When Lewis Wildridge took over as the new President of Leeds Met A.U. there was only one thing on his mind and that was to make sure that Leeds Met topped the BUCS (British University Colleges Sports) league board and increase participation in sport at Leeds Metropolitan University. For those of you who don't know, Leeds Met are fiercely competitive when it comes to sport and any chance to get extra BUCS points is a chance not to be missed. So Lewis diligently went through the list of BUCS sports and recruited willing students to set up and run sports clubs that the uni didn't already have.
But what do you do and how do you set up a new club, especially if you've never done anything like it before? All these questions and many more were asked by Danny Edmondson, captain of the new Leeds Met Wakeboarding Club. Fortunately Leeds Met uni stepped in to take the reins and sent Danny on an accredited course that deals with all aspects of setting up and running a university club. This is standard practice for Leeds Met and it is compulsory for all new club captains at the university to attend the course.
So with little time to play with, less than a month to Fresher’s, the race was on to come up with something good that would lure the students into joining the wakeboarding club. And so FreshWake, Leeds Met Wakeboarding first ever Fresher's event was born!
Club Captain, Danny said, "We don't do things by halves when it comes to sport at Leeds Met and wanted to stamp our mark on the university wakeboarding scene with an almighty bang! We knew that recruiting members could be a hard task; learning to wakeboard is difficult at the best of times and more so in October when the weather and water are even colder. So we set about organising an event that would give our Fresher's a baptism of fire and an experience that they would never forget! We wanted to really bring home that unique welcoming feeling and inclusive attitude coupled with a type of laid back enthusiasm depicted perfectly by the term "steeze".
The most important function of the club is to introduce wakeboarding to as many students as possible and then to encourage them to participate in the sport. With this in mind it was vital that we were realistic about our expectations and delivered an event that beginners would feel happy to attend. We couldn't justify asking them to pay out a load of money to travel half way across the country for a Fresher's event and there was no need to do so when there are perfectly good facilities at Sheffield.
So I spoke to Andy Granger at Sheffield Cable and Water Ski and we got an amazing deal and were able to offer unlimited riding from 10am-7pm for both Saturday and Sunday, one to one tuition, equipment hire, camping on site and Sheffield's legendary BBQ all at a fantastic price.
We also asked ExPix to come on board and they agreed to cover the event for us and to give the students all the images and video footage from the weekend, together with ExPix T-shirts for everyone. They also helped us to secure over £1,000 worth of prizes to give away, including goodie bags for every rider and arranged for pro riders Megzy Barker and Adam Walker to be on hand to give demos and advice. All in all we had the makings of one pretty good event with which to entice the students!
The Fresher's Fairs went well and with the help of committee members, Karina Whithers, Louise Van Weezel and Kerry Dickinson we managed to get over 350 students signing up, interested in joining the club, which gave us a good base to recruit for FreshWake.
But we were still nervous about numbers and so invited other universities to join us, such as Leeds Uni, Nottingham, Liverpool John Moores, Coventry, Manchester and Bangor. But when it came down to it, there was no need to worry as we had 34 members attend from Leeds Met alone which is not a bad effort from a new club when you consider that Leeds Met’s biggest mixed sex club, the well-established boxing club has 100 members. We also had 3 students from Liverpool John Moores and 1 student from Coventry join us on the day.
It was a shame that more universities couldn't make the event as it would have been a perfect opportunity for our members to get to know other students. That said we had an amazing time and can't wait to organise our next event. The atmosphere was incredible; everyone gave it their best shot and the enthusiasm didn't wane despite the cold and the rain and the fact that hands and feet were turning blue!”
On the water the students made good progress; with many never having ridden before they started on the knee boards but were determined to get going on the wakeboards. Perseverance was the key and for some it paid off and totally focused, they kept plugging away to get their first laps under their belts. A few even tried the kickers with interesting consequences!
There were some very good efforts from; Sarah Killip from Liverpool John Moores on the funbox and kickers, Dave Curtis from Coventry on the roof top and the Leeds Met students who got in on the action too; Arran Lomas and Tom Kimpton were trying tantrums for first time with Tom landing his, Joe Griffiths won the most spectacular crash after attempting a front roll, Nicky Campbell, a keen snowboarder who had never wakeboarded before got up on the first day and within no time was doing laps, Leeds captain, Danny landed the kicker but best effort had to be from Georgie Morris who went from never having ridden before to hitting the kicker, landing with the most spectacular face plant!
But it was at the Freshwake Party where the fun really started. This was a perfect ice breaker and within no time people got to know each other. Manchester's top dance club Sankeys' resident, DJ, Mark Bradbury followed hitting the decks and there were firework displays courtesy of Sheffield Cable Water Ski.
Leeds Met Wakeboarding captain said, "It's safe to say that FreshWake has certainly been a huge success; Leeds Met have not only managed to set up their wakeboarding club and organise their first ever event, all in a month, but they have also introduced a healthy number of beginners to wakeboarding, given out over £1,000 worth of prizes including an impact vest and a wetsuit from S2AS, a wakeboard from Slingshot and T-shirts from ExPix and arm wallets from ITZ for all students.
Special thanks have to go to our sponsors, S2AS, Slingshot and ITZ. It's always difficult raising sponsorship in today's economic climate and particularly so when you are a new club with no history behind you, so we are especially grateful to all our sponsors for taking a chance on us.
Big thanks to ExPix who have agreed to become the official sponsors of Leeds Met Wakeboarding Club for 2011 - 2012. We couldn't have done it without them; they know the business inside out and their advice has been greatly appreciated as has their help with sourcing sponsorship, getting the media out there, putting the images up for everyone to see in the ExPix tent, even if there were one or two people cringing, and pulling in the favours to get pro riders to attend.
We also need to thank the pro riders; Megzy Barker, who is sponsored by Maven Marine, Billabong Watersports, Rubix kangaroo (RK) and who drove up from Bedford in the early hours of Sunday morning after competing in and winning a competition on Saturday and Adam Walker, sponsored by Slingshot and Mystic, who had a mission of a drive from Rhosneigr on Sunday.And last but by no means least, a huge, huge thanks to Andy Granger and staff at Sheffield Cable and Water Ski for such amazing hospitality.
It's been great working with everyone and I hope we've made it worthwhile for all our sponsors who we look forward to working with on future events. And on that note, thanks to requests from students and Sheffield Cable Water Ski, we're now busy planning our next event, FrozenWake which will be held at Sheffield in November! Again whilst this is a Leeds Met event we will be inviting other universities to join us if they wish.