Ross Rowing Club held their annual regatta over the holiday weekend, consisting of Gloucester Regatta, held at Ross on the Saturday, Ross Junior and Veteran Regatta on the Sunday, and Ross Senior Regatta on the Monday. This year along with being successful on the water, the rowers enjoyed incredible weather swelling the number of campers enjoying a weekend in Ross on Wye. The wonderful weather and exciting racing drew many spectators to the river banks.

On the Saturday at Gloucester the Junior Squad piled a record number of entries into the registration office, and managed to come away with six wins. However backed up by these wins was some amazing racing from other members of the squad, which just showed the quality of the Junior Academy. The clubs Senior 3 crews also won taking the up a status and another victor was completed in Vet novice double sculls making a total of 8 wins on day 1.

On the Sunday members of Ross could only race one event each, but this did not have any effect on the results as each crew was just as strong and all efforts were put into that one race. This had a tremendous result with 2 wins. However there was one more surprise for the Juniors, they had , jointly won the Victor Ludurom with Totnes Rowing Club, meaning that although that the entries were limited, they had been the best in the West Midlands, and maybe even wider, as about 40 different clubs from around the country had competed. This was an amazing achievement, of which the club was very proud. Added to this the Vet c crew won and the ladies Vet c eight also chalked up a notable victory with a great row in their final. The excellent weather continued over to the Monday event in which the club gained another win in the men's senior iv doubles sculls.

The weekends competitive highlight was the announcement of which club was the most successful over the bank holiday weekend. The prize was a brand new swift sculling boat sponosored by Murphy Pipelines. The Winning club was Llandaff rowing club followed by Cantabrigans and Ross.

Ross Rowing club would like to give a massive thank you to everyone that had anything to do with the regatta, especially the sponsors and all Club members, friends and families that gave their time and effort to make the regatta happen. The regatta was considered to be one of the best the club has ever hosted. Blessed by near perfect weather and rowing conditions the "Spirit of rowing was very present and enjoyed by all.

Wyenot News going in the wrong direction

Hello,

I have been visiting your site for several years and feel it might now be going in the wrong direction, I feel this is a shame as it has always been a success story to me. I think you are personalising the site to much, this could also bring you problems.

You mentioned the other week that the Tina Dancing bit is starting to get a cult following, that could bring bad news. Your wife appears to be a nice lady, she might not want the backlash this could bring. If this catches on to much she will receive a lot of unwanted attention, I feel sure you will know what I mean. Tina keeps nicely in time to the Music in the sessions you video but her dancing is quite basic, please do not take this as an insult as a lot of people don't know what keeping in time when dancing means. Idiots will start to make remarks when she is doing her job as a barmaid, its not always easy being a well know person, it gets far worse when you have a special ability.

I thought it unwise to put the nice private session Tina and yourself had when she sang a song and you played the guitar and sang online, this would have been better kept between you and your friends, its like inviting the world in general into your private life.

Your site is a commercial thing as it has adverts on it and its a good site I feel it will get even bigger as business people realize the potential of advertising at such reasonable rates, this may not be your aim but I cannot see why not. I sincerely hope I am wrong but being 73 years old and having entertained at a very low level, also having been a well known person through the various businesses I have run I know how hard in can be to be to much in the publics eye.

I wish you well and shall continue every week to follow the Wyenot news etc, I just didnt want to think your dear wife was going eventually be the target of a few remarks when she is out and about probably when your not around.

Another thing you might find could damage your image is when you give opinions on the bands and artistes you see when you are out, if in an endevour to be nice you say how good a new group or such is when they are rubbish will make your viewers get annoyed when they travel somewhere to see these acts. If you tell the truth you make enemies of the entertianers concerned plus all their friends, you can do without that.

Your part on your site is maybe not to be a judge on any such things, you are The Top Man with a successful business watched around the world, this means on times you are under a magnifying glass.

Now you will be annoyed enough with me to feel I should not be trying to give advice, however one thing that does hit my tiddy brain when I visit your site is there are no special offers weekly.

Surely some of the hotels or guest houses would like to have little adverts giving maybe a half price weekend or what ever, its better to have a small pub/hotel with people in than being empty. As your special adverts would not appear until lets say the thursdays the venues would know what trade they have for the coming weekend, hark at me talking to a higly suceessful internet site operator and thinking I can give them any advice.

