We made our annual pilgrimage to the Moorhen Club waters in Roydon near Harlow this month. Neither club attended the event in great numbers as on previous years. The weather turned out quite fine, but probably put a lot of people off as prior to the event it had been awful!
We were made very welcome as always & they provided lunch &  other refreshments throughout the day for us. We were unfortunately unable to take home any trophies on this occasion.

On the Spring Bank Holiday Weekend, the club exhibited at the Weald Park Show, South Weald, Brentwood. This year we were joined by the Southend Club who pitched their site down by the water as we did last year. Unfortunately, as last year, members of the public were not making their way down the hill to the lake side in any great numbers, which is why we pitched at the top of the hill next top the shows other exhibitors & got to show off our models to far greater numbers of passer byers.
We did come to an agreement with the Southend club that this show had huge potential for a much larger gathering of local model clubs & that we would both talk to the other clubs about having them attend in future years. We should then be able to entice the general public down to the lake side to see the models on the water.
The lake is huge & offers the opportunity to do scale, sail & speed boats comfortably at the same time.

Last Month the club made it's annual trip to North Weald Airfield, to take part in the Wings & Wheels Model Show. This year, instead of having a dedicated tent for model boats, we were in the same space with the indoor flying display, Tamiya Trucks & some traders too. It was a little tight for space on the stand & our heads felt like the had spent an entire day on a construction site thanks to the Tamiya Trucks!

On a positive note, the event appeared to be well attended by both clubs and general public, largely due to the reasonably fine weather that the show enjoyed over the weekend.
Pictured left is Robin Lee's fine detailed model of the Z38, which always attracts attention from both the general public and fellow modellers alike.

The club visited Fishers Green Club for their open day last Sunday. Once again we were blessed with wonderful weather.
Format for this visit is a free sail event & you have the choice of operating you boat in the sheltered area (pictured below) or heading out to more open waters with your speed boats or sailing vessels.
David Petts brought along his model of the Bounty (Right), which unfortunately sprang a leak  whilst on the water & was very luck to get it back before it was able to sink!

We recently visited the Moorhen Club  based in Roydon Marina near Harlow, for our annual interclub competition. Slightly later this year than normal, but benefitted from some lovely weather.
As always our hosts made us very welcome & provided us with some BBQ food for lunch.
Unfortunately for us, Moorhens took all of the trophy's this time, but there will ne an opportunity to level the score when they visit us in August.

The Club attended the Weald Park Dog & Craft Show for the first time over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend. Our gazebos were set up adjacent to the parks large lake giving us excellent access to put the boats on the water to display for the public. Although these photos were taken in the sun, we didn't see a lot of good weather over the course of the weekend & the cold wind did it's best to freeze us!

To the right is a picture of Melvyn Bright's model of the Bristol Queen. This was the first time he has had it in the water & it is going to require some tweaks to it's ballast & drive system, however it looked fantastic in the water & we can't wait to see it running in all its splendour real soon.
We are happy to find a new show to attend since the demise of the Barleylands Show last year. But we found ourselves a little removed from the main part of the show & may sacrifice our close to the water access to be nearer the general public in future show attendances.