On the weekend of the 16th and 17th of July, a group made up of girls from Mermaid, Vandyck, Achilles and Barnehurst crews attended the Thames Traditional Boat Festival in Henley-on-Thames.
While we werw there we had to do many jobs in order to help the days run smoothly. These consisted of putting wrisbands on members of the public who were visiting the festival, traffic control duty, wherw we had to direct the classic and vintage cars that were also on show at the festival, running messages to the commentary tent and of course our absolute favourite was guard duty at the VIP toilets. Apart from all these tasks beinh tiring enough in themseles, it was also extremely hot that particular weekend.
On Saturday some Rangers and Cadets were lucky to get a boat ride around Henley. The clear highlight of the weekend, howeyer, was on Sunday, whwn some of us got an exclusive ride on the Queen`s row barge, the Gloriana. This was an amazing experience never to be forgotten as many of us had seen it at either the Diamond Jubilee pageant or the Magna Carla River Relay but had never thought that we would one day get a ride on it! We even got to sit in the exact same place as Her Majesty herself sat.
Overall the weekend was a thoroughly enjoyable one and one l would be glad to be of again.
