February Update!

With lots coming up and lots going on, here’s an update on what’s new!

Sports Committee

Our Presidents, Vice, Kit Sec and Web & Media Officer all attended the SU Sports Committee on Thursday to hear and discuss issues relating with SU sports. Sammi spoke of new insurance details, guest speakers from the Police and new sports publication and the update with Varsity. It was also confirmed that the contract with Player Layers is in the process of being terminated based on the overall poor service. Minutes of that meeting can be found here https://lincolnsu.com/your-union/how-we-are-run/minutes.

Varsity

As this year we planned to take part in Varsity, however Hull University Canoe Club have pulled out of taking part, so as such we don’t have a team to compete against.

Player Layer – Hoodies & Midlayers

As you know from previous posts, we’ve been experiencing issues with getting the order of the club hoodies to you. Since December we’ve been poorly communicated of the stock issues with Player Layer and have done as much as we can to get a reason why it was not addressed before we ordered hoodies and why it has taken so long, the most recent delay in getting stock (bearing in mind this stock needs time to further be printed/embroidered) is due to Chinese New Year. The Mid-Layers are ready to be printed however we only find it fair to get both at the same time in order to keep all members happy.

The Students’ Union and VP Activities have been informed and have also pushed Player Layer for an explanation, since we are not the only sports team which has had similar issues.

Sorry it looks like we’ve not gotten any further with getting these hoodies but we are trying and have done as much as we can. Next year a new supplier will be used to avoid these issues.

The next steps now is waiting for stock from Player Layer and then getting them sent to be printed and then delivered to us. Player Layer have estimated stock from the end of February so we are now anticipating a delivery date of Mid-March.

Anglesey

As you know our surfing trip to Anglesey is coming up at the end of March, we’ve got more details shared and the copy of the powerpoint used sent via e-mail. The till button is open Wednesday the 10th for deposits/first payment of £45. We’ll then take the 2nd payment from the 10th right until Mid-March in order to spread the costs and make it easier. This way you can pay for the full £90 cost or just split the costs. But if you wish to have a place you need to pay the deposit ASAP from the 10th. The payments are made at the Students’ Union.

New Kit

Since our successful bid for sports development funding late last year, we’ve received delivery of 10 new spray decks. These were tested the other night at the pool session and will be soon be making an appearance alongside our current decks. Our new helmets have been ordered and are in the payment process.

Team Photos

We have our annual team photo coming up on the either the 3rd/4th of March. These are similar to the ones in the past. We are going to try and book a slot on the Thursday because we are off to NSR on the Friday. So make sure you can attend and be part of the official team photo.

Dates for your Diary

3rd or 4th March – Team Photos
10th February – Cathedral Cup Social
18th February – Social Night Out
15th March – Big Brayford Clean Up
26th March – 1st April – Anglesey

Any new updates or news we’ll post here, and keep an eye out on the Facebook group for all the events/info.

Happy Paddling!

NSR Update

With our Surfing trip just been announced (see our last blog post) we’d not forgotten about NSR coming up first, so here’s a quick update on what’s happening.

Firstly, the Till button will be opening sometime this week, we did plan to have it open from Monday but somethings gone wrong at the SU so we’ll update you on that. But this was also planned to close this Friday (29th) but this might be extended due to the issue, but try to pay before then please! As e-mailed the price is £50, same as last years weekend!

Secondly, this years theme is Christmas! Those who’ve been before know that themed dressing up is a big thing and the best ones are usually teams which have a joint costume, so using our creative minds we’ve come up with a great festive idea, but we can’t revel this awesome idea on the blog in case any other university has a sneaky peek and nick the idea, so keep an eye out for the e-mail with all the information you need to know.

And that’s it for now, your 2 event organisers are keeping there hands full with 2 trips to plan and keeping up the socials so keep and eye out for any information.

Happy Paddling!

Surfing holiday 2016

Yes, yes and YES! You properly won’t even read this and skip to the good stuff, so here we go!

We’ve grown up and moved on from holidays on the cornish coast! Ladies and Gentleman it’s our annual surfing week away! And this year we’ve ditched the nasty seagulls and red flags of Newquay and are heading up to North Wales for one of the gems of the Britain, Anglesey!

To fill you in, heres the copy of the e-mails which has gone out today about this trip:

–

Good Afternoon!

Yes, this the email you’ve all been waiting for. The location of our top secret, super awesome, and completely unforgettable week of surfing and top bantz!

