Sports Taster Day 24 August 2008 -
Tring Sports Forum - Sports Taster Day - supported by The Tring Anglers
Sunday 24th August Grand Union Canal Reservoir Pound.
Arrived at the reservoir pound 1:00pm to set up by 2:00pm. Apart from me and the
usual crew who help on the juniors this was the only time I have ever seen the club
secretary join in with the fun time frolics at a teaching session.
Along with Reg our secretary we invited John Castle, an old friend of the club and a
qualified coach, to lend a hand with the instruction.
Having assembled 25 whips with rigs we set about erecting the gazebo. Now last
week I logically assembled the beast, this week however a simple task became
significantly more difficult the more people got involved, it appeared so funny to one
passing girl that she stopped and took a photo of the lot of us fumbling about. Well
I’m glad we brightened somebody’s day. Once up and tethered down we laid out all
the freebies we had on offer. I handed out disgorgers and plummets, and we were
ready to do battle.
Heads up – Dick received a phone call from his wife, she was explaining the work of
the club on a stall at the sports centre and seemed to be very convincing although
not too well informed with the practice of angling, any way the first bus load of
hopefuls were on their way – Action stations.
Now the idea was that the people come down and have a 20 minute slot at a new
sport, that’s ok in theory, but in practice, they get so enthralled in what they are doing
they don’t want to leave, and so we ended up with 18 on the bank all afternoon. One
grandmother who had phoned me earlier was supposed to have come down with her
13 year old grandson, but as he couldn’t be bothered to rise from his bed, she
decided to come on her own and caught a fair few fish and said she would visit us
again in the future.
Statistics for those who need them are as follows: 10 under twelve, 6 twelve to
seventeen year olds and two over 17 years. In all 6 girls, 10 lads, 1 bloke and 1
grandmother.
Dick Pilkinton who had arranged this sports bash had two trophies made one being
Best Fish and the second was Ugliest Fish. In the opinion of the helpers Will Ligget
had the best fish award and G Waring had the ugliest fish award for a signal crayfish.
At about 4pm Dick’s wife phoned again to say there were people at the sports centre
that would like to fish but thought 1 hour to be too short as we were due to shut up
shop at five. These people have been given an open invitation to join us at the same
location next week when we run the last of our Take a Friend Fishing events.
At this event we gave away to our hopeful anglers of the future 7 four metre whips
and rigs, 5 three metre whips, TAFF T shirts, DVD’s entitled an Introduction to
Angling, badges and stickers and float and disgorger packs. All these items had
been donated for the events this year and actually cost the club nothing but help
raise our public profile tremendously.
Our events run for another 4 weeks and at the end of that I will be hanging up my
rods for good as I will be resigning as the Juniors Secretary for Tring Anglers after
nearly nine enjoyable and productive years of taking friends fishing. I can honestly
say I have introduced in excess 600 people to angling, and I hope they are still
enjoying themselves.
I hope the antics of the Junior sessions will inspire someone to take over and
continue from where I leave off.
DaveBurton
Juniors Secretary
The Tring Anglers
Sunday 24th August Grand Union Canal Reservoir Pound.
Arrived at the reservoir pound 1:00pm to set up by 2:00pm. Apart from me and the
usual crew who help on the juniors this was the only time I have ever seen the club
secretary join in with the fun time frolics at a teaching session.
Along with Reg our secretary we invited John Castle, an old friend of the club and a
qualified coach, to lend a hand with the instruction.
Having assembled 25 whips with rigs we set about erecting the gazebo. Now last
week I logically assembled the beast, this week however a simple task became
significantly more difficult the more people got involved, it appeared so funny to one
passing girl that she stopped and took a photo of the lot of us fumbling about. Well
I’m glad we brightened somebody’s day. Once up and tethered down we laid out all
the freebies we had on offer. I handed out disgorgers and plummets, and we were
ready to do battle.
Heads up – Dick received a phone call from his wife, she was explaining the work of
the club on a stall at the sports centre and seemed to be very convincing although
not too well informed with the practice of angling, any way the first bus load of
hopefuls were on their way – Action stations.
Now the idea was that the people come down and have a 20 minute slot at a new
sport, that’s ok in theory, but in practice, they get so enthralled in what they are doing
they don’t want to leave, and so we ended up with 18 on the bank all afternoon. One
grandmother who had phoned me earlier was supposed to have come down with her
13 year old grandson, but as he couldn’t be bothered to rise from his bed, she
decided to come on her own and caught a fair few fish and said she would visit us
again in the future.
Statistics for those who need them are as follows: 10 under twelve, 6 twelve to
seventeen year olds and two over 17 years. In all 6 girls, 10 lads, 1 bloke and 1
grandmother.
Dick Pilkinton who had arranged this sports bash had two trophies made one being
Best Fish and the second was Ugliest Fish. In the opinion of the helpers Will Ligget
had the best fish award and G Waring had the ugliest fish award for a signal crayfish.
At about 4pm Dick’s wife phoned again to say there were people at the sports centre
that would like to fish but thought 1 hour to be too short as we were due to shut up
shop at five. These people have been given an open invitation to join us at the same
location next week when we run the last of our Take a Friend Fishing events.
At this event we gave away to our hopeful anglers of the future 7 four metre whips
and rigs, 5 three metre whips, TAFF T shirts, DVD’s entitled an Introduction to
Angling, badges and stickers and float and disgorger packs. All these items had
been donated for the events this year and actually cost the club nothing but help
raise our public profile tremendously.
Our events run for another 4 weeks and at the end of that I will be hanging up my
rods for good as I will be resigning as the Juniors Secretary for Tring Anglers after
nearly nine enjoyable and productive years of taking friends fishing. I can honestly
say I have introduced in excess 600 people to angling, and I hope they are still
enjoying themselves.
I hope the antics of the Junior sessions will inspire someone to take over and
continue from where I leave off.
DaveBurton
Juniors Secretary
The Tring Anglers
