Tuesday

Arriving late on Tuesday night I thought all would be quiet, but like me, many people had also made the decision to arrive a day early and get a head start on everyone else. It didn’t take long for the new 3800W BCPA sound system to make its first debut, with beer and dancers helping to christen what should become the future boogie centre piece. The night seemed to disappear far too quickly and having spotted the sunrise through the windows most people ended up making1 a hasty retreat to their beds.

Wednesday

For the most part the weather report for this year’s nationals was not entirely supportive. Be it then that I was greatly surprised when I awoke Wednesday morning to glorious sunshine and blue skies. After a quick hang-over curing breakfast from the onsite café registrations were opened in earnest. With people rolling in fast the draws were made and the competitions began. Many people like myself saw the weather as a positive omen and held back a little, letting our still 5am fresh hangovers dissipate a little more. Alas the weather was pulling a fast one because come lunch time the clouds along with their pitiful rain arrived; bringing a quick end to what was the first day of many. With over 70 people registered by Wednesday evening we were well on our way to covering the extraordinarily large costs of organising such an event. With loads of free food, beer and music supplied courtesy of the BCPA DJ’s it didn’t take long for the clothes to come off and the craziness to begin. My memories of this night are more of a hazy blur but I certainly remember seeing a sunrise again before going to bed. Congrats to all the hardcore campers that never actually made use of their tent that night and instead just went and slept in the café as it opened.

Thursday

With rain battering down onto my exceptionally cosy and warm van at about 9am on Thursday I decided it best to stay in and try to catch up, in advance, a little of the sleep I would be missing in the next couple of days. It wasn’t until 3pm that I finally managed to roll out of bed into the British weather that has been epitomised by this year’s summer. Amazingly the café staff were still kind enough to serve me breakfast along to many jeers and sniggers from fellow members of the BCPA. I am sad to say that due to the weather not much happened on Thursday except that people starting drinking more, earlier.

Friday

Friday morning saw the bouncy castles and human fly wall arrive along with large amounts of rain. The unfortunate few that had chosen lower ground for their tents also saw their tents turn into personal swimming pools. However none of this seemed to diminish the BCPA spirit and saw several competitions involving copious amounts of fairy liquid and wet t-shirts take place. Congratulations to several people that did a very good job of almost breaking themselves on the trampoline. The evenings events were kindly organised by Del and Elvis which took the form a guess which place, object and body part quiz. And no, my body parts did not feature in every single photo!

Saturday

We had planned to draw the league to a close on Saturday, but with the weather looking like it may just break allowing for some last minute tension and several people deciding to mutiny if we did, the decision was made to move the prize giving to Sunday. Starting to regret that very decision as 6pm came and went we chose in everyone’s interest to start chilling the beer and get food on the BBQ. Unfortunately just as the coals had settled the weather pulled another fast one and left us with nothing but bright blue skies. Congratulations and thanks to all of those teams that had sat around all week and finally had an opportunity to show us what that had been training for all year. Later with wheels finally down the ravenous students broke ranks and rioted for food. However thanks to a cunning treasure hunt kindly organised by Roy and Nicky we had suitable road signs available to keep everyone under control, not quite sure what to do with the shopping trolleys though! With food finished and the free beer flowing everyone disappeared only to reappear minutes later in some of the best caveman fancy dress I had ever seen. Hats off to some people that had obviously put way too much thought into it. Did anyone seeing that guy wearing the granny nightie?? Unfortunately most of that night is again a total blur, but I am pretty sure I had a good time because as I started to sober up someone announced a sunrise streak down the airfield runway (pictures attached) which I am glad to say I happily participated in.

Sunday

With a few hours sleep under my belt it was time to force myself out of bed by any means possible so that I could enter all of the last minute submissions and competitions results into the league. Again thanks to everyone that held tight as in the end it was a bit of a mad rush to get everything organised. After starting with thanks to the dropzone and staff for putting up with us for another year, the coaches and cameramen who stuck with the bad weather, anyone that helped organise one of the BCPA regional events, Elvis and Del for organising a very entertaining quiz (more of the same to come I am sure), Smirnoff for being such a good sport after getting abused almost every night and last but not least the BCPA committee, Ed and Sam, without whom nothing would have got done this year, then, we started the infamous BCPA raffle. This years prizes included but were certainly not limited to tunnel time, altimeters, jumpsuits, wingsuits, canopy coaching courses, tunnel coaching from world champions, rigs, helmets and much, much more. Thanks to everyone that participated by buying tickets and congratulations to everyone that won one of the many awesome prizes.

A special congratulations to Ally ‘F**king’ Milne who was for the second time running this years recipient of the Duncan Longhorn memorial award for outstanding dedication and contribution towards the BCPA, the first person in 20 years to receive this award twice. As for the final top three league and individual positions, they were as follows:

Finally we held the AGM which elected a new committee for the coming year:

Treasurer – Kath Rybinski

Sponsorship & League – Ed Morley

Chairman – Marc Fletcher

It was decided that in the coming year the league would essentially be broken into two representing competitions and achievements separately (For more information please see next year’s rules).

Once all was said and done many people decided to stick around and enjoy what once again turned out to be a lovely day. I think that everyone that came had the opportunity to jump weather they wanted to or not. For the most part the week went without incident or injury although we came pretty close, so just a quick shout out to the two ‘CrwDawgs’ who almost created a paperwork mountain, glad you were both ok!!

Last but not least I would like to thank every single member of the BCPA that helped by making this one of the best years ever. I hope you will all agree that the next can only get better and I look forward to seeing all the old faces plus hopefully more new ones at BCPA Freshers in November (Not forgetting the unofficial BCPA event, ‘BCPA Boogie Crash’ of course – see facebook!).

Let BCPA 2007-08 Begin! Now, will you let the BCPA down??

Marc Fletcher

BCPA Chairman

We're streeeeaking!