It’s been nice and windy, but also cold… So congratulations to those that made it out, but we’re secretly convinced you’re crazy.

1. Varsity trip to Egypt, DAHAB!!! (March 20th-27th 2012)
2. SWA event in Liverpool (March 9th-11th)
3. Climbing social (sometime Hilary term)
4. Nationals in Southampton (20th-22nd April)
5. Committee handover

This is a big event, and the club definitely intends to show up in force at BUCS this year (and maybe go home with some trophies?! )!

Unlike your traditional SWA event, Nationals is a pretty big deal and there are some serious prizes to be won! Including brand new sails, boards, various bits of kit, and trips to Club Vass. We will drive down to Southampton (Calshot) on Friday afternoon and set up camp for the weekend. Everyone participates in racing on Saturday (there are divisions for beginners, intermediates and advanced so don’t worry, its really fun and friendly & you’ll be racing against people of similar ability), then on Sunday there are usually team races followed by prizes. And of course, there is the standard big fancy dress party on Saturday night

Now I know that April 20th-22nd is not the greatest of dates as this is the first weekend of term for us, but unfortunately as this is BUCS event we don’t have much of a choice! Do get in touch in you are keen though so I can start building up our team

If you have never run a club before don’t worry, its good fun & your opportunity to do what you want with it and bring new ideas to the floor. Also I’ll be in Oxford for a while (the joys of doing a PhD) so if you have any questions/problems I’ll be happy to help you out

Beginners and improvers do not need to be members to attend, but you can join on the day if you enjoy it!

For more details, and to sign up, email Sam, vicepresident@ouwindsurf.org

We have some rather fetching jackets ready to order, available in either lightweight (wind and showerproof, £23), or middleweight (waterproof and windproof, £43) versions, in red, with a custom nickname on the front.

How to order:

1: go to http://www.boylos.co.uk/products/list/customised-clothing/customised-orders

2: Select the jacket you want (note: both will be in red)

3: Have a look at the description and select your size

4: Follow the payment steps, in the ORDER NOTES, type the name you want on the jacket

5: Wait patiently for them to arrive (they will all be delivered to Gaelle, whatever you put in the delivery box)

6: Strut about in your new awesome stash! (strutting non-optional, especially at events)

Any other stash you’d like to see? Comment below!

Your Club Geek,

Mike

You have to have insurance that will cover you for any injury sustained while windsurfing. If you have medical insurance already, check if this will cover you (windsurfing is often counted as an extreme sport and so is exempt). If not, and you are under 25, the cheapest way to get it is to join the RYA (Royal Yaughting Association) and select Windsurfing as your primary activity.

Go to this site and choose your age, then choose either direct debit or card payment. On the “your details” screen, select windsurfing as your first interest, then continue to payment (£25 per year).

Once you have your RYA membership number you can continue on to….

Step 2: Join OUWC

The membership form is here , please print this out and fill it in, and if you wish to use the club kit at the reservoir, please also fill in the combination holder form.

We MUST have your emergency contact details and your insurance policy details before we can allow you to sail, so please fill these in! Hopefully we never have to use them, but if we do and they aren’t there, we all end up in deep shit. Also, since we provide food at some of our events, please include any allergies you might have.

Return the completed form, plus a cheque for the membership fee (£10 until AK only (2nd week MT), £20 for 1 term, or early memberships: £25 for Oxford students, £35 for Oxford university staff, and Brookes staff or students, and £45 for everyone else), to me, Michael Chester, at Lady Margaret Hall. I will them e-mail you once I’ve received it with the codes for the container etc.

(for those not at an Oxford College, either give it to me at a social/event, or post it to

Also, please read the safety guidelines on the resources page before you sail.

Step 3: Go windsurfing!

As soon as I have confirmed your membership, you can go out to Farmoor, just a couple of notes:

1. You MUST go with someone else! There has to be 2 people on the water for safety reasons.

2. Any beginners should be with an intermediate sailor, or at least a good improver (capable of going in control in any direction, and starting to use the harness/footstraps). IF YOU CANNOT CONFIDENTLY GO UPWIND, DO NOT SAIL IN OFFSHORE WINDS! It makes for a very long walk back if you stay on the board, and can leave you in trouble if you don’t.

