing in Premier/1 C1 speeding to 15th/21

Cameron Lambert teamed up with Joseph Whittle in the C2, again their first time on moving water, finished 18th.

The mens team of Matthew Whittle, James Tomkins & Gari Sumner pulled off an impressive 2nd run, only picking up one penalty between them all to finish 10th/21.

Other non paddling events included limbo under a paddle (think Flo won this?), Human long jump (Marcus the winner?), Boules & Spinning around with your head on a chair then trying to run back in a straight line.

Stone 3/4 October 11th

Shropshire had a great turnout for this event - a national ranking event attended by over 150 paddlers, at Stafford & Stone Canoe Club - winners of this years Interclub championships.

As previously said - some impressive results were had:

Flo winning the Division 4 ladies & she would have also won the division 3 too! Marcus too in the same position winning division 4 by miles & would have been top in division 3. Joseph Whittle making a return to kayak for this event after his summer C2 spell, winning the division 4 men. All 3 Whittles being promoted to division 3. Will Bevan not to be outdone finished 10th/48 also gaining promotion to division 3. Phil Bevan finished 36th, unfortunately not only being beaten by one son but also his youngest Tim who finished a few places higher in 19th. Caroline narrowly missed a gate on her 2nd run finshing up in 13th.

Will also teamed up with Joseph in the divison 3/4 C2 getting it together well for their 2nd run for 3rd place. Gari & Anita narrowly missed out on a prize finishin 4th in the 2/3 C2.

Its now the end of the season for Slalom but watch this space as there’ll be the Stone winter series races comming up.

At Lincoln, Ellie came second in div 7 and Dave came second in div 8 - his first ever K1 race, and his first div 8 race.  Fortunately he wasn’t promoted otherwise Kate might have ensured that it was his last race ever.  It looks like Dave is going for the club Hasler trophy again - somebody please stop him!!!

(Results page now updated to reflect Lincoln results)

Re friends in other clubs, Sarah Walters (Burton) came 5th in her first div 6 K1 race and was the fastest woman at the event and Tom Lusty (Solihull) came second in his frst div 6 k1 race and got promoted to div 5.  We remember the days when it was Tom’s ambition to beat Kate and Dave with his parter Jenny Barber.  Go Tom!!

At Stone Slalom the club was very successful although I only have partial results.  Hopefully somebody who was there - and actually understands this spinny boat stuff - will write this up more fully.  Hoewever, I do know that Joseph Whittle came 1st in the men’s K1 event and third with Will bevan in C2 juniors;  Matt Whittle came 2rd overall by 0.3 of a second, Marcus Whittle came first by 30 seconds in his race and Florence Whittle got first out of all the the div 4 women.

Well done all!