2020 will always be remembered as the year of the great Covid-19 pandemic. It wiped out our season and did what two world wars copuld not do, stopped the club operating completely for much of the year.

It all started so well with a lake cleaning session and de-weeding the concrete edgings around the lake banksides. However just as we were set to organise a session digging the rotting leaves out of the lake, the first Covid Lockdown started and everything ground to a halt

With the easing of restrictions we were able to meet up but with social distancing sailing striaght runners was not possible. Instead informal sailings of RC models was the only safe thing to do. The only event we could mamange was a static display to raise funds for the RNLI. This was a great event and a tonic for everybody in a bad year.

Unable to sail we made a start on our planned replacement of the old leaking wooden boathouse guttering. We had obtained permission the previous year to do the job which was entriely at our expense. This went well and over a period of several weeks the new plastic guttering was fitted after painting the woodwork behind the guttering.

Having finished the guttering and realising that sailing was still not possible, socially distanced outdsoor painting was an option open to us. The existing boathouse paintwork was a total mess, the previous job done by so-called professionals, in early 2016 was a poor job. They never filled any cracks or prepared the timber for painting, just slapped on paint of such poor quality and quantitiy that after over 4 years it was peeling and cracked allowing the weather to get in. "Urban Green Newcastle" had donated to us a quantity of paint the previous year so we had enough to repaint the entire building. Cracks were filled, and the paintwork was properly rubbed down and prepared so that the finished building was once again looking tis best. The boathouse will be 100 years old in 2023 and its nice to have it looking good really for its birthday.