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Boats Racing at Hastings and St Leonards sailing club

An evening of Not so plain sailing

Bevali Francis attended the Annual glamorous event of Hastings and St Leonards Sailing Club Laying-up Supper,  held on the 1 November at The Sussex Exchange.

A Laying-up Supper is when all the members of a sailing club come together to celebrate their achievements and award trophies to winners of races that have taken place over the year. The evening is also a time say thank you to all of the hard working volunteers who make sure all the safety boats are kept in running order, the people who man those boats and run the races and training courses that make the club a friendly community place to be.

The Blurton family proved to be the stars of the evening winning lots of awards, seeing mum, dad and son all receiving much deserved awards for many racing events. I really liked the fact there were awards for new-comers to the club too, such as most improved sailor.

Seeing everyone dressed in their evening attire on arrival was impressive. I love an excuse to dress up and sailor folk look a lot different out of their wet suits. To make sure we did not forget what these dashing sailors look like in their sailing togs, artistic photos taken by many of the club’s talented photographers were displayed on an overhead projector in the dining room.

Although everyone enjoyed themselves, because they are a community who know how to have fun, the evening started choppy and sometimes was very  rough!

The Sussex Exchange off the Queensway is not easy to get to, so you would expect every effort would be made to make sure that the venue would have a sparkling atmosphere. This is the first time I have been to a party where tables and chairs had been stacked upside down so the guests were made to feel it was already time to go home. The dining area is a large basement area resplendent with polystyrene tiles and fluorescent ceiling lights left on full blast. The diners tried to dim the lights but they were either on or off. The food was supposed to be a buffet “enough for eighty people!” but the two hard working staff (who also ran the bar) struggled to produce sufficient food to feed everyone! In fact there were not enough plates to put the canteen style food on. I have never been to a place where this has happened before. Unfortunately I cannot comment on the quality of the food as I only had rice and mashed potato the only things left! In the dining room the unused plates were not cleared while the two staff served us coffee in large mugs – perhaps they were trying to say something!

The evening was saved by a wonderful local band called Not Guilty who played some great popular tunes for dancing to. Their front man worked hard to whip up enthusiasm from a sinking ship of people. They managed to get everyone to their feet, even on a carpeted dance floor, and saved us all from drowning.

 

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Posted 12:20 Tuesday, Nov 4, 2014 In: Hastings Life

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