A place where Newquay is spoken about in only hushed tones, a place where they laugh in the face of red-flagged beaches, a place where the seagulls present you with chips instead of stealing them from your bare hands. Often known as the Welsh Riviera, and host to a quite staggering 70,000 people on Britain’s 5th largest island, it’s a wonder we’ve never been there before. That’s right ladies and gentleman, if you haven’t guess it already, we’re going to ANGLESEY! Home of the Northern Hemisphere’s longest and fastest zip-line!

Where?

Anglesey..haven’t you read any of this?!

When?

Saturday 26th of March – Friday 1st of April.

These are not the same as the provisional dates so please make sure you’re aware of this!

Cost?

Still not confirmed, we will be having a meeting in the next week or two to go through this and lot’s more with you!

What is the surf trip all about?

Think we only go to kayak for a week? You’d be wrong! An unforgettable week of surfing, white water, nights out, nights in, days at the ‘sea zoo’, climbing, coasteering, much more and time with your favourite committee (especially that president – damn he’s hot), it really is a trip you don’t want to miss.

Transport

We hire a van for the week to transport all kit and kayaks to allow us an uncramped and comfortable journey in the cars! *To book a place in the mighty Megane or the exclusive Octavia interviews start next week*.

Accommodation

Staying in the luxury, kayaking focused activity centre, this location offers not only the chance to stay in extreme comfort for a week, but also to try a range of new activities at reasonable prices! This includes:

Climbing
Coasteering
Sea Kayaking
Walking
Diving
Sailing
Windsurfing/Kite surfing

We’ve also been gifted with a pub, known as the ‘Paddlers Return’, onsite and open for our use! To have a look yourselves go to:

http://www.angleseyoutdoors.com/accommodation-gogarth-dorms.html

As said before, we will be having a meeting in the next week or two so you don’t need to decide until then. But please give it a good think so after the meeting we can get it all paid asap!

Any questions feel free to email back 🙂

Your ever loving Committee xxxxxxxxxx

So there you have it! We’ve so excited to be doing this change of scenery for the club, last years week away was a load of fun but issues have been creeping up regarding Newquay for a few years now and we feel it’s time go somewhere else, explore new coasts and the other activities on the island! So we hope you are sharing in this excitement as well and will join us, even if the pasties won’t be a good, but the banter still will!

Happy Paddling!

New Term Update

Hello everyone and welcome back to January, we have some exciting updates for you:

NSR 2016

First of all NSR is back this year and we are planning on attending after our year out! If you don’t know what NSR is; it’s the National Student Rodeo, a kayaking festival/party weekend down the road at the White Water Centre in Nottingham. It’s a weekend of free style kayaking and features races, time trails and play boating. While there is a lot of skill on show, it’s a student event so expectations are not to high so don’t feel put off! Off the water there is a festival style atmosphere with other university teams, spectator areas, visits from Kayaking manufactures (chance to spend those xmas pennies) and 2 large parties in the evening!

The dates are the 4th – 6th of March and involves 2 nights of camping. There is also a theme each year, (the blog image should give some clues) and gives us a chance to dress up as a team, and the winning team gets loads of prizes, like literally boat loads! Our 2 events organisers are getting the final arrangements done but if you want to come you can register your interest now, check your inbox for more information. The weekend will cost £50 that covers the tickets, accommodation and entry into the parties and one nights of food. You’ll see more information on the blog and on your e-mails.

Varsity 2016

This year the University of Lincoln Students’ Union Activities and Hull University AU will be competing in 3rd ‘Humber Games’, or Varsity. And this year we are pleased to be entering a team to compete against Hull University Canoe Club. While we work out the details of events etc.. The date will be on the 16th of April and this year Hull are hosting. We’ll have more details soon once we agree of the details with HUCC.

Sessions resume

Brayford Sessions are going to resume on the 13th of January, please don’t be fooled by the mild December we had last month, it will be cold! So while your loans still fresh in your account buy some cheap thermals.

Pool Sessions are resuming on the 17th of January!

Hoodie & Mid-Layers

We understand you might be getting frustrated with the lack of Hoodies this year, and even though we’ve taken your money your still are waiting. So here is what is happening.

In October we connected PlayerLayer the SU supplier in placing an order of Hoodies & MidLayers, We wanted to add our logo and members names so it required the bespoke design/alterations so needed to be cleared by Player Layer before we took orders. Then we advertised in October for hoodies as normal, and took orders right until the 16th of November. Then we allowed 2 weeks to pay for the hoodies. As always with bespoke orders (as in the past) we took payment first. This is done to make sure we have to money to pay for production and also to make sure people who have ordered some can pay for them, and not being left out of pocket.

