Going with the Flow

Ok, we give in.

Winter is definitely coming and it’s made us reflect on what a phenomenal year 2015 has been for us.

Our highlights?

– In January we were receiving industry awards for our Interboat and Intercruiser (that still feels great!);

– April saw the completion of 32 new moorings in our marina enabling more people to join our community;

– By June we were into our gorgeous new offices in our houseboat, “The Ark”, and our lovely farm shop The Local Larder was settled into it’s new home;

– And July and August saw us and our berth holders revelling at Henley Regatta, Festival, Rewind, Wargrave & Shiplake Regatta, our own Hog Roast Party, and simply messing about on the river.

All in all, it’s been a wonderful year of progress, glorious weather, record boat sales, and embodying the ideology to “Go with the Flow”. Allowing what comes, not pushing so hard, and generally appreciating the ease that can be in life.

Before we charge into 2016, we wanted to share where we’ve seen this shine through…

“Go with the Flow” Competition

The ethos behind our competition this year was simple: we wanted people to embrace the concept “Going with the Flow” and felt that a cruise along the Thames in one of our beautiful Interboats reflected this idea perfectly.

We had such a fantastic sign up that we decided to draw two separate competition winners:

Pam won our first draw in August, but she’s no stranger to the Thames: Pam and her husband own a cabin cruiser upstream and used to be mooring holders with Val Wyatt in the 1980s.

Turns out Pam’s daughter is also one of the creators of “Motorboat Owner” (the FREE online boating magazine).

Yes, this is entirely coincidental!

Ruth won our October draw and we’re so happy she and her crew had a great time.

“The boat was gorgeous and so comfortable. The picnic was absolutely delicious – loved the prosecco too!

Ben was a great host and we all had a wonderful time on board.”

Dick’s Chair

We think it’s fair to say that the giant deck chair affectionately referred to as “Dick’s Chair” was certainly one of the most loved attractions at Willow Marina this summer.

We met the inspiration and creator of the piece, Dick Budden, at Henley Festival in July.

In chatting to him about how much we loved the chair, and later talking some more, we were honoured to be lent it by Dick for our Berth Holder Hog Roast Party.

Dick, being the lovely gent that he is and on seeing how much joy people were getting from it, decided to let us keep it here all summer.

A chance meeting turning into a wonderful addition to our marina and a lot of joy for a lot of people. That’s a great example of “Going with the Flow” in our minds.

And it’s certainly an ethos that we’ll be taking forwards into 2016.