Friday Night with Allison Shreeve

Firstly a big thank you for SHQ for providing the venue, Drift Media for providing the big screen and sound system and Whitecaps Photography for providing background images.
Allison presented 2 DVD's on her time as a professional windsurfer and her recent Bass Strait challenge. Over 20 people where enthralled with her life stories and how she turned, at times, insurmountable negatives into positive driving forces to help her win world titles. She spoke about her disappointment of not completing the Bass Strait Challenge but how she still met her goals of raising sponsorship and donations for Coastcare. There was lots of questions from the floor and the night ended with an Honary Membership Certificated being presented to Allison from the Inverloch Windsurfing Club for inspiration, guts and determination.
Great night was had by all.

Couldn't agree more - a great showcase for the IWC, Inverloch itself and the most important thing of all - the sport and getting more people involved. Doug and Mick ticked all 3 boxes - fantastic effort gents. It was obvious how much effort you'd both put in.

I think everyone also appreciated the more experienced sailors coming down to give us 'improvers' some tips. Matt ran a mini-masterclass on waterstarting whilst Craig stole the whiteboard from the local hospital Emergency Room to fill us in with some gybing tips. Lozza challenged me to stay on the water until we'd both managed at least one reasonable light wind gybe on each tack. Hardly the Holy Grail of windsurfing, but proving to be a poison chalice for the two of us. It was a long, long waiting game - the Americans and North Koreans have reached agreement on nuclear disarmament in quicker time than Lozza and I nailed a few decent lw gybes - but it was worth the effort and I reckon my first planing gybe is now only two to three years away - so progress was made. Small steps. Tiny steps. But steps nonetheless.

White socks ironed, sandals all polished and polyester beige shorts looking resplendant when tragedy struck at the last minute - he'd left his gout tablets behind in Wales and his foot was giving him hell! A nice cup of tea a and slice of lemon drizzle cake was hardly compensation for hooking up with an international athlete, but he eventually got over it after a 2nd slice of cake and an episode of Dad's Army on cable.