The guests at the 89th Christmas breakfast had to stay at home and make their own breakfast this year, here are some of the glorious results.

As mentioned in my last post, I intended to keep the tradition going albeit with a smaller guest list…. in this case only my household ….So we packed everything up and got down to the HQ early(ish) today, the Sunday before Christmas… And followed all the HQ Covid rules 🙂

During the morning I received a number of photos from 14th Richmond members and supporters, showing their own personal Christmas Breakfast.

Although my last rather depressing post indicated that I could not run the Christmas Breakfast this year, which would have destroyed an almost 90 year continuous run, the Group even met during the second world war, and also while still building the old HQ.

But… my wife had a brilliant idea, everyone could have a 14th style breakfast fry-up at home, photo the results and send them to me. I could the create an on-line collage/gallery to show the Breakfast still took place.

I plan to go down to the HQ and raise the flag on the day (photo will be provided) and you will be glad that my annual report would have been strangely empty this year… so nothing missed there! So please join in and have your own 14th Richmond Christmas Breakfast at home on the Sunday before Christmas. 9:30-10am start and don’t forget your irons.

Send me a picture on BoatingCentre@RichmondScouts.org.uk

And for reference the menu is below (with translation)… though feel free to add your own twist or interpretation.

All the best Trevor

• Leaky  coracle with port light – Grapefruit or melon with red cherry

• Salty thwarts – bacon
• Stranded jellyfish – fried egg
• Torpedoes  – sausages
• Barnacles – mushrooms
• Duck boards – fried bread

• Fenders with grease – roll with butter
• Cods eyes  (covered) – mince pies

• Bilgewater – tea
• Anti-fouling – coffee (with/without..rum) 

Sadly there is no way we can run the Christmas Breakfast reunion this year – first time in almost 90 years 🙁
This would have been the 89th Breakfast, and the beginning of the 14th Richmond Centenary year.
Hopefully we can make up for this in 2021.

I wish all our supporters a Wonderful Christmas and All the best for 2021
Trevor

Sad news, one of the great characters on our stretch of the river (Horse Reach) has passed.

Francis Spencer owned and ran Hammertons Ferry which crosses the river at Marble Hill Park.

Francis was a great friend of the 14th Richmond Boating Centre and would always give us a cheery wave as we navigated Jubilant or other boats past the ferry, perfectly understanding that we had novice crews and therefore with limited manoeuvrability. Francis also was game to offer his experience when moving or towing boats down river.

He will be missed by us all.

Picture from Instagram page.

I was worried that we could not inspect the moorings again this year, in 2019 the river flow did not drop much below 150cumecs, and the level even during the draw off remained high, this year we had similar conditions, however on the last weekend of the draw off, the flow rate finally dropped marginally below 100cumecs. The river level dropped significantly, but still about a foot of water over our moorings.

I thought… Good enough!… and with Colin’s help checked out the chains and put four new ground anchors into the river bed and laid about 30m of new chain, and untangled one of the pendulum risers.

Was very pleased to have done this, although it was pretty chilly wading in the river in November and the riverbed is very tough (old concretions of mussel shells) to screw the ground anchors in.

Colin and I rechecked the moorings the following weekend, at high tide, and everything seems to be in the right place, and solid. So good for another few years. We still have a couple of new mooring buoy risers to put into place, and have ropes looping the ground chains ready to fit when I get a new supply of chain.

Overall a satisfying job, and thank you to Colin for the support and the photos.

While doing my weekly HQ and moorings check, I decided to have a mini Remembrance Day event on my own.

Remembering …. my Uncle, Gordon Hall, who was an aircraft navigator and died in Italy aged 19. He was one of four boys, with Peter (spitfire pilot) Kenneth (Army logistics) and Geoff (my father) .
Gordon was also a Leader in the 14th Richmond Sea Scouts, the training centre I am now proud to run, his name is on the wooden plaque in the HQ..
We have a Thames Watermans Cutter named after him.

Hi All,

We had another visit from a great team from the Good Gym who completed sanding (flatting) the Boat Arch doors, and applying a second coat of teak oil. So now looking as good as new and ready for the winter. I cannot thank them enough, I have been wanting to get this done for over 6 months now 🙂

On another note, the rules for activities under government advice for COVID-19 are continually being adjusted. Our latest Risk Assesments (registered wit he Scouts) are on our Important Documents page.

Finally the annual Richmond Lock “Draw Off” will be

be Monday 9th November to Friday 27th November (see PLA notice)

I will need some help inspecting and maybe re-laying the Scout mooring chains assuming the river does not flood again.

Trevor

Firstly , sorry for the long delay since the last posting. I have been very busy in my “day job” as the the company I work for was acquired by another … and there is a bit of American “Right Sizing” going on :-/ … So a lot lot to do in reforming teams and calming nerves.

Anyway back to more interesting stuff… we have been hard at work creating Risk Assessments for boating an hte HQ to allow us to restart activities, though sadly, this is not going to be fully deployed till we would normally cease river operations for the winter. All our main events, May Fair, Scout Water Activity weekend and the Great River Race were cancelled, so the centre is ticking over with general maintenance on the building and the boats to keep things in a state of readyness.

The outboard on our support boat Robin Rescue, has been serviced and is now running well again, and the workboat Robin Arundel has a new rudder after an accident by the boat hire business damaged the old one.

Our Centre Secretary (also a Robin 🙂 ) has been hard at work and has created ,and submitted the boating Risk Assessments and “Method” guidance to the Scouts, which has now been accepted, and will soon be on our “important Documents” web page.

The Magistrates rowing Club, The Bench Blisters, have already completed their boating Risk Assessment, and have been running some gentle outings in our Skerry Fan Maker (with reduced crews and during slack tides only)

Finally a group of enthusiastic volunteers/runners from the Good Gym (see link below) have sanded and repainted our boat arch doors with teak oil. I really wish to thank them , they are a great organisation focused on running to keep fit, and then doing a charitable task. their report and more can be seen on their website. https://www.goodgym.org/reports/splashing-on-the-teak .

That’s all for now

Trevor

I have fixed the fire alarm fault – A sensor had failed, so I have replaced and tested it. Please let me know if any other faults or alerts sound or are displayed on the Fire alarm panel or the burgler alarm.

I have checked and bailed the boats, and replaced the loose cover on Fan Maker which is now on the swinging moorings.

Trevor