These days, it seems, everyone needs a ‘mission’.  Even Wormit Boating Club & Watersports Hub, not an organisation known to slavishly follow convention, has one: to be ‘an inclusive, community-driven organisation that inspires participation, wellbeing and lifelong connection to the water’.  Pretty good - if perhaps, a little earnest - but how do you even start to actually accomplish such a mission? How do you inspire a ‘lifelong connection to the water’?  Well, one thing you can do is put on an Open Day. Which, on a promisingly bright and bracing Saturday morning in mid-May, is exactly what the Club did.

Months in the planning, this year’s Open Day drew support from every part of the Club, with sailors, rowers, powerboaters, kayakers, paddleboarders and swimmers all volunteering their time and energy to provide our anticipated visitors with the most fun-filled and action-packed day possible.  As the date approached, anxious eyes were cast at the skies for a sign that the recent changeable weather would settle down enough to create a suitably benign window of opportunity; not too windy for rowers and paddleboarders, not too calm for sailors, not too hot, not too cold.  As things turned out, the 16th of May was, as they say, ‘just right’, with the Club finding itself, like all the best planets, smack in the Goldilocks zone.  The weather thus arranged, all hands turned to some final stage-setting, with dinghies rigged, skiffs and safety boats launched, kayaks pulled out of their eponymous shed, paddleboards inflated, safety barriers set up, and signs and notices posted.  Chief safety ninja Andrew buzzed about in RiB Vigilant laying a cordon sanitaire of buoys to ensure that no powered craft strayed too close to the beach, and flags were hoist aloft.

At the same time the clubhouse was a veritable hive of activity, with tables sagging with home baking, kettles boiling, a vast array of raffle prizes arranged to maximum tempting effect with, as is traditional, booze at the front (adults only obvs), scented candles in midfield and with 0.0% gin and re-gifted biscuits tucked away at the back supporting the league.  Actually, there were some brilliant raffle prizes, including vouchers generously donated by local businesses including Shoreline, Fig & Fromage and Sutherlands, all contributing to the fundraising effort on the day.   Out front, a crack team of barbecuers (barbecuists? barberistas?) fired up the barbie and contemplated the biblical task of feeding the five thousand, albeit with burgers and buns in lieu of loaves and fishes.  As the first visitors started arriving, mostly on foot or two wheels, Dave, AKA The Enforcer, sporting his signature hi-viz vest, was soon in action, deploying a characteristic combination of guileless charm and barely-concealed menace to persuade would-be parkers that it really wasn’t in their best long-term interests to challenge his authority.

Soon Woodhaven was bustling with families all keen to have a go at as many of the on-offer activities as possible. Richard and team oversaw the rowing taster sign-up process ahead of Ralph and his shore party getting them into skiffs Catalina and The Flying Boat while Nick matched RiB riders with their buoyancy aids, before experienced helms embarked them for the adrenalin rush of a wind-in-the-hair trip downriver and back.  The sailing team, similarly slickly organised, maximised their taster-count by redeploying their craft to the long slip.

In the clubhouse the raffle team were busily selling tickets before moving among the throng outside, falling like falcons on those who had not yet bought a strip of tickets; with so many raffle prizes on offer, it really did feel, as Erroll and the boys of Hot Chocolate once claimed, that Every One’s a Winner.  As the tide rose to its full height, the sun, lately peeping coyly from behind some persistent clouds, decided it was time to come out and complete the festive scene now playing out: RiB Roy taking over fun-ride duties; the RNLI and HM Coastguard arriving in style; taster sailors and rowers getting a feel for what the club has to offer; swimmers, some of who had moments before abruptly and unexpectedly stopped being paddleboarders and kayakers, splashing about off the beach under the watchful gaze of the kayak team; barberistas Chris and Don doing a roaring trade in burgers; and the galley crew doing the same with home baking, cups of tea and thirst-quenching soft drinks. All under the watchful gaze of OOD Craig from his eyrie in the racebox.

As we know, all good things come to an end and so the afternoon drew slowly to its conclusion, with contented – if in some cases now quite damp – families making their way home for tea while the happy band of WBC volunteers cleared away, returned dinghies, skiffs, RIBs, tables, chairs and everything else back to its proper place, pausing to reflect with a warm glow of pride on a job extremely well done.  Thanks to brilliant organisation by Evelyn and her small planning team, delivered by a large contingent of Club members and without mishap, it had been, by popular consent, an epic Open Day.  Or, to put it another way, Mission Accomplished.

Dai