Saturday 19 June 2010

Engerland!

Lovely beach day again - couple of feet on the sets, light breeze. Great for beginners and improvers! When's it ever going to end? The Rock Oyster Festival is on this weekend down at Porthilly, no idea what it is but people are making plans to head that way. And the Pro Junior surfing comp is on at Fistral tomorrow. This is the big one!

Friday 18 June 2010

My dream last night involved playing in the ladies semi final at Wimbledon, a broken racket, Boris Becker pretending to not be able to speak German, him lending me his notepad (after reminding him that I saw him speaking fluent english on Panorama) and then me being disqualified for using someone elses notepad! I blame the Blue Cheese ... or it could be the Piriton.
I generally like to wake up with Lucy Versamy from the Sky weather team, but more recently she's been a cause for concern. You see many years ago, when I was an 'inlander', I used to suffer terribly from hayfever. I was one of the only pupils allowed to wear sunglasses - hey (ref. the fonz)! But ever since I moved to the coast 20 years ago the pollen seasons have come and gone without too much ado! But Lucy has been troubling me because she's now started using these new symbols to signify pollen strength. Any hayfever sufferer trembles in front of the telly when a big H appears on the screen. A High Forecast signifys a day in doors. But we now we see the Big V making a guest appearance. And as we all know, a big V is much worse than a big H! Not only that, but the area identified as a big V is coloured in danger red and it was focused on Cornwall! Piriton here we come!

Anyone catch BP's Mr Hayward yesterday being grilled by Congress? It was like watching a car crash in slow mo, bite the pillow time! He's probably a really decent family man, but this was poor performance. Yep, it was the same questions repeated time and time again, and he probably does want to wait until all the results have come in - but somehow there was a lack of appearing to want to help them. If our coastline was being threatened in this way (and we're not totally oblivious to the way the currents work from there to here!) we'd have wanted a bit more from him too. The irony of course is the americans past record on the environment, the 'unseens' don't seem to matter. But now we have a 'seen' perhaps, although extreme, in history this could go down as a defining moment that's good for the planet as we change our dependencies.

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Plans afoot for 2011


It's all true... in 2011 we'll be moving our surf school to the beach house... and cutting back our capacity by 60%!! Really? Yep, we've written to the council informing them of our decision and on the 1st November we'll drive off the beach for the first time since 1995! When we tendered for the beach licence last time out, we didn't have the Beach House - but now that we do have our own premises right on the beach, it makes sense to make the change. Keep it all under the one roof.

But why cut the surf school by 60%? Since 1995 it would be fair to say that we've been one
of the leading surf schools in the UK. We'd like to think that we have a good grip on the surf school industry. We think now is the time for a new type of surf school. Of course we wouldn't be going into this without a plan and we have one. If we were doing this in year two, this wouldn't work, but after 16 years we can make the change with real confidence. Most of our
business is pre-booked, so that's a strength. But there will be significant changes to the way we operate. We're very excited about it.

As for this year, it's business as usual. We're currently enjoying potentially the busiest ever and a year in which positive feedback is at an all time high. Credit to the team. No changes until Jan 2011. We've got the rest of the year to let everyone know of the changes in 2011 - can't wait, very excited!

Just finished three days at the Royal Cornwall Show - really not much point in doing that again. Unless you have old stock to sell (which we didn't) no-ones there to pay full prices. It was fun though setting up next to Ollypop who kindly gave us some space. I gathered all the profits on the last day to buy a nice slice of Blue Cheese from the food tent - says it all really.
Pilgrim Pete pays a visit to our stand - I use the term 'stand' very loosely!
A big up to Billy's footie team who completed the cup and league double. What an amazing bunch of young lads! And a huge thanks to coaches Tom and Nick who's dedication to the team is inspiring and selfless. Totally committed to what's best for the boys.