Early Success with the Rugby Club!

So - Kes and I have become involved with starting up a rugby club here in Sunnmøre. This will come as no surprise to anyone who knew us in either Toronto or Newfoundland. However, what has been surprising - and amazing - is how well it's been received. Unbeknownst to us at first, there were a few ex-pats in Ålesund who had been beginning to work together at this very task. So, when we combined forces, we found we had the core volunteer group that every successful club (whether sports, arts, or anything) needs to run.

We've had articles about us in Vikebladet Vestposten - the local newspaper for Ulsteinvik and Hareid (here) and in Sunnmørsposten - the larger regional newspaper published from Ålesund (here). The turnout has been great - 18 at our first training in Ulsteinvik, and almost as many at our first session in Ålesund. After 4 weeks, we've now had 31 different people attend at least one practice. We're not fooling ourselves - we don't expect everyone to become a permanent member, but when we see 3-5 new faces at every practice, and the core group of new people becoming more and more skilled, it's a real source for optimism.

I was away in Oslo this last weekend, refereeing an indoor Rugby 7's tournament, and many of the people who are involved in rugby throughout Norway commented that they were a bit jealous - many of the established clubs don't have the sort of attendance that we're getting (especially in February!). As I've said, I don't want to be foolishly optimistic - we haven't yet asked anyone for membership dues, or to book off an entire weekend to travel, both of which will of course be required eventually. However, I can say that we've had pretty much the best possible start we could have hoped for, so if this sport could possibly work here, then we're on track to making it happen!

Our first "game" will be a joint training session and tournament in Kristiansund (3 hours northeast) near the end of March - I'll let you know how it goes.

Kes is back in Canada for a week, now, to work more closely with her supervisors on the thesis, and is taking the opportunity to catch up with family and friends. So far reports seem to be very positive on both fronts, with the thesis seeming to have picked up a momentum that has been tough to find at times, and Kes really enjoying spending time with her family, particularly her grandma, with whom she's staying.

This section of time on "my boat" is some of the heaviest - the hull is well into construction in Poland, and we now have to really put in the hard yards to get all the drawings ready for its arrival here. It will get here in late spring, and then it's flat out work for the next 6-9 months to fill in all the guts. But we need to have all the drawings ready for all the work that the "guts-fillers" have to do. So now through May will be some of the fullest work hours of my career to date. I certainly hope it goes well!

Speaking of which, I'm going to grab some sleep. However, a last note - in my previous post, I briefly discussed some recent statistics on baby names. This does NOT imply anything more than that I spend far too much time on the Statistics Norway website. Apparently that was misconstrued in some quarters. I'll be sure to limit my future discussion of statistics to, say, the unemployment rate (up this month to a whopping 3.0 percent).

Cheers,

Ashley