"Eternal Love"

For those who did not get the opportunity to see all the prizes for the Wa'a Outrigger Club raffle this beautifully detailed bone carved seahorse by John Christian, symbolic for "Eternal Love". This prize was chosen by first place Matt Bigg.

Wal done yolyi en thaenks f all the support.

Progress of the outrigger building

 It started as large lengths of 8 x2 as you can see the dark timber in the right of the picture.  Sawn into strips  and smoothed and shaped to form a tongue and groove that slots into each other similar to a hot tub construction.

Before building the actual outrigger could start, the framing up to support and shape the canoe has happened.  This same framework can be used to build the next one as well.

 This is it so far from the stern end in the shed out at Lou's farm.  It's awesome.  It's tahitian shape tapers in at the stern as you can see from this picture.

The timbers are glued together with resin and tacked on and then more resin is applied to the thin lines between each strip.

Sorry, guys, I'm not a boat builder so theirs no correct lingo!

Its pretty precise work.  Jason and Lou laying the last of the strips on today.  The foreman overseeing that they're doing the job properly!  So don't forget the start of the learning about the paddling and its traditions happens this afternoon at Christians Cave.  I think that the hull will be completely covered with timber as I type this.

The bow end.  You can see the tiny tacking nails holding the pine strips to the support structure.  It's amazing and its all happened so quick.  We'll be paddling in no time.  We aren't going ahead with the hangi fundraiser for the moment because of insurance and venue issues, but are gearing up for show day now for some serious fundraising.  We're going to be doing a chocolate wheel, so any donations of prizes for this will be greatly accepted.  Will progress this further next week.  Have a good week yorlye.



Raffle prize winners and our most recent meeting

Hey yorlye, well another really productive meeting last Friday night.  We drew the raffle, our first fundraiser.  Prize winners were 1st drawn, Matt Bigg who chose John's Seahorse bone carving.  2nd drawn was Martin Snell who chose the Bumboras photocanvas, 3rd drawn was Ada Nebauer who won the driftwood chair, 4th drawn was Deb Johnson who won the turtle painting, 5th drawn was Jarred Evans who won the twisted loop bone carving and finally, Peter Knapton won the norfolk language gift pack.  Congratulations to all our winners and thankyou to everyone who supported us.

A huge thankyou and congratulations to all club members, for their fantastic ticket selling efforts.  We raised around $1400 from the raffle and now have over $4000 in the bank.  Thankyou also to those people who paid membership fees and made contributions to the building of the canoe.  The next fundraiser is a hangi/umu/  food cooked in the ground and entertainment night on October 1st, venue yet to be decided.   We had some great fundraising ideas presented at the meeting which had a good turnout from members and the club is moving from strength to strength.

The next important notice is the Wa'a paddling technique which George is going to commence coaching this Friday night at Christians Cave in the Pitcairn Settlers Village commencing at 5.30pm.



We've also got permission to fundraise on show day and are looking at having something fun (waterbombing paddlers in the boat) and also a chocolate wheel.  For the chocolate wheel we will need a variety of prizes, so if you have anything that you can donate, please keep in mind.  This day will be a great opportunity for the club to raise money because of the volume of people that attend.  That's it for now.  Keep checking back for more updates and pics of the progress of the building of the canoe.



Raffle prizes update

Hey yorlye, the raffle prizes are now displayed in the Westpac Bank. Even as we were setting up, Westpac staff were selling tickets for us. Thanks to Westpac staff for their enthusiasm. The turtle painting on the left is one of the prizes, donated by Cristina McRitchie.

Tickets are also being sold at the Pump Shed. Thanks to Deb for allowing us to put tickets in there as well. If you haven't got tickets and would like to organise some, please phone Lou on 23181 to arrange.

John is still putting finishing touches to his bone carvings and they should be on display in the next couple of days.

The photocanvas of this image of Bumboras is 1.2m wide and .65m high. Suzanne's language gift pack has a laminated language poster, a copy of her book and a set of memory cards in a woven bag.

Meeting report Norfolk Island Wa'a Outrigger Club

Hey yorlye, well lots of great stuff to report from last nights meeting. Firstly, thankyou to the Norfolk Island government Sporting Grants program for the $1000 grant awarded to the club. This financial input allows us to deposit on the building of the boat. We received quotes for the building of our first boat from 2 interested parties and the committee voted to accept one of the quotes. The good news is, that our first boat will commence building in about a weeks time. The proposed completion being approximately a month, which is great because it means that in October we can start learning/training. Hopefully our return to the beach at Emily Bay will look something like this image I found on the net!

So start thinking about putting together a crew with people that have similar time availabilities as you that you might be able to form teams. Our first fundraiser Art Raffle is up and running with some excellent prizes donated by club members and generous interested others. (Thanks Cristina McRitchie for your turtle painting and Brendon King for the handmade driftwood chair, Thanks Suzanne for Norfolk Language giftpack, John Christian for 2 amazing bone carvings). Doesn't this image look like the paddle through the channel towards Nepean Island? Picture yourself in there!

It would be great if all members could sell 20 tickets. The raffle prizes will be displayed at Westpac Bank (thanks Westpac and staff) from Monday until prize draw on the 17th of September.

17th of September (friday at 5.30pm) is our next meeting at the Sports and Workers Club. Tania Sharpe is co-ordinating the next fundraiser, an U18's disco on Friday 15th October. Venue to be decided. But mark this on the calendar, especially those with kids. Noelene Nobbs has been busily designing a logo and t-shirt design for club stationary and merchandising, so hopefully we can get some product sales happening soon. Remember if you have a fundraising idea that you would like to co-ordinate with lots of help from other members of course, make it your project. We're open to anything that's enterprising and legal!

Last image, you can smell the salt water already! get ready for paddling!