WHAT'S NEW?



Saturday 29th November 2008

Added a link to Roker Park MBC. Updated the website to include up to date contact email addresses, and membership subscription fees.



Wednesday 7th November 2007

Corrected the Weather link as the met office address had changed.


Friday 16th April 2004

Added a link to Glasgow Richmond Model Boat Club.


Wednesday 2nd July 2003

Added some photos of Tom Sandersons models of Bluebird K4 and Miss Britain III.


Sunday 1st June 2003

Added some photos of Ernie Lazenby's 1:8 scale model of Slo-Mo-Shun IV. My thanks to Bob Golder for the photographs.


Sunday 27th April 2003

Updated the club photo gallery and the Contacts page. Ernie Lazenby's email address was incorrect, my apologies for that!


Saturday 12th April 2003

Just a few bits tidied up ready for a larger update coming soon...


Monday 14th October 2002

Just a quick reminder to all club members that our AGM is on Wednesday 23rd October in the Community Centre, Middleton-St-George.


Sunday 13th October 2002

Added a link to Tees Cottage Pumping Station, a superb Victorian steam pumping engine that is still in full working order. Well worth a visit!


Wednesday 14th August 2002

My 1:8 scale model of the Arno XI Ferarri hydroplane had it's first test runs today, complete with full working scale hardware. The boat shoots up onto the plane and rockets across the water EXACTLY like the full sized boat, but like the full sized vessel it certainly doesn't like to turn! Then again, who cares? It runs absolutely superbly and really looks the part! There is still a lot of work to do to finish the model but I'll try to get some photos posted once it's finished


Tuesday 13th August 2002

Removed the "Message Forum" page as it wasn't being used.


Sunday 30th June 2002

Added a link to Norwich Model Yacht Club to the "Links" page.


Saturday 4th May 2002

Added full results for the NFERC race meeting that was staged at Darlington last weekend.


Thursday 2nd May 2002

Added a report on the NFERC race meeting that was staged at Darlington last weekend. The background music has been changed to "633 Squadron", as the boats spent most of their time airborne it seemed appropriate!


Monday 11th March 2002

Added Knightswood Model Boat Club to the links pages.


Friday 1st March 2002

Updated the Gallery page with some new photos.


Thursday 14th February 2002

Updated the Events page to include ALL the club events (scale and FE) for the 2002 season. My thanks to Ken Smailes for the info.


Saturday 9th February 2002

We now have a brand new message forum for our club to use courteousy of Rum Runner Racing. A new menu option to take you to the message forum has been added to the menu on the left of the screen. Please feel free to make FULL use of this superb facility. Anything related to Darlington & District MBC or model boats in general can be posted, but remember that it is a PUBLIC forum, so please keep your chat relevant and civil!


Tuesday 22nd January 2002

Updated the "Contact" pages email addresses.


Sunday 23rd December 2001

Updated the NFERC pages.


On Sunday 16th December we staged our "Rocket boat" competition, an event that was extremely well attended by both competitors and spectators alike. These boats are powered by a firework type rocket, and the winner is the boat that travels the farthest across the lake.

The boats ranged from total "one-offs" (like mine!), to hydros and monos.... Some of these craft didn't really seem to realise they were supposed to be boats, and promptly nose dived under the water like deranged submarines, or blew up with the force of the rocket thrust!

Everyone had a great laugh (this is not a serious competition!), and the event was won by Paul Severs (one of our junior members). I came a close second :-)

My thanks go to everyone that attended and also to Walter Snowdon for putting on the pies and peas, and Ted & Rita Barras for the judging.


Wednesday 7th November 2001

Added the race dates and locations for the 2002 NFERC championship. See the "Northern Fast Electric Racing" page for full details.


Monday 5th November 2001

A brief synopsis of what was agreed at the NFERC AGM held on Sunday 28th of October 2001 at Doncaster Dome has been added to the site.

Added a full list of all the Fast Electric and Scale racing dates for the 2002 season - Please see the "Events" page for more details. My thanks to Ken Smailes for the info.


Thursday 1st November 2001

Full details of the fast electric classes to be raced at Darlington in the 2002 season added to the website (See 2002 FE Classes at DDMBC), and a list of the updated rules for the scale racing in 2002 (See Scale Racing Rules).


Tuesday 30th October 2001

Changed the Welcome to Darlington & District MBC message on the left hand menu, so it now says Good morning, Good evening etc etc depending on the time on your computer.


Monday 29th October 2001

Updated "Events page" with details of the "Rocket Boat" competition to be held on Sunday 16th December 2001. Also added the current date to the main web page - don't ask me why I added the date, it was just me mucking around with JavaScript.


Saturday 27th October 2001

Updated the Fast Electric Classes page.


Friday 26th October 2001

A new page added to give details of the various Fast Electric Classes raced in the UK. Please note, not all of these classes are raced at D&DMBC.


Thursday 25th October 2001

Our AGM was held on Wednesday 24th October and was extremely well attended. A "potted" account of the meeting and a list of the prizewinners for the 2000-2001 season will be posted in a few days.

During the course of the annual general meeting, important safety issues were raised about the use of radio equipment by club member John Gavey. It was decided that written guidelines were needed for new members (and some of the older ones too!) to prevent any potential accidents - Please refer to the "Radio Frequencies & Safety" page for more information.

If any club member has anything they would like added to this site following the issues raised at the AGM, please contact me either via email (my email address is at the bottom of the menu on the left) or see me at the club on wednesday evenings or sunday mornings. I Should say here and now that I have a memory like a seive! So please don't assume I'll remember everything that was said during the meeting - REMIND ME!!


Thursday 11th October 2001

The anual general meeting of the Darlington and District Model Boat Club will be held on Wednesday 24th October at 7:30pm in the Village Hall, Middleton St George. Food and refreshments will be available at a nominal cost.

