I was delighted with the way the evening panned out. The venue suited our needs but it's a shame the bar was not in a separate room to the talk.
My thanks go to Paul Whiteing for all of his assistance and encouragement, to Geoff for his brilliant job as MC and to Kevin for being the Admin along with Paul and for his overall help. My thanks also go to Conrad for making the effort to come down and say a few words, despite numerous hurdles and I do hope you are feeling better mate.
Thanks to all those that attended. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. A very big thank you to our guests:
Charlotte from the ARK gave us a superb presentation. I will be getting back in touch with Charlotte to see what we as individuals and the Kennet angling clubs can do to help. She mentioned that they need feedback from us anglers on the state of the river lower down, so I'll be getting some more info to publish on that.
Dave from the TAC, once again provided a brilliant, professional and passionate presentation. I'll also get a little more info from Dave so we can publish on not just our ABF forum but on the other forums that allowed us to publicize and promote this event. (Many thanks to Andy Frances for his great support)
Len Arbery who I consider to be an angling legend. I found myself hanging on his every word and enjoyed his company and sharing stories from his angling photo album. To hear about his own successes and about the anglers that he not only fished with but learned from, was amazing. What an absolute gentleman. Len is the Tom Jones of angling. He's not a wannabe legend, he's the real deal.
Ray Walton. What a great guy. He’s very passionate, not only about fishing but conservation too. Great to hear him and again share an insight into what makes him tick. The guy is a phenomenal angler and is not frightened to speak out about controversial conservation issues and to hell with the consequences. It’s very refreshing in this day and age.
Keith Speer. Keith is a great speaker, with some wonderful tales to tell. Keith is such a good angler, just brilliant at what he does. Keith's knowledge and passion for angling and the river environment is second to none.
So a tremendous line up of 'experts' but more importantly genuinely nice people that were happy to spare their time and share their incredible passion for what they do.
Sorry a few of you couldn't make it due to travel difficulties. Let's hope next time things are a little easier.
Yes the barmaid, best brace I've seen in ages.
Thank you.