Thames Rally at Lechlade

We are delighted to announce that there will, once again, be a an Upper Thames rally in Lechlade.

At the invitation of SBA members Ian and Jules Lindsay we will be able to enjoy the hospitality and resources of Lechlade Marina with its access to the peaceful upper navigable reaches of the Thames and some excellent venues to head for when cruising south of Lechlade.

Full details and costs will be provided in due course to all interested boaters and it’s great that this year there seems not to be a clash with other events.

Mark Rudall is organising: markrudall@gmail.com and he can answer any questions in the meantime. Revd Mark Rudall 01252 645486 07779 654975

Greetings to all coming to Lechlade: weekend 8/9 August

We are very grateful to SBA members Jules and Ian Lindsay who will welcome us once again to their marina in Lechlade where facilities are ideal for our rally, and full details, with costs, are laid out below in Ian’s own words:

Jules and I would be delighted to host, and help arrange, a gathering of team boaters and boats the weekend of 8/9th August.

We will charge £50 per boat for the weekend. This is to launch and recover, park car & trailer and moor overnight (discounted from our usual rate).

We do have some capacity for people to either arrive earlier than the Start Date or stay after the End Date. If anyone wants to, we will charge £7.50 /day to park for the additional days and £18/ night to moor for additional nights if they contact us to book.

We can offer electrical hookups, if required, at £5 per hook up per night.

We may be able to accommodate people trailing their boat here if they would like to camp or stay in their campervan in the marina. We will charge £10 per night to camp, £15 per night for a campervan plus an additional £5 per night for electric hookup for either a tent or camper. We are happy that some people travelling a long distance may choose to arrive and stay the night before Start Date and/or the night after End Date nights.

Overnight mooring, camping or camper van stays are for up to 2 people in each boat/ tent/ van. Additional people staying overnight are charged at £5 per person per night.

Be aware that we are dredging again this year and, depending on where we are with getting the dried out silt taken away, parking for cars and trailers may be a bit less organised than usual.

Very important:

We will require people to confirm, as the Steam Boat Association do, that boats are insured and have a boat safety certificate (where required) to be allowed launch here. Our usual event declaration from the website can be used for this or Mark Rudall will have some copies with him).

If this is your first ‘formal’ SBA event, you will find it useful to read the Event notes on the website in which we’ve tried to think of all eventualities!

We are sure members know, but for those whose boats don’t have a current Environment Agency River Thames Registration they will need to purchase a Visitor’s Registration, the details of which and the requirements needed to obtain one can be found at

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/river-thames-boat-registration-andapplication-forms . Visitor registrations may be available to purchase at St Johns lock.

Other notes:

Staying locally? For people attending who want to stay locally, rather than on board. We suggest trying https://www.riverside-lechlade.com/ or https://newinnhotel.co.uk/ or there are lots of Airbnb’s in Lechlade too.

We have some limited car parking availability for spectators coming without a boat. The parking charge of £5/car helps to cover the costs of hot water, hand dryers etc in our facilities building.

How to pay: We don’t take credit/ debit cards so we will email attendees with an invoice to be paid by bank transfer in advance of their arrival. Day visitors can pay for parking in cash on the day.

Since we are unlikely to have room for spectators to camp, we suggest they try http://www.bridgehousecampsite.co.uk/ or https://www.roughgroundsfarm.co.uk/info/

For members who want to find out more please see our website https://lechlademarina.co.uk/ .

Catering:

Last year we used the honesty box as per ‘Puffing-a-Wey’ to cover costs of teas/coffees /Barbecue at the site on the Saturday night. and it works well. Costs are unlikely to exceed £20pp so we’ll do that again. Catering is being co-ordinated by David Avery – to whom we are very grateful.

Friday evening will probably see us at either the Riverside or the New Inn as a group (more details nearer the time). On the Saturday evening we will have our customary barbecue and some local Oxfordshire folk musicians have kindly agreed to come up and join us for the evening to provide some background...

The Lechlade Marina site has a number of pleasant eating venues to which you can cruise:

A very short cruise away with riverside moorings is the Plough at Kelmscott https://theploughinnkelmscott.com/ with a short walk to the pub, or Ye Olde Swan at Radcot https://yeoldeswan.co.uk/ s a longer cruise away with riverside moorings. Ye Olde Swan has recently changed hands and they are very keen to encourage boat borne customers. All would need to be booked for a larger group. A number of groups have also cruised to Kelmscott and booked a tour round Kelmscott Manor, home of William Morris. There is also a nice light lunch café there. https://kelmscottmanor.org.uk