I have visited Ross on many occasions going back many years, we spent our honeymoon in the area. All the best and please note I have sent this note with good intentions, all the best to you and your wife.

From a dedicated site visitor.

Ken

Thank you for your comments, Ken and I am pleased that you have been reading 'Wyenot News' regularly for several years. I like to hear readers' comments but note from your salutation that over those years, you have picked up Tina's name but not mine. I am Alan, or Al to my friends. I realize that you are trying to be helpful and am grateful for your advice. Here are my reasons for personalizing Wyenot News and not worrying about showing Tina Dancing.

Tina might not 'dance' as in 'Come Dancing' - fox-trot, tango and the general stuff I change channel on television to avoid but she moves in time to music, expressing herself in a way she enjoys. Me. I hate dancing and only ever join in under extreme duress, or after at least 10 pints of beer. As I mostly drink tea and coffee, dancing for me is extremely rare.

Tina might look timid but she is a big girl now and would definitely not take any nonsense from the very nice customers at the White Lion Inn, where she is a 'barmaid' (and Personal License holder). She would (and does) give back as much as she gets. Although she is not technically my wife, Tina and I have been living together for ten years and we trust one another implicitly. I have no worries when she is alone in a bar full of White Lion customers or anywhere else. I am too old, fat, bald, eccentric and, quite frankly, too knackered and 'been there - done that' for her to need worry about me either. We are both very happy together and will stay that way until one of us gets called to the great gig in the sky.

'Tina Dancing - The Movie' was never meant to be serious work of art. It was a spoof film, not intended to give dancing lessons. Sometimes people do not understand our - particularly my strange sense of humour. The film was planned (very basically) in advance by both of us, and made jointly, simply because we receive lots of 'Tina Dancing' fan mail. As you say, Tina is watched all around the world but neither of us realized she had a fan club until I didn't run a 'Tina Dancing' photo two weeks on the trot and people started to write in and ask what had happened to her.

The film with me playing the guitar and Tina singing, in fact contained four songs. It was hardly an invasion of our privacy - we were playing what might only loosely be described as music, sitting in two armchairs. Not taking the camera into the fights as to whose turn it is in the bathroom. Nobody was forced to click the 'play' button, but many hundreds did. Same with 'Tina Dancing - The Movie'. In fact that film proved to be very popular, with, surprisingly, double the viewers during its first day of being on line than the 'Ross Town Carnival' (which was also very popular) film had when I first ran that one.

I don't know if you have ever considered how difficult it is for the two of us to find enough material to run a magazine every single week of the year, about the things that go on in a town the size of Ross-on-Wye. Sometimes I cannot sleep because I worry about having no story. The first year was fine but by the second, it was a little more difficult and by the third, it became a case of, 'It's the beginning of September so it must be time to cover the kids going back to school' - 31st October so people will be dressed up for Hallowe'en again' - December - must be School Nativity Play and the Christmas lights again.

Sometimes, we include things in an issue which are probably not particularly interesting, such as me playing the guitar and Tina singing but nobody is forcing anybody to watch. If something proves popular I continue with it, such as 'Nature Watch' and 'Tina Dancing' - though I will not carry this on to the point of boring the arse off the readers - there will come a time when something better, or different will replace it. The 'Ross-on-Wye Extreme Breakfast Club' is an idea which springs to mind - eating a full English breakfast whilst perched on top of the spire of St. Mary's or whilst snorkelling in the River Wye.

When I started Wyenot, I simply had no idea just how much it would put us both in the 'public eye'. Tina copes with that part far better than I do and quite enjoys it. I try to hide from it as much as possible. Most people in Ross, thankfully, do not see me any differently to how they did when I worked in 'the office' or when I was a postman. I still have the same friends, plus a few more, whom I have met as a result of working on 'Wyenot News'. Just sometimes, when I get out of the car to buy something in the supermarket and get accosted - or when I want a quiet drink and a camera anorak moves in and starts to tell me about the 'Cannon GTX with knobs on' it really gets to me and I want to hide.

One thing I never do is tell a porky about enjoying a band if I didn't really like them. If you look back over my reviews. If I like a band I say so - if I don't, I usually say something like, 'not my cup of tea but others seemed to enjoy it'. Other people are always welcome to write reviews for publication - or anything else for that matter. I do not force the public to go to see bands which I personally enjoyed. Everybody's taste in music is different and there will always be some who enjoy it and others who do not.