3. You MUST wear either a buoyancy aid or a harness (and you should only be wearing a harness if you know/are learning how to use it)

4. You MUST wear one of our fetching purple vests (in the trailer), or Farmoor may remove you from the water. This means that outside special events, we can only have 5 people on at a time.

5. If you’re not sure how to rig kit, ask! And check each other’s kit before you go out. There is nothing worse than having your UJ come off when you’re right out in the middle….

6. If anything breaks, tell us! Unless you did something REALLY stupid, or entirely unrelated to windsurfing (pole vaulting with a mast, using the club wetsuits as slings to fire water balloons etc.), we won’t charge you, but we need to know when kit gets damaged. Also, if you have an accident or injury, tell us, since we need to report it to the sports fed Health and Safety (boo, hiss (only kidding, they’re lovely really)) people.

7. If there’s any kit you want us to get, that would fit a gap in our current club kit, then tell us, and we’ll take it into consideration (though whether we can get it depends on our budget).

Coming up first, we have the Freshers Fair, our opportunity to get as many new faces into the club as we can. We’re bravely facing the hoards of eager freshers by ourselves, which means we don’t need any volunteers, but potential members fell free to come and have a chat, and current members feel free to come during ReFreshers on Friday and help explain how awesome windsurfing is.

Our first social is kicking off the term with a bang on Tuesday of 1st week, 8pm at Oriel College. We’ll have a bowl of punch, a plan for much drinking and some pubs and clubs, and the all important sign ups for Aussie Kiss!

Aussie Kiss itself happens on the Saturday of 2nd week/Sunday of 3rd week (I swear the university week starts on a Sunday just so that I can’t keep a proper flow in these messages…). As said, we’ll be taking sign ups at the social, and sending you information as soon as we can to get as many people in as possible (since our term starts later than most universities, we’re right up against the deadline to get people signed up!). We’ll be driving down on Friday of 2nd week, and hopefully you can join us.

It costs £40 for the weekend, plus you have to be a member of the club (you can get temporary membership for just £10 which covers only AK), or £15 if you’re an instructor (e-mail instructors@swa.co.uk , places fill up fast).

The fancy dress theme this year is X-rated, any ideas for a club theme are very welcome (though it should be noted that face paints aren’t allowed after the Hulk managed to turn everything green a couple years ago for Superheroes).

Finishing the first half of term, we have our first open day of the year, on Saturday of 3rd week (that’s the Saturday AFTER 3rd week for those still getting used to Oxford dates), which will be £15 for a day of kit hire, instruction, and snacks and refreshments (there may be another tray of brownies depending on my workload that week and how many drinks people buy me at the socials!). To sign up, e-mail Sam with your name, contact number, experience level (beginner, improver or intermediate), and a joke (because jokes are always good) at: vicepresident@ouwindsurf.org

Membership for this year is now open! Please pidge your forms (available on the resources page) and cheques (fees are listed in the FAQ) to me, Michael Chester, at Lady Margaret Hall. Please note that you MUST fill in both the emergency contact and the insurance sections before we can allow you to use the reservoir.

Hope to see you soon,

Mike

p.s. Jokes are always good:

A thief has stolen the toilet from the Oxford Police Station. Police say they have nothing to go on.

What? I never said it would be a good joke…

Gaelle Coullon (President)

Well isn’t this shiny and awesome? If you haven’t already, check out the gallery! Send me some more photos to go into there, all there is at the moment is what was on the old website.

This also means that it’s a lot easier to put things up on the site, so it won’t just me me yammering on at you (which, I think we can all agree is probably a good thing).

Coming up this term:

0th week: Freshers’ Fair! We’ll put out a call for volunteers closer to the time, but this is out opportunity to get lots of new people into the club, so we need to make the most of it.

1st week: Our first social of the year, details TBC, but we will be taking bookings for:

2nd week: 21st-23rd October: AUSSIE KISS! The best event of the year, a great chance to get started or improve your windsurfing, or go out to the wave beach with the more advanced sailors. Rumour has it that for Aussie Kiss X, the theme for the fancy dress will be XXX

Later in the term:
More socials, another Open Day, our Christmas Meal, and as much windsurfing as we can fit in before the water gets too cold.

Later in the year:
Even more socials, even more Open Days, even more Events (Nottingham, Cardiff, BUCS at the very least), the Varsity Match (hosted by us), and even more AWESOME!

Mike Chester