WOWI 10th Birthday Celebrations
Last weekend, the 19-20th of September, a group of girls (and some guys too) got together in Castlegregory Co. Kerry, to celebrate WOWI’S 10th birthday. Charlotte and Anna came up with the idea of WOWI to help raise the profile and level of women’s windsurfing in Ireland. The group has been going successfully ever since.
The weekend kicked off with a few sociable pints in Spillanes bar on Friday night for those who made it down before midnight. There was a fairly relaxed start to Saturday morning with everyone getting together around 11am at Scraggane Bay. The wind was light but enough for everyone to get their gear out of cars and vans and get out sailing. University of Limerick Windsurfing Club were also on the water that morning with a group of beginners which added to the enthusiastic atmosphere. Alastair Nichol came along to demo some of his KA sails. The sun kindly broke through the clouds as people came back in for some lunch. Old and new WOWIers chatted and relaxed on the grass, people got to put faces to names and names to faces. There has been an explosion in the numbers of children at this WOWI birthday compared to that first meet all those years ago! People who hadn’t been out windsurfing in a while made renewed vows to get out on the water more often and find a neighbour/friend/anyone to keep an eye on the kids. Everyone headed off in the evening pleased with the sailing and to put the finishing touches on their fancy dress costumes for the pub.
Charlotte ‘the wigwam’ and Dave ‘the waiter’ were quiz masters for the night in Spillanes Pub and did an excellent job in finding questions that got us all thinking. The highlight was a music round with 20 songs, we had to name the artist and song title but the song was played backwards to make things more interesting. The questions got a bit tougher for the last two rounds and there was even one question about the name for kitchen spatulas in Scotland! The final tally of scores saw the winning prize going to the WWWs followed closely in second place by The Ice-Creams. A big thanks to Fingal Sailing School for the first place hamper. We celebrated the birthday officially with a few bottles of bubbly to toast the occasion and a gorgeous cake provided by Spillanes Pub with the WOWI 10 year logo iced perfectly on top.
We sold raffle tickets in the bar and raised €187.19 for the RNLI, thanks to all those in Spillanes who gave generously. Many thanks to our sponsors for the raffle prizes, we had a half price gear rental voucher from OTC in Tenerife, O’Neils shortie wetsuits & impacts vests from Brandwave Marketing, Jamie Knox t-shirts, Boards magazine subscriptions, bottles of wine from the Newshound Newsagency, cans of Red Bull, WOWI thermal mugs, beanie hats and hoodies. The fancy dress costumes were excellent,THE UL students outdid themselves; there was a window washer, wagon in a wagon, witches, Andy Warhol, a few Amy Winehouses, Westlife, a wall. It was a toss up for best costume between a group that dressed up as the characters from the Wizard of Oz and a girl dressed as a wobbly egg. The DJ (again organised by Spillanes, thanks so much) played Rock the Boat and was a bit surprised when everyone sat in a long line on the floor to sway along, she’d never seen that one before! The partying went on into the wee hours and needless to say there wasn’t much of anything done on Sunday other than chatting about the night before.Take a look at the Pics page of the webiste to see the photographs from the weekend.
The weekend was a great success with new windsurfers and those who’re an old hand at it out together on the water. Watch out for lots more women on the water over the coming months.
Aishling Reidy
