The BBC Sportsround programme paid a visit to the Batchworth juniors the other day. A full boat of smiling faces awaited them.

Batchworth headed off to Bristol for a heady day of racing at the weekend. It didn't all go entirely to plan but at least it didn't rain.

The web site is 5 years old this week and has had a bit of a facelift to celebrate.

Well we finally all made it to a race venue at the same time on the same day and the race wasn't cancelled. And mother nature tricked us again - this time we had too much cold weather kit.

Snow and freezing weather hold no fear for the Batchworth foolhardies. We even had enough to get the boat out on Easter Sunday. What dedication.

A promising start but mother nature let us down at the last minute and laid waste to our plans to conquer the world via the Henley Winter Series

New boats and paddles funded by the youth grant hit the store shed at Batchworth HQ. Now the oldies will have to really start training once the juniors start snapping at their heels (rudders).

Batchworth made amends for their below average year this week-end with emphatic victories in all three open events and, in the process, retained the National Open title, making sure that the golden dragon was ours for another year.

After an up and down season Batchworth dug deep one more time to win both the 200m and 500m races in the final league event of the year at Worcester.

Batchworth Aspire (U18 crew of Batchworth Dragons) have been awarded a Youth Opportunity Fund by Hertfordshire CC to fund equipment for their development and improvement, plus to encourage other U19s from the area into the sport of dragon boating.