April 7th – What good fortune we turned 100 this time last year!

The FCC History Group had our first ZOOM meeting this week and counted our blessings that our grand year of celebrations was enjoyed before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.

It is probably a good moment to reflect on these past twelve months and enjoy some happier times.

 

November 2018 saw the Legends Lunch bring together stalwart members of our club from the fifties and sixties. Not only were a number of friendships refreshed, but in addition we were able to record many memories, reliable and otherwise, to enrich our archives. These Legends have been a rich seam of history to be mining still.

Sunday April 7th, 2019, saw more than 150 members of the club from all eras come together to celebrate our One Hundredth Birthday in style. The clubhouse bedecked with bunting, a large banner announcing our special occasion across the entrance and our club photo in the forecourt. See photographs from the day.

Within the club we found a” Century of Club Photographs”, Classic  Boat and Paddle exhibition, Interviews of our club champions, young and old, fantastic food and to finish the day, a special birthday cake cut by two Life-Members. Just imagine if our birthday was 2020.

Our celebrations were continued across the year as we took our ‘ FCC Century of Photographs’ exhibition on tour to the Northcote and Fitzroy libraries and finished the year by returning to our ‘birthplace’ at the Fairfield Boathouse, where it was on show December to February.

In amongst these travels, the club celebrated our centenary at the Tay Creggan Winter Series Event and, fittingly, we bookended the Winter Series in our centenary year by taking out the trophy we first won forty years earlier in the inaugural year, 1979.

The Christmas Party in December was our last hurrah to cap a great year of celebrations. Great flare, rather than skill, was displayed in our re-envisaged (Health & Safety revised) carnival events on the water with the Tug-of-War seeing a boatload of young paddlers drag a craft of weary oldies upstream to win! The club is in good hands.

The History Group will endeavour to brighten your reading over the upcoming weeks whilst we are kept (appropriately) from exercising on the water.

Stay healthy and look after all your loved ones.