Members subscriptions for 2002 are now due (10 pounds for adult, and 1.50 for junior membership) See Bob Golder at the AGM.

There will also be a bring and buy sale at the AGM so now is the time to get some bargains or sell any unwanted gear.


Saturday 22nd September 2001

Changed the background music to the theme from Captain Pugwash - I'll try to change it every few days so you don't get sick of the same old tune.


Wednesday 19th September 2001

Changed the background music to stop the moaning from Graham "5 rudders" Brittle (and others) :-) The theme from Captain Pugwash is coming in a day or so, so stay tuned :-)


Tuesday 18th September 2001

Race report for the sixth and final round of the NFERC National Championship added, as well as the complete scores and prize winners for the whole series.


Sunday 19th August 2001

Added some photos of my Griffon 3000TDX Mk2 hovercraft sailing on our club pond.


Tuesday 7th August 2001

Updated NFERC page to give a full race report and results of the 5th meeting which was held at Darlington. Yet another great day with fast and furious racing all day long.... Even yours truly got involved, and now I'm hooked!!


Tuesday 31st July 2001

Updated photo gallery to include my newest model, a towboat named George W Britton. My thanks to Walter Snowdon for the photograph.


Tuesday 10th July 2001

Full race report and results for round 4 of the NFERC challenge added. Another great days racing despite the weather. Will it ever stop raining this year?


Thursday 21st June 2001

Made some minor changes to the text on the Photo Gallery page.


Tuesday 12th June 2001

Added a race report and results of the 3rd NFERC challenge which was held at Bridlington last sunday.


Thursday 7th June 2001

A small update to the Photo Gallery page.


Thursday 24th May 2001

Full report and race results for the second round of the NFERC - It sounds like another really succesful meeting, all credit to everyone who took part, and to the hosts at Bury Lido.


Wednesday 23rd May 2001

New link to the Met Office added so you can check the weather conditions for the next few days. To access the latest forecast, click on the "Weather Forecast" icon on the left hand menu, it will open in a new window, just close the window to return to the D&DMBC website.


Saturday 19th May 2001

Added a new page giving info and specifications on some of the more commonly used electric motors. See the "Electric Motors" page for details.


Thursday 10th May 2001

Added some new hints to the Hints & Tips page. Small update to the photo gallery page.


Wednesday 9th May 2001

Ian Archibald (our club secretary) turned up with a new model for the scale fast electric racing today. The boat is an RAF launch, and it looks like it could be good enough to be very competitive with a little bit of development work. Well done Ian.

It's been a quiet week at the club. Lots of our regular members are away at the RC model festival at Primrose Valley, and I've been making a real effort to build my new towboat before yet another year passes.... I hope to have time to add some new sections to the website in the coming week, so keep looking back for updates.


Saturday 5th May 2001

Updated the R/C Links page.


Friday 4th May 2001

Updated the R/C Links page. Made some changes to the main menu, some of the colours were screwing up.... I'll get the hang of this bloody HTML code if it kills me! :-)


Thursday 3rd May 2001

Added a Pre-Booking Form to the Northern Fast Electric Racing page. If you want to enter one or more of the NFERC heats, please use this form.

Added Dundee MBC and the Scottish Federation of model boat clubs to the R/C Links page.


Monday 30th April 2001

Added a full report & results of the first ever NFERC race meeting which was held on Sunday 29th April. The day was a huge success, even with the atrocious weather. My thanks to all the club members, officials, drivers and spectators who made it such a great day.

Ammended the Club History page to include the acheivements of the fast electric guys & gals.


Saturday 28th April 2001

Fixed a problem on the Hints & Tips page, where the text wasn't displayed in the correct colour. Tidied up the Links page, and the Northern Fast Electric pages.


Friday 27th April 2001

Lots more sites added to the R/C Links page.


Thursday 26th April 2001

More photos added to the Gallery page... Descriptions will follow shortly. Updated Links page to include Corby Model Boat Club. If your into sail, take a look.


Tuesday 24th April 2001

Added more sites to the Links page, and submitted the website to dozens of search engines... Unfortunately the Search engines can take anything up to six months to add a new site!!!


Monday 23rd April 2001

Updated the Links page, and added venue addresses to the Northern Fast Electric Racing page - I should have included them when I first made the page, but hey even I have off days! :-).


Sunday 22nd April 2001

Updated the Club Contact page and the Links page.


Saturday 21st April 2001

Added our first link to another website, Edina Model Yacht Club. They will return the favour in due course.


Friday 20th April 2001

Started to add some photos in the "Photo Gallery", my thanks go to Graham Brittle for supplying the photographs. More will appear over the coming weeks.

Added a web counter to the main page. and linked into the UK Model Boats Webring.


Thursday 19th April 2001

If your wondering what the heck "Scale Racing" is all about, take a look at the new page "Scale Racing - What is it?"

Added contact information to the Northern Fast Electric page, if you are interested in this newly formed organisation, please contact one of the officials listed on that page.

Radio frequencies page updated to include all the gen on the forthcoming changes to the 27Mhz band - It's not as bad as it sounds, take a look.


Wednesday 18th April 2001

Updated Northern Fast Electric page to include a list of venues for the 2001 season. updated Events page, added Radio Frequencies page,and made some minor corrections to the HTML code here and there.


Tuesday 17th April 2001

Added some "Hints & Tips", and some background music to the site.


Monday 16th April 2001

Welcome to the new website for Darlington & District Model Boat Club. This site will now be updated on a regular basis to keep you all informed of the many and varied activities of our members.

In a moment of boredom - Some would say INSANITY!, I decided to try my hand at creating a website - Time will tell if that was a sensible move or not!