27 . 09 . 15
Our Annual Gathering of Makers is our chance to say thank you; an opportunity for us to invite everyone who has supported us these past few years by spending some of their time and hard earned money with us making their own wooden surfboard back for a weekend of surfing, sharing stories and good food and drink. Every “make your own” wooden surfboard workshop week that we run has up to three people attending so not only does it allow those small cohorts to catch up with each other again, but it also allows a growing group of relative strangers to bond over the common shared experience of making their own surfboard with us. This year we held our AGM last weekend, on Saturday September 19th, and were lucky enough to enjoy a gorgeous sunny day with light winds and waist high surf followed by a beautiful sunset. After an afternoon surf together we returned to Dunkirk Farm, the site where James made his first surfboard before starting Otter Surfboards.
In the week leading up to the AGM we’d cleared all of the farm machinery, bales of hay and bags of animal feed out in preparation and shooed away the free-range chickens and farm kittens, setting up a long banquet table with hay bale seats, a “show ‘n’ shine” surfboard display area, a projection screen and an exhibition of framed pencil sketches by local artist Ben Cook from his Surfing Landscapes of Cornwall series. Jez and Ange from Dunkirk Farm roasted a beautiful shoulder of pork from one of their prize winning Tamworth pigs and we tapped a keg of “Otter Ale” from the brilliant Driftwood Spars Brewery in St Agnes. We had a wonderful evening catching up with everyone, and would like to thank everyone who attended for joining us this year, particularly those people who travelled a fair distance to join us here in Cornwall. We hope to see you again next year alongside those of you who couldn’t make it this time, and hopefully we’ll be joined by some new faces from the upcoming 2015/16 workshop series. If you’d like in on the fun next year then take a look at the dates for our upcoming “make your own” wooden surfboard workshop courses.
