My first sculling race

By William, aged Masters C.

Summer is over, the blades have been fresh painted, we've had our AGM (new committee post coming soon) and it is time to return to the river.

It was a lovely day, so after dutifully doing my Waitrose shopping I headed to the river for a little scull. Simon and Meg were out tubbing. But! I was turned back at the Green Dragon bridge, because the Robs small boats regatta was on, 11:30 division. Oh well I thