CYE gets OnBoard

We are now into our 4th week with our Friday afternoon Sailing Club in partnership with the RYA OnBoard Scheme. Headed up by Senior Instructor Jake Elsbury and assisted by former Centre Manager Gavin Jones, a number of local youngsters are improving and honing their dinghy skills during the 2 hours from 4.00pm - 6.00pm every Friday. Amazingly, every week without fail has provided amazing conditions for sailing, so if you want to enjoy decent guaranteed weather, just come to CYE every Friday afternoon!

Our OnBoard club has a small number of spaces left, so if you are Year 7 or above and would like to join us, please email Chris Adams on chris@cye.org.uk

Young Ent's Camp

As usual the Young enterprisers summer camps was full this year: Full of children, 40 which is our maximum; Full of fun, we did almost all of CYE's regular activities plus a few bonus ones based around our theme of Charlie and the Chocolate factory; Full of God, With Terry Bateman giving a talk each evening after worship and Lorna presenting the Gospel message over breakfast time; and Full of weather we had everything from gorgeous sunshine to heavy downpours. But we didn't let that dampen our spirits and everyone had a fantastic week.

Families Weekend

This year, due to popular demand (as the saying goes) we ran 2 separate Families Weekends both of which included various activities tailored to Families or all ages and sizes. As well as an array of watersports, crabbing competitions, quiz nights and land activities to get stuck into, the families benefited from some great thought-provoking talks from various speakers. As always, there was competition built into the House Challenges with the August weekend in particular taking the 'friendly competition' to new heights!! Well done Team Killer Whales.

Alpha 2011

Alpha 2011 had the theme of "Elections" which could sound bit dull, but it was awesome. The three teams thought up their own party names, with the "Rah" party, "Partay" and the "Bland" party all competing for who would rule over the new ship!

As well as the normal activities, we had bacon and sausage sandwiches for breakfast on the beach on Sunday morning, we went on a late night walk from Bosham back to CYE and had an awesome day trip which involved canoeing all the way to the very top of the Harbour at Fishbourne (where the high reeds make it seem like you're canoeing down a small river in the Amazon!) and then walking into Chichester to try and get members of the public to sign the three party's petitions - the winning team came up with a petition to ban people in Chichester from asking members of the public to sign random petitions... pure genius!

Ralph Buckingham (a past CYE staff member) gave the talks, which were really interactive with loads of video clips and followed the election theme and asked "Who's in control" of our lives?

The new ship was incredible to stay on, with the en-suite cabins and SO much space, one camper said "it's 10 times better than the old ship, I'm definitely coming next year"

If you want to get in early, Alpha next year will be 28th July - 3rd August 2012 and we can already take bookings.

We hope to see you there.

Bravo 2011 was nothing short of EPIC! A great bunch of campers, a brilliant team, crazy activities and awesome worship.

The competition was intense, Blue team eventually triumphed after a slow start, by 1 point to claim the chocolate.

Highlights were the mud assault course, no one came away looking good! We had CYE’s first Grand Prix won by the Reds and our very own version of ‘Total Wipeouts’ big red balls!

As well as some great times on the water a BBQ on the beach and where at least 3 of us turned up looking like drowned rats!

Each evening we had a time of worship which literally blew the tent away, God moved powerfully and the talks by Dave and Emma were challenging and relevant for everyone. We all crowd surfed at the end of one meeting as a blessing!

All in all a brilliant week of fun, fellowship, friends, food, mud and lots of laughter!

See you next year!

Kids at CYE

We have just one more school group before the Summer groups kick in over the next few days. Since April, we have had numerous Primary and Secondary schools enjoying the wonderful new facilities. Comments like 'It's like a -star hotel" and "It's so spacious" sum up the general feedback. With lots of "Get Sailing" courses about to start plus the Summer Camp residentials to come, it has been a fantastic first season with 'Resolute' in place.

Retirement of Key Trustee

David Edwards, on the left, is one of the founding trustees of CYE Sailing Centre and has been a key figure from inception until now. David was first RYA principal, and instrumental in the building and development projects over 26 years. Latterly he was project manager of RESOLUTE.

Here he is being given a framed photo of RESOLUTE in the CYE berth as a token of thanks for his dedicated service.

He hopes to spend more time on his own yacht "Tinkerbell".
Thank you from all his fellow trustees.

The site, the kids and ducks ...

With the site now looking great, we are fully into our schools programme. As you will, not much stops the pupils from their tasks, although in this case, the competition was put to one side as Mum and her chicks were allowed to walk through the activities. Good job 'Smokey' the cat is no longer at the centre otherwise these little fellas would be diminishing in numbers by the day.

Get Active

Our recent 'Get Active' week was great fun. Kids from the local area had a fun-filled pirate themed half term including rafting, sailing, canoeing, assault course, team games and more.

In particular, our new assemblies were a real hit where at lunchtime, the kids participated intelligently and enthusiastically with discussions about Christianity.

Christine McLeish (Mrs Power) joins Denise

We are delighted to welcome Christine McLeish (right) to CYE. Christine is helping Denise (left) with the ever-increasing demands of feeding guests, menu planning, shopping, paperwork etc.

We know that she'll be fine working with the crazy gang here - after all, she is directly responsible for bring our Bosun into the world - but then none of us are perfect.