Gunfleet Boating Club News Letter-
September 2003
Firstly,
the serious bit…………
We
have at present 67 Members, made up of 14 free for life members and 53 paying
members. The 53 paying members are made up of, 10 social and 43 full members. TO
DATE I HAVE ONLY RECEIVED VALID INSURANCE FROM 14 FULL MEMBERS.
(
COULD
THE OTHER 29 PLEASE FORWARD A COPY OF A VALID INSURANCE POLICEY’S FOR YOUR
CRAFT TO ME WITH- OUT DELAY?
Please
comply with this request. I am sure you will agree that this is of utmost
priority to the safety and piece of mind of our children, family, friends and
other members of YOUR club. Don’t forget, as per the club rules, no insurance,
no launch.
All
the combinations on the locks will be changed on Sunday 21st
September. The new combination numbers are enclosed with this newsletter. Please
be reminded that, as a member of the club you are obliged not to give this
number out to anybody.
On
a lighter note….
Well
that’s it then……… Over seas summer holidays taken, money all spent at
the hotel bar/duty free shop, sun tans fading quicker that “Genuine” Ralph
Lauren shirt that you bought in Turkey for 4 quid, duty free cigarettes smoked,
addresses of people that you met on holiday and said you were going to stay in
touch with until your dieing day forgotten…but…
summer is still here and going strong on the Essex Rivera. Lets just hope
that the threatened lager shortage doesn’t happen, MY GOD…PERISH THE
THOUGHT!!!!!!!!!
I would like to extend a warm welcome to all new members and I am sure that all members and the club wish you all the best in your future nautical pursuits.
Also, I am sure that all members will join me in welcoming YOUR new committee for the Season 2003/2004(Notice of names to be posted in the club shortly, some very old faces, some old faces and some very new faces. I am sure that they will excel in their new roles and will do their utmost to promote YOUR club.
Forthcoming events at the club are the fireworks night, Children’s Christmas party, Adults Christmas party and for all you fisherman, fishing competitions. Dates for all of these will be in the next newsletter.
Recently, I was handed a newsletter from the club dated 1979. What a literal masterpiece. 7 pages long, double sided, advertisements, cooking recipes, jokes, and all produced with a typewriter (A copy of this will be posted on the clubs notice board). I can’t match that, even with a PC. However, what I can indulge you with is an extract from a book I am trying to write. If you like it, tell me, if you don’t, don’t (I’m a very sensitive person)
………..I edge cautiously in to the 1960’s decorated toilet that had probably only ever been cleaned prior to anniversaries, birthday parties and golden jubilees. The previous occupant had left a copy of a daily propaganda tabloid on the cistern. Once I was seated with all the comfort I could allow myself, I scanned the tabloid to see if a jubilee was imminent. F@#k it, just missed one on some atoll in the Indian Ocean.
After reading the back of the door, which included the once obligatory “this door/wall now available in paperback”, I did notice some teeth marks on the papers fold; tucked in to his mouth while he attended to the all important button and fly business? Or bitten due to the disappointment of the lack of a jubilee. I must be drunk, not for the fact that I was thinking these things, but not to have sufficient control over my mind to allow it to do what it wants. I didn’t mind too much about the recent loss of mine control. I was on holiday; to relax, chill out, indulge the kids and live-in lover in what ever they wanted to do for 2 weeks in one of the cultural capitals of the world…The Costa Del Sol.
It only seemed like hours ago we were all awoken by the loudest alarm clock in the northern hemisphere, who’s job it is usually to wake me from a coma like sleep to allow me to be up and away with all the other contenders in the rat race so I can come somewhere in the top 10 million at the end of the working week. Hold on a minute, it was only hours ago, about 18 hours ago. But something about its waking from the dead shriek was different this morning, it woke the kids. Now on a school morning, if Barney, the X men and all of the power rangers were having a ruck in the hall-way they would have turned over and returned to an easy and care free slumber as only sweet innocent children can do. But as I said, not today, they were up, dressed (a small miracle by its self for Jake) in their new holiday clothes that had been carefully laid out the night before by Katherine and excitedly running around like little terrorists, looking for the all important game boys and books for their trip to the sun.
They were hurriedly fed and bundled into the car. Right then, last check. Tickets carefully folded inside each passport. Passports. Jon Moss 37, Katherine Calcutt 28,Gareth Moss 10, Charlotte Moss 6 and Jake Calcutt 6. Well that’s all ok then. The right numbers of children from a previous marriage and the right number of live in lovers complete with her brood from a previous relationship. We managed to get to the end of the row of sea view properties that make up our road before I heard the sound that every driving parent dreads. Are we there yet? Now when you take time to thing about it, that’s one hell of a bloody stupid question to be uttered from the lips of even the smallest infant. I fired back with “yes, that’s why we are still driving”. Kath gave me a sideways glance, and then quietens down the little terrorists with a comment that there will be a special seat on the plane for the quietest child.
The trip down the well known A12 was uneventful and seemed to go much quicker that it does when I’m on my own, traveling to any one of the not so well known sewage treatment works I attend to carry out my work as a Site Manager. Not the most interesting of work after 13years, but it pays the bills and allows a good standard of living, even after the now almost normal and socially excepted maintenance payments and the obligatory payments to the ex. The figures of which were agreed in numerous court hearing by a Jurassic Park judges that had never even seen a glimpse of the real world in the News Of The World, let alone seen the real world with a side ways glance over the Sunday Times….£60 per month for hair do’s, £20 per month for window cleaning and so on. I ‘m glad we divorced when we did, although I’m not sure how I ever managed financially to give her a standard of living that I am now legally obliged to keep her in.
Our arrival at the off airport parking was equally uneventful and we were processed with the minimum of fuss, apart from “we can’t find your booking, have never heard of you before today, you couldn’t have booked over the Internet, etc… etc.” The kids sat on the cases waiting for the transfer coach like new recruits waiting to be allocated a seat on the boat camp bus. I’m sure that our kids, all-thorough they go to different schools, are bundled off to urban terrorist camps once a week to polish up on how to out wit your parents/ step parents, or more importantly how to get to level 78 of Mega Death 2057 on the dreaded/beloved Play Station with all their lives intact. I sit and ponder the thought of no early morning starts for the next 2 weeks………
Well well, well, another J.K ROWLING’S…or may be not.
Hope to see you all at the club shortly.
Cheers
Jon (mines the fast red ultra that had a Grone attached for extra stability) Moss