Once payment was confirmed we sent off the order to Player Layer on the 7th December. Understanding the festive period would mean the 4 week production time would be extended, so we hoped these be delivered at the start of term. PlayerLayer then responded adding specifications of design on the Mid-Layer needed to be changed as in the time of the original design a new policy was introdcued about location of members names, this added another week onto production time.

On the end of term (17th of December) PlayerLayer contacted us about Stock issues with the hoodies, Issue being there is no more stock of the hoodie until February. by this point all of our committee members had returned/returning home and SU drop-ins had finished so the issue was not raised for the SU. PlayerLayer offered an alternative product but seeing this not what members have ordered we thought it would not be right advertising one product and then receiving another.

The Player Layer office, production team , Students Union office then closed for the festive period on the 24th. Meaning nothing was resolved during the break.

Upon return we’ve now contacted both PlayerLayer & The Students’ Union about the problem we are still facing. These have been passed onto the Vice President who is now looking into this issue.

And thats were we are about hoodies & mid-layers, we’ve been effected by mis-communication from PlayerLayer, Red tape and being told about issues to late. We are still aiming to get the original hoodies & mid-layers which have been ordered to you ASAP. And we’ll keep you updated on the blog.

Other Kit News

Our new helmets & spray decks have been ordered and will be with us soon! We’ve also added another pair of split paddles based from feedback in Wales, these are of better quality and will easier to use in the case of if your primary paddles break or are lost.

Communication feedback

Before the end of term it was raised on improving feedback, so from 2016 we’ll be publishing agendas & minutes of committee meetings, if you have any ideas then we’d like to hear them! Drop us an e-mail!

Happy Paddling!

2015: Many happy paddles…

Well if it’s already new years already! 2015 is fast coming to a close and by the time this will be uploaded we’ll be in 2016. So this is a great chance to look back on what has been a fantastic year for L.U.C.K and our members.

With so much happening for the team in 2015 the quickest and most interesting way to share this is by going trough our highlights of the year and key moments for our members. So grab some left over mince pies, and read on to re-live those happy memories!

River Wye Canoe Trip

Well what can you do if you didn’t quite make it up to NSR, keep paddling of course! And why not because this weekend turned out to be a great success, With it being low season on the Wye allowed us to leisurely paddle 30 miles across 2 days, with plenty of camping in-between making it for a great weekend canoeing, regardless if a rabbit was running around or not. Will we make it back to the Wye soon? ‘Wye not ‘ey’

Committee Elections

An always fun couple of weeks as members vote and discuss who should be on the next years committee and help run the club, this year saw loads of people applying for roles right across the committee and was a great competition to see play out. If you want to see who are on the committee at the moment check out the committee page on this blog here.

Newquay

Our annual week long trip to Newquay was welcomed back in April. Unfortunately poor weather hindered the amount of paddling we did but that did not stop us having a great time when the waters & surf was safe to paddle in!

10 years of L.U.C.K

After a long awaited build up for this celebration of our 10 year anniversary, in April team members from our 10 year history were invited back to Lincoln to celebrate on the 18th of April, with the NSR DJ’s, our fashionable hoodies on display and 1000+ photos slide showing though out it was a great night to celebrate the great achievement.

WWSR & 2* Training

With the term coming up to a close and exams season on the horizon things can tend to get a little quiet for the club, In May we began training up members to undertake there British Canoeing 2 star award and some members went off and complete a course in White Water Safety and Rescue.

Midnight Paddle

Our annual fundraising effort took place on a clear June evening this year, with 16 strong team setting off at just past 11pm we paddle a half marathon trough the night in order to raise funds for new safety equipment.

Freshers 2015

New (academic) year and new wave of keen paddlers and those who just wan’t to see what it’s all about, we welcomed upto 100 people onto our taster sessions giving them a chance to get onto the water! With loads of interested freshers turned into the most new members we’ve seen in a long time!

Tyne Tour

What would be November without Tyne Tour, well lucky this November was no different as the team travelled up to Hexham once again to take part on one of Europe’s biggest kayaking events, with 2 days of paddling in challenging but rewarding conditions.

Wales

Our new events organisers were keen to visit wales before the year closed and hosted a weekend away in North Wales, white water kayaking, With a full bunk house and plenty of thermals the weekend was a success! Despite the river levels, now we are just waiting for some photos..

These are just highlights of our year to date and we’d love to share all of what we’ve been up to however there has been so much. But as always you can look back onto this blog to see what we’ve been up to as well as our Facebook and Twitter.

But in the mean time enjoy your new year celebrations and as always,

Happy paddling!