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Membership Renewal
You should all have received either an email with the membership renewal reminder or it will be included in this letter.  Please remember that if your subs are not paid by 31st May 2008 your membership will lapse, you will not be insured to paddle with the club and will not be able to borrow any club equipment. Membership cards can be collected from the clubhouse on Fridays.

Email addresses
If you have access to email please advise Helen of your email address via the membership renewal form. It is far cheaper to email than use the post and it saves a lot of work for the few volunteers involved.

Vacant Chair
After five years John has decided to make way for some new blood and will not be standing for re-election as Chair. This is your opportunity to influence the club over a period that will see important challenges in the harbour area - give it a go!

Clubhouse alterations
The ground floor of the clubhouse is at last being altered to create more changing-room space for both sexes. Unfortunately the target completion date was not met, but work is ongoing. For health and safety reasons it may not be possible to use the changing-rooms on some occasions or it may be necessary to share a room (with time separation!) Please bear with us as I’m sure that the changes will be worth it.

The Devizes to Westminster Challenge
Over the Easter weekend 3 Cornish teams took part in the 4 day challenge of the DW, a rigorous and gruelling 125 mile paddle from the town of Devizes to the Westminster Bridge in London, between the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. The crews consisted of 3 paddlers from Penzance CC and 3 from Fowey River CC. The teams lined up as Ray Helmer and Tolly Robinson entering the junior veteran class representing Penzance CC, Jon Mount and Ryan Pierce, representing Penzance and Fowey respectively in the junior class. Also in the junior veteran class was the boat from Fowey with Brian Greenaway and Megan Middleton. These three teams have been training, along with other members from both the clubs, throughout the winter to be ready for the race, which turned out to have been a good idea after all.

The race started on Good Friday in the town of Devizes with all three crews leaving at different times. The day consisted of a 34 mile paddle and 35 portages! This entailed getting out of the water and running along the bank, which was very muddy, due to the amount of rain the night before the start of the race and early in the morning. The weather on this day was very good with little rain when the race was taking place. The first day for the teams was relatively hitch free apart from a close call for all three boats involving a very territorial swan, that coincidently was also very fast. However, each of the 3 teams recorded very respectable times with Tolly & Ray getting 6 hours 2minutes, Jon & Ryan getting 6 hours 15 minutes and Brian & Megan getting a time of 6 hours 21 minutes.

The second day of the race was not only longer but it was in far worse conditions. The race was 36 miles long and the conditions throughout the day were of a consistently poor quality, with the crews experiencing hail, snow, rain, 2 minutes of sunshine. However the worst conditions of the entire race were experienced throughout the 2 mile straight at Henley, where the wind was so high that at times the paddles wouldn’t even move, this caused havoc for many teams with lots of them getting out and portaging the 2 miles. Some unlucky crews even had the misfortune of falling in. However despite all this, all three crews recorded very respectable times. Their times after the first two days were: Tolly & Ray 12 hours 16 minutes, Jon & Ryan 12 hours 56 minutes, Brian & Megan 13 hours 57 minutes.

The third day started in cold conditions with snow covering much of the ground. Because of the crews positions in their classes all the crews started at different times in the day, which made it really difficult for the support crews to support more than one crew. This penultimate day was all on the Thames so the boats gained speed from the flow of the river. This day took the crews through the city of Windsor, literally running through the streets due to a compulsory portage. The crews also overtook many of the crews doing the 24 hour race, including a 6 man raft crew who were aiming to complete the race in 30 hours! After the third day of racing the three crews were all doing very well, with the times being: Tolly & Ray 17 hours 35 minutes, Jon & Ryan 18 hours 21 minutes and Megan & Brian 20 hours 10 minutes.

The fourth day started well before dawn with a mass start from Teddington, just 17 miles from the finish under Westminster Bridge. The three crews all decided to start near the front of the hundred plus mass start in order to avoid the large amount of wash that would be put out from the boats. All three of the crews got off to a quick start at the beginning and were part of the leading group off the start, one boat in this group fell in and that must have been very cold. However, the pace on this last day was very fast over the 17 miles. Many of London's famous monuments, such as BT Tower and the London Eye, provided the much needed determination to keep up the pace and finish the race as fast as possible. When coming round the final bend, the London Eye leaps out from the buildings it's been hiding behind and you get an amazing view of the Houses of Parliament, the Eye and all of the people lined up along the bridge and of the finishing line on furthest right arch of the bridge. The crews had to climb up a set of steps to receive their medals and the race was finally finished. All the crews waited on the south bank until all three of them had finished. The crews finished the race in very fast times with: Tolly & Ray coming third in their class with a time of 19 hours 12 minutes; Jon & Ryan fifteenth in their class with a time of 20 hours 10 minutes and Megan & Brian finishing seventh with a time of 22 hours 4 minutes.

We would all like to say thank you to anyone that has sponsored us and to anyone that is still planning on sponsoring us. Tolly Robinson.

Polo
On dark winter evenings I saw young paddlers emerge from the shadows of the harbour water and climbing onto Albert Pier. Knowing that the Club’s evening paddling sessions were suspended for the winter, I wondered what they were all doing. Ray told me they were the polo team, practicing.  Knowing absolutely nothing about Polo, I was keen to know more. Ray gave me the following break-down of the game, the training regime and the Team's progress in the tournaments.
The idea is to score as many goals as possible in the other team's goal without conceding any yourself.
The pitch is rectangular with one goal of 1 metre x 1 1/2 metres, suspended 2 metres above the water at each end. Teams can be 10 strong but only 5 players on a team are allowed on the pitch at once.
Game length, each half can vary from 6 minutes at Division 4, to 10 mins in Division 1.
Basic rules
Do not obstruct any player who has not got the ball.
Ball out of play when ball is parallel to side or goal line.
You can use hands, paddle or boat to move the ball.
You are 'in possession' of the ball when you are 1 metre from ball, nearest player or are in contact with the ball.
The ball can be passed with hands or paddle to any of your team.  It can be blocked by hands or paddle but at a safe distance of about half a metre from the opposition hand.
You are allowed to push a player in if they are in possession of the ball but only if it is safe - no boats or side of pool the other side of them.
There are loads more rules; this is just an insight into them.
Green card = warning (allowed 3 of these)Yellow card =2 minutes off (allowed 2 of these)
Red card = off rest of the game.
Training Routine
Summer and winter, I run a junior session on a Wednesday and Friday night, 6 - 8 pm. Some also train on Saturdays or Sundays in K1 or K2 or surfing. The number attending varies from 2 to 6, depending on weather, exams etc. Six is usual. There are also the Competitions, Saturday evening or Sunday morning.
My training in summer is strokes, then on to movement, using same stroke, then games and usually most get wet, boredom sets in quite quickly. In winter, warm up first. We decide what we all want to do.
Polo + Devizes to Westminster training has included
'Crocodile' in which there is a line of paddlers, one behind the next, up to 4 or 5 paddlers in each group. The idea is for the group to go quite slowly, then the back person races up to the front of the line as quickly as possible, then the next and so on, until the back person is where they were originally.There are 8 of these to do, then one minute to rest, and then start again, for another 2 lots of 8. So we do 3 x 8 sets. This used to take us one and a half hours but we have now improved and have got it down to only one hour.
'Pyramid' This is where you start off, 10 strokes slow, 10 strokes fast, you then add 1 more stroke slow and fast till you get to 50 then you go back down again. (This is not a popular game, the juniors found it boring)
'Sprint training' from one point to another, 1 minute off then again, 10 each way.
'Short boat sprints' when polo boats are not available, then we use a ball, one sprints with the ball, you give them a start of 5 seconds or less, depending on the person, to finish, there is no tackling, just sprinting. This can be varied by changing hands and using paddle flicking too.
When games are near, we usually have a 'Possession Game', junior team against the rest.
This training has kept us quite fast and has given us good stamina.
The Teams: Penzance has two teams, Adults, which consists of Graham, John, Alan, Richard, James, Ewan, and myself, Ray. Junior team has Emma, John, Tolly, Harry, Ben and Ian.
At about halfway through the polo season, Penzance Adults were top of the Cornish Polo League, with Juniors second. I think this is quite impressive because adults do not train together at all. Juniors have worked very hard this year and could win this next year. I am very proud of them.
The Local League consists of 9 teams who play each other twice - Bude, Hayle, Culdrose, Newquay, Truro College, Exeter Uni., Ladies, Penzance Adults, Pz Youth. Games are played at Redruth Comprehensive School and 2 Tournaments at Culdrose.
South West Invitation League Polo, at Millfield School, Street, Somerset.
Our first Tournament Lost 1, Drew 2, Won 3 games.
Our second Tournament, Won 5 games. The game we lost in the previous tournament was against a team consisting of 1 adult coach and the rest juniors. Meeting the team again, this time we got our game right and beat them 6 - 0.
Our third Tournament Lost 2, Drew 1, Won 1. This was our bad day. Next Tournament is 2 March when hopefully we will do better.
Divisions: This was Div 2. We skipped Div 3. Div 1 could be very hard as it contains National Div 1 Teams. Our next step is to enter next year and perhaps National Div 4 Bristol, but this is on a Saturday night 5 - 9 pm and the drive home very tiring.
Cost: so far to enter South West Invitation League Polo, Street is £40 entry plus £65 per Tournament plus travel, (5.30am leave Penzance for a 10 am start till 2pm.)
Local league about £70 per team, per session. Ray Helmer

It motivated me to go see them in action, playing in the local league at Redruth. What an exciting evening. It's a great sport. JM