Captain’s Report September 2018
Events
As ever September is a bit of a quiet month for the racers. The club was represented at two events the Denver to Ely Marathon and Milton Keynes Regatta.
The marathon was attended by three crews. We had a MxMasD.2x finishing in 1:53:36, a MasC.8+ finishing in 1:43:37 and a Seniors Mx4x+ finishing in a course record of 2:42:15. This adds to the number of course records that BRC holds for this event.
Milton Keynes Regatta was attended by our junior section and everybody had a lot of fun. We had 16 crews entered in the event, we reached 9 finals and won SEVEN of them!! Huge congratulations to all that competed – those that didn’t reach their finals all performed at the top of their game. A good end to the regatta season.
Winter training starts now.
Boats.
Paul Cousins is on holiday – don’t break anything!
The club will be happy to know that we have placed an order for a new boat from Felippi. Delivery will be in about three weeks of a double shell with both sweep and sculling riggers, average crew weight 90kg but will carry 85 to 100kg. The boat was built in 2017 and has been with Felippi UK as a demonstration boat. We have secured the purchase at £11000.
Club News
The club cleanup went ahead and a good turnout was much appreciated. We will have an ongoing job keeping gravel out of the boathouse and the boats after the council resurfaced the hard area outside the club. I am told that the excess gravel will be swept away as soon as the surface has fully bonded.
Our Annual Awards night is arranged for this Friday 5 October. Trophies to be awarded to each squad for Rowers’ Rower and Coaches Award. There will be a buffet supplied by the Social Club on the evening. Start time 7:30.
Junior Rowing
Congratulations must go to Dylan John and George Reed who have both secured places at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire to study for their A-Levels. Hartpury is renowned for training athletes to international standard in their respective sports. At the college athletes are enrolled on the GB ‘Start’ programme and do their water training at Gloucester Rowing Club. Good luck boys.
The juniors are now looking to recruit a few more members to replace the few that have moved on. There are a few gaps where we are a bit short in certain age groups. The waiting list will soon fill these gaps.
Explore+
The Learn2Row course has started again. We are running two groups, one Saturday and one Sunday. As always we still need course instructors to make this work. Contact Lynda and Matt Farley to offer your help. When these courses finish we need to be able to offer further supervision in an intermediate group so that the new group of rowers can gain experience and confidence before joining the racing squads or the recreational group
Forthcoming events
5 October Club awards evening
6 October Pairs Head Tideway
14 October Bedford Small Boats Head
28 October Upper Thames Autumn Head
3 November Fours Head Tideway
4 November Veteran Fours Head Tideway
10 November Henley Long Distance Sculls
11 November Docklands Small Boats Head
16 November Club Dinner
18 November Star Club Head of the River