Bournemouth Rowing Club 'christmas Soul Beach Party', Thanks To Everybody

[Guest]

BOURNEMOUTH ROWING CLUB 'Xmas Soul Beach Party' 8th Dec 2007

'It'll never catch on....'

Thanks to everybody who turned out on yet another atrocious day of weather on the (sunny??) south coast! When Guy and I arrived at the venue mid-afternoon to set everything up, the rain was tipping down, the wind was howling and huge clouds of spray from the waves were hitting the club! Once inside, we realised the roof was taking in water quite heavily in one corner and yet again, we started to cross our fingers and hope that there would be a few soul's keen enough to brave the promenade chill, later in the evening. Once again, there was an unfortunate clash of nights. This time with 'Soul Shoes' at Bishopstoke but, it really is getting very hard nowadays to manage to put on a do and not clash with somebody, especially if as is the case with this club, you can only get the venue on very limited dates.

At 8 pm the place was empty and we thought, this is it, a total washout, but sure enough a few minutes later the door swung open, in poured half a dozen people and the night was underway. The Southampton mini-bus followed shortly afterwards, along with old faces from Newbury, Bournemouth and the surrounding areas. The volume levels went up, the bar was quickly doing a roaring trade and hey presto another cracking little Soul Party in one of the most picturesque settings you could ever envisage. On a freezing cold night, the most amazing thing is that you can catch non-smokers out on the balcony, taking in the Sea views! Great to see Bob Povey for the first time in years and also, the whole family from Bournemouth complete with young sons and their mates who had apparently been learning dance steps from Dad in the kitchen at home! Personally, it was gratifying to see Kev Hooper out and about again, nice one mate, let's see more of you again in the New Year and keep on fighting! Comedy highlight of the night once again awarded to that young up and coming joker on the scene, Pete Widdison. When it became obvious that nobody had brought any talc, Widd disappeared off through the doors and returned minutes later with an ice cream container full of flour from the restaurant next door! Courtesy of Sally from Newbury, five minutes later, In the words of the club Bar Manager, the dance floor resembled a 'Columbian Baron's kitchen'....The rest of the club was coverered in hundreds of white footprints for the rest of the night!!!!

The great thing about this unique little venue/dive is that when the lights go down and the sound system kicks in, 50-60 people feels like a proper crowd and the atmosphere ignites. Special thanks to Martin and Jason for steering us through the early hours, and for a fantastic set from Shay, including quite a lot of 60s stuff from a guy renowned for quality 70s sets... Again, thanks to everybody who came and kept the dancefloor moving right up until the very last record and for the bar staff who did a sterling job. This will be the last Party at the Rowing Club until next summer when we are going to kick off with a summer barbeque All-Dayer. The idea will be for people to come for a whole day out on the beach, sunbathing, swimming, a barbeque on the balcony overloading the sea and 10 hours of soul sounds as the icing on the cake!

This of course assumes that the 2007 'Storm Curse' lifts off of us and we actually get to see a ray of sunshine!

Time for us to hibernate for the winter now, in terms of promotions, but In the spring of 2008 we will also be launching a superb, new venue on the south coast. Watch this space as they say!

(Photo's of this event and earlier Rowing Club parties this year, will be posted shortly) Happy Christmas to everybody!

Rich and Guy

Edited December 10, 2007 by chorleysoul