Meet up at Scottish Paddlesport Festival?

[PaulC]

Any posters going to the festival this weekend and wish to reveal themselves in the flesh (oo er)?

I will not be wearing a red rose or holding The Times but would fancy putting faces to names either during the day or at the Ceilidh.

Also running an SCA trip doon the Tay on Sunday morning in opens if anyone is interested.

Mike B sounds like you are going.

Paul

[Mike B]

Yes indeed - Saturday probably so I might catch you there - how was your extended SCA trip btw?

Need to watch out for long-haired blokes with strange beards though. That Jim chap is likely to be prowling.

Mike.

[Jim]

"That Jim chap is likely to be prowling"

It's a possibilty, nothing for sure yet. If it rains we might just go paddling :-)

JIM

[PaulC]

I will be prowling around - sometimes at the Touring Stand - come and vote in the photo comp!

Paul

[Jim]

Looks like providing a description of myself worked, you were all able to avoid me successfully!

Only did a couple of hours Sat afternoon. Didn't find much inspiration this year except at the Mega stand, but as I will very rarely use a surf boat I forced myself to supress my credit card whilst within range of that sweet smell of newly molded lovely sexy surf machines!

What's happening to playboats? They all look the damn same with different labels on them! Except that stupid transformer, wavesport must know they've screwed up bigtime there. And as someone else pointed out to me there were very few creek boats - he had come with a shortlist of 3 to check out and all he could see was 1 salto, which he'd already decided against. Actually there was a Java and Peak had a couple of Riot creeky things with them, but the selection seemed poor, although I really don't see the point in all these new fangled creek boats. If you need a separate boat for rocky ditches, there is the spud, nothing else makes sense. Playboats work everywhere else excpet when multidaying, which I never do and few of us here do, and I daresay that half the folk that have done multiday stuff abroad have not taken their own boats out to do it anyway (the editor is a clear exception).

I didn't plan to rant like that, but I can at least bring it back on topic again. There also didn't seem to be many serious sea kayaks there. There were a few (3?) P&H boats, and mega had some (although I don't recognise that as a pedigree for sea kayaks?), but the other examples seemed like cheapo shitty things, mostly rotomoulded and certainly didn't catch my eye (not that I'm looking for a boat).

JIM

[Mark R]

Jim mentions Mega sea kayaks. I've only see one. It was brand new, and it was bending notably under its own weight on the roofrack...


-----------Mark Rainsley

[Mike B]

Hmmmm - I went to the Alaskan lecture and was well impressed, also the ND kayak film. Apart from that, Saturday morning/afternoon seemed to be busy with the various stands doing a decent trade.

Can't comment on the quality or otherwise of varioius play boats as it's not really my scene but if we look at sea boats I have to say that there were a few P&H, something horrendously expensive (£2,700 !) and (as Jim says) not much else.

But what "else" is there? Valley don't seem to ever be represented at these shows and the same is true of ND kayaks. Who else is there in mainstream uk sea-paddling? One major player is the field told me that it wasn't worth while coming to the show - presumably you need to actually SELL a few craft to make it worthwhile. If you can sell the things anyway (which clearly they can) then why bother?

As to spotting Jim, I clocked one bloke with long(ish) hair hidden under a wooly hat who was sporting a short(ish) goatee beard and wearing a hideous Haiwan shirt who was prowling in the company of another bloke dressed in a slightly more conservative style.

Was that our Jim? I did try to make eye contact once or twice but the person was so engrossed in examining things that I gave up and I fear I'm far too shy and retiring to go up to a total stranger and introduce myself.

Apart from that I bumped into many people I know, some of whom I haven't seen for a year or so, and ended up with an invite onto a trip round Cumbrae today so I was a happy bunny!

(The outflow from Hunterston nuclear station makes an interesting diversion! Nice warm water with a funny green glow! )

Maybe next year there should be a UKRGb stand ????????

Mike.

[Jim]

Lucky you didn't introduce yourself to the freak you spotted because it wasn't me! I have LONG hair, some might describe it as very long. My beard is all over but longer around the chin. I think I was probably wearing my ancient Newcastle Uni top but I can't remember details like that now.

Also bumped into several people I know and haven't seen for a while, one of them did actually buy a surf boat from Mega, and by the looks of it they had actually sold a few by mid afternoon Saturday.

As for a guidebook website stand, its a great idea except it would need manning and might be seen to clash with the canoeist (given the number of articles that have been published there also) and/or SCA stands (Given that it competes with their very good guidebook). Of course combining it with one or the other might work well...

JIM

[Mike B]

> might be seen to clash - - - <

Nah! Complimentary - maybe.

Manning it wouldn't be a problem - it's a virtual community so we would only have to have a screen and a couple of cams scattered around the UK so that the punters could see "us" as they "browsed".

Seriously though, why not? I'm quite sure we could man a stand if we tried.

Paul C was doing a good job running around all over the place, doing all sorts of somethings (so many that I never caught up with him as we were going to). Jon H was running the Marathon stand for the SCA, Ron was in place on the SCA Touring stand and Canoeist and SCA stands were all there, as were the Coastguard.

Bet we could do it!

Mike.

[Jim]

Best manned non-shop stand appeared to me to be the SCA surf stand.

Of course the guidebook has sponsors, at least one of which had a large stand - for future events perhaps someone (OK, I'm thinking of Mark) should approach them about putting the guidebook URL on their stand(s), although to be fair it was pretty hard to find the exhibitors banners on most of the "shop" stands :-)

JIM

[Mark R]

I've avoided getting into this stand discussion because...well, I just have.

But I was wondering...is there a market (silly word to use as profits would be non-existent or negligible) for stickers, t-shirts etc to promote the site? Could you wander around happy in the knowledge that you have the website banner on your back???

Thoughts? Cheers,


-----------Mark Rainsley

[Jim]

Well I'd be happy to sticker both of my boats (and my car in theory, although I don't have one), or should that be all my boats?

T-shirt wise I think you would probably need more than just a logo, some photographs or a poem perhaps as the focus with the guidebook logo or URL positioned noticebaly but not distractingly (is that possible?). Again I'd probably get one, I'm running short on T-shirts that aren't very close to completely worn out :-)

JIM

[bigjeff]

seems that the blokes you spotted was no other then the madyaker himself, gaz patterson and myself, bigjeff, you shold of come over and introduced yourself, I might of even given you a free t/shirt for being a good dude.


cheers

bigjeff ;)