News and Announcements

Hey Bowliners,

After an uncertain run up to our day of climbing in the Peak on Saturday, we managed to make a good choice of crag and found conditions to be very favourable for the time of year. As such a good size group of us enjoyed a fine day rediscovering our trad skills at Birchen Edge. You can see some pictures over on our facebook page.

Also this weekend we had our Prusik Knots and Tricky Situations training course. From the feedback I've received already, it seems that the course was a great success. This course was funded by a grant from the BMC and the club is already looking at applying for a grant to run training for our members this coming year. If you have any suggestions for training that you think the club should consider providing, please let me know.

Look out for an email from me this week with details of our upcoming trip to Yorkshire on the May Day bank holiday weekend. In the meantime I hope you'll all enjoy your weekly climbing fix with us at our Tuesday bouldering session or Thursday climbing session (or maybe both)!

Andy :)

Hi All,

The weather forecast for tomorrow (Saturday) in the Peak is proving to be very changeable at the moment. We are still planning to meet for a climb but not sure where we will be going yet. Rather than bother you all with another email I will post an update this evening on our Facebook page (you don't need a Facebook account to view our page).

Any suggestions for where to climb are welcome.

Kind regards,

Andy

Hi Everybody,

Could this be the weekend that we get to head out for our first trad climbing meet of the year. There was climbing in the Peak and in Portland last weekend and the forecast for this weekend is dry, albeit cold. So those of you that are feeling brave should join us for our trip to the Peak District on Saturday. I will send out details of the destination crag on Friday morning.

Also this Sunday we have a couple of spaces still available for our Prusik Knots and Tricky Situations training course. You can register for the course via our website.

Thinking a little further ahead we have our annual spring 'Love the Hut' weekend coming up in mid-April. As well as giving the hut a good old spring clean we have some drainage improvements works to tackle outside and we may also see the start of our hut improvements inside. More hands make lighter work, see the website for more details.

Also watch out for details coming out soon about our May Day bank holiday trip to Yorkshire. And also a New Year climbing trip to Spain.

Hopefully see you all tonight for our club AGM, 7:30pm at The Blackhorse Pub in Aylestone. 

Andy :)

 

Merry Monday,

There has been a flurry of Winter Climbing activity in the past couple of weeks, great to see some good conditions in Scotland for club members to enjoy. Boomers Requim (V, 5) and The Curtain (IV, 5) for winter climbing power couple Rob and Charlie. And for our man in Scotland, Masa, Poachers Fall (V, 5) amongst several others. Fingers crossed for more good conditions for us on the Easter weekend. Before that pesky Spring steals all the ice away!

Don't forget we have the club AGM next Wednesday evening (16th March), 7:30pm at The Blackhorse Pub in Aylestone. Come along to have your say about how the club is run. We are looking for a vice-chairperson to join the committee for this year in preparation for taking over the chair in 2017.

Attached is a leaflet from West Bromwich Mountainering club about their trip to Arran on Sunday 13th March. This trip is open to anyone who'd like to attend.

Have an awesome week everyone!

Andy

Hello Bowliners and friends,

We are pleased to announce a 'provisional' date for this years Croft Hills Race which is Tuesday 17th May, 7:30pm. We will let you know when this is confirmed and you will be able to enter online via the website.

The BMC have sent us their 2016 clubs workshop programme which has some more courses recently added. These courses are subsidised by a grant the BMC receives from Sport England and are specifically designed to support members of BMC affiliated clubs. These courses really are excellent value and places will go quickly so to find out more about the courses and book your places visit the BMC website www.thebmc.co.uk/clubscourses.

Also the BMC are running their popular 'Training Novice Club Members Weekend' on Friday 13th - Sunday 15th May at Plas y Brenin in Snowdonia. Only £50 for the weekend (including full board accommodation and all instruction) the weekend is a great deal for club members who take novices in to the outdoors and want to develop their skills to provide the best training experience they can.  Limited places are remaining, more details and booking via the BMC website www.thebmc.co.uk/training-novice-club-members.

Have a great week everyone!

Andy

Hey Everybody,

Yes I'm back in the country again after a return visit to the lovely Tignes for yet more skiing. Whilst I had a great time with some good friends and fellow bowliners, I did miss out on the weekend trip to Portland. It sounds like despite some damp weather a good time was had, checkout the great article about the trip written by Adam.

Looking out of the window at the blue sky here I'm itching for the weather to improve a bit more so we can start heading outside again for climbing. We've got a great year of climbing meetings to enjoy and I can't wait to get out and climb some rock with you guys! However in the meantime we go have the clubs Annual General Meeting coming up on Wednesday 16th March. This is a great opportunity to get even more involved by joining the committee and helping to shape the future of our awesome club!
 
If you're heading to The Climbing Station tonight for our Tuesday bouldering then I hope you all have a great time. I'll be at The Tower for our Thursday climbing session this week so hopefully see lots of you there too.

Andy

Hello Bowliner,

Apologies for the lack of weekly emails recently, I've been in France enjoying ski-ing in Tignes followed by Climbing in the Cote d'Azur. And although I'm back now, I'm heading back to Tignes for another week of ski-ing this weekend so you'll probably not hear from me again until the end of the month. It's hard life, but someone's got to do it!

I'm pleased to report that we had a very successful 30th Charnwood Hills Race on Sunday just gone. Thanks to a lot of hard work by Bowliners and friends our 350 entrants got to enjoy racing through the Leicestershire countryside once again. Well done to all those that helped out and to those that entered as well!

Since I've been away it's great to hear that so many of you are signing up for our various meets this year. If you haven't already checked out what's on offer this year then you can find all the details on the website. I'm also pleased that we have lots of new prospective members coming along to our Tuesday bouldering and Thursday climbing sessions. Can't wait for the weather to improve so we can get all go climvbing outside!

Hope you all enjoy yourselves next week!

Andy

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the New Bowline Year! I hope you've all got our meets locked into your diaries as this year we've got a super line up for you to enjoy and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on these trips. Remember you can always find the full list of meets over on our website.

I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight our trip to the Picos de Europa in June. This has been kindly organised by Michelle Aukland and already we have 15 people who are interested in going with many already having booked their flights and accommodation. I'm super excited about this trip and it will be brilliant to have loads of us their to experience what I'm told is a real hidden gem of climbing/walking destinations.

Also for those of you who can't wait to get back out climbing on real rock you should check out our Portland weekend in February which is being run by Tony Bishopp (thanks Tony). Unfortunately I can't make this myself as I will be away ski-ing, but if I was around I'd definitely be going, so hopefully you can all go along and let me know how great it was!

Right I'll stop there as otherwise I'll be excitedly telling you all about the other great trips but I'll save that for another week. Don't forget we are back at The Climbing Station on Tuesday evenings for bouldering, and we're also at The Tower on Thursday evenings for climbing!

Have a great week!

Andy