As for being a 'Successful Commercial Internet Site' and I should not personalize it. Look at the amount of regular readers I have compared to those boring town web sites with lists of businesses, lots of flashing advertisements and the Devil's own task of navigating. Most people tell me that the personal bit is what makes 'Wyenot' stand out among the crowd. In fact, 'Wyenot' is one of the most successful and most visited town web sites in the world, which is something I definitely did not envisage. Or maybe, your email is the first of thousands to tell me otherwise. If so, I shall give up my day job.

I do need money (and more of it) to live but if all I was worried about was making 'Wyenot News' a 'successful commercial internet site' so that I could buy a Learjet, I would have given up six and a half years ago. I could easily get somebody to market the advertising side properly and make loads of money from its 6,000 plus visitors per day - even by just running 'Google Ad Words' or whatever but I have chosen not to take this path in order to keep it personal, unstuffy and mostly readable - for the benefit of Ross-on-Wye as a whole and not myself.

Hotels advertising weekend offers. What a good idea! (Except for the 'Thursday' bit coz I don't know if you have noticed the deadline info but I publish Wednesdays and my absolute deadline is midday on Tuesday) They are welcome. All hotel owners have to do is contact me. As with all advertising on Wyenot. I do not go out chasing or pressuring for business - never have done. I just make the service available for those who wish to use it.

Please do not take offence at my reply. It is certainly not intended that way and 'Wyenot News' might well be going in the 'wrong' direction, but then I have steered by the stars rather than by the compass of established procedure all my life. Individuality is a rare and valuable commodity and I believe that is what Wyenot has which most other town web resources do not. It also says what Tina and I think - not what we are paid to pretend we think.

The Nursery

Can you help me? I lived in Nursery road up to 1952 and have some great times there. I have a lot of old pictures of Ross but not the Nursery and wonder if you can help. I now live in Droitwich and look at Wyenot most weeks and appreciate the time and work you put into it.

P S I have one or two of Ross station and staff if you would like a copy.

Clive

I am personally unable to help Clive with photos of the Nursery during that particular era but maybe a reader can. If so, let me know and I will pass you Clive's address.

Clive did in fact send me some photos of Ross Station but I have not had the time to process them for this week's issue. Thank you, Clive and I will run them next week.

Thank you

Dear Alan,

Just to say many thanks for the excellent photographs and cover you produced for our 72nd Horticultural Show. It is Jack's first year as Chairman and he is grateful for the support he has received. Our daughter in New Zealand enjoys your website.

Kind regards

Ann Colman

No problem, Ann. It was a pleasure. I would have stayed longer but had to get to the bandstand and cover the concert on the same afternoon. Hi to your daughter in New Zealand.

Another successful activity session for children was held at Ross Heritage Centre on Thursday 23rd August. These sessions have proved very popular with local children and mums, who this week got the chance to do some 'Wondrous Weaving.' In the photograph below are Tina Walton of the Green Eyed Monster Company who organized the event along with Deborah and Lucy Drew-White, Jessica Parry and our friend Amy King with mum Jules.

Glyn Townley took the photo below of St. Dubricius Church, Symonds Yat whilst staying recently at Rose Cottage. He did not notice anything strange until looking at the photo on his return home and wondered how others see it.

The photo below it is an ordinary one, which I took from a similar angle a few years back just for comparison.

My own thoughts. When I first saw this picture, it looked like a transparent human form and I did think it weird. Having magnified the original so that the strange figure fills the screen however, I think it looks like a lady with black hair and a strappy brown, knee length dress walking into the church who Glyn did not notice at the time. I think that it is the light being of a similar colour on the church entrance to her skin, and her dress appearing the same colour as the shadow is causing an optical illusion of transparency.

I wrote that bit above an hour or so ago and, looking again, I'm not so sure. On my screen, it depends on the angle the photo is viewed from. What do you think? Try scrolling it up and down, if you have the screen size and resolution to do so. (My own screen resolution is set to 1280 x 1024 pixels.)

DO YOU HAVE A STORY FOR WYENOT NEWS?

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Wyenot News, 1, Hillview Road, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. HR9 7EY

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