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Monday 24th November 2008 ... It's that time of year again, when we try to flog our dodgy wares to you, the site user. The 2008 UKRGB T-Shirt is the same design as last year, simply because I thought that last years' design (by Simon Westgarth, as always) was great. We're also flogging beanies (=woolly hats). The profits from our annual T-shirt sale usually cover about half of the website server costs each year. To rephrase that, they recoup about half of my annual loss. So I'm very grateful to all who buy the t-shirts. Please BUY HERE and there is more info HERE. Please note that you're only got until the 28th November to get your orders in. Many thanks to Simon and Gene17 for setting this all up. |
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Saturday 8th November 2008 ... Andy Jackson was one of the pivotal characters of our sport. He crammed an incredible amount into his life; from exploring Scottish ditches, to kicking off 'World Tour' paddling trips, to working towards legal access to Scottish rivers, to making an awful lot of people laugh and smile. His sudden death in 2004 at the age of 33 shocked and saddened British paddlers. Andy's friend Ron Cameron has now written a biography of Andy, collating Andy's writings, some amazing photos and the memories of Andy's (numerous) friends and family. I've been totally gripped by my copy. It's an absolutely brilliant read and a fitting tribute to an amazing guy. Enjoy a sample of the book here. You really do want to buy a copy of this book! Get one for yourself, then buy copies for all your friends for Christmas ... The royalties from this book are to be divided equally between the Andy Jackson Fund for Access and the IcFEM (providing education, healthcare, agriculture and social support in Kenya). Incidentally, I get a small commission for book sales through these links, and will be making a donation to the above funds for each copy sold here. |
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Sunday 7th September 2008 ... Hi all ... just an update on the state of play behind the scenes at UKRGB. I’ve run out of excuses not to sit down and do some proper work on the site. My book is finished and in the shops, this year’s big paddling trips are out of the way and I have finally run out of ‘work avoidance’ tactics. I'm currently setting up a system for voluntary regional editors to help with the work through the truly immense backlog of river guide updates. Hopefully, you should start seeing some progress made in the coming months. When that (major) task is done, then we'll take a step back and look at the bigger picture; namely, how to modernise the 'back end' of the site somewhat ... but the content comes first! Best wishes, Mark R. Right: Paddling in India last Easter. One of my numerous lame excuses for not making progress on the website. |
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Saturday 5th January 2008... A very Happy New Year to all visitors and members. I am happy to admit that although I've kept editing the Community, I have done very little work towards editing the river guides on this site during 2007. Sorry about this! The reason was that I was busy researching, photographing and writing a book. This took up all of my spare time, to put it mildly. The majority of the work on that project is now out of the way. I am now looking at ways to work through the backlog, and maybe even make the site a bit slicker. Watch this space! Right: My wife paddling the Etive on January 2nd ... |
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