Greetings from LIC Boathouse,

After a long and nasty winter, we hope you are ready to get back onto the water!   It’s a new season with lots of updates, ways to get involved, and fun!

This spring the entire 8th grade class of the Friends Seminary once again did a fabulous job of cleaning up the boathouse and boats, we’ll put the finishing touches with small work parties as we start up.

A few events have been posted on our Calendar, so mark your calendars, all are welcome and encouraged to join in:

This Saturday May 10th we’ll partner with Riverkeeper on the 2014 Shoreline Sweep event. We’ll pick up litter at our Anable Basin street end launch area and the adjacent northern part of Gantry Plaza State Park. Volunteers from Riverkeeper, Hunters Point Parks Conservancy, New York Cares and of course LIC Boathouse volunteers will pull together to make our waterfront green space spotless. Afterwards, if the weather is nice, we may launch some boats for a little local paddling for those who want to get back in the water!

Next Saturday, May 17th, volunteers are needed to show off the boathouse and launch site as we throw open the doors as our part of the LIC Springs! event, an all-afternoon festival on Vernon Blvd. We’re hoping to attract, inform and recruit lots of new volunteers at this event.

On Sunday May 18th, we’re planning a volunteer orientation event where newcomers and experienced volunteers will review procedures and take our first scheduled trip to Hallets Cove and run a light two hour version of our walk up program there. If enough people sign up, we may also do walk up paddling at Anable Basin behind the LIC Food and Flea.

May 31st, all volunteers are invited to paddle on Jamaica Bay with the Sebago Canoe Club’s ALL Club Invitational event, ask us for details.

June 14th is the super fun Gowanus Challenge! fundraiser event; food, music, races and more!  Not to be missed.

There’s a whole lot more coming and it’s not even summer yet!  We’ve got boatloads of new boats. How much paddling fun we can provide is directly dependent on the amount of volunteer participation we can rally.  To get involved, make sure you fill out the volunteer database form, and fill out the the End Of Season/Next Season Volunteer Questionnaire to help us improve.

Please take a look at the calendar page at LICBoathouse.org and register for May 10th or 17th and “Request-a-Trip” for the May 18th event.

Full steam ahead!

The LIC Community Boathouse Crew
http://www.licboathouse.org

FREE KAYAKING AND CANOEING ON THE EAST RIVER AND NEWTOWN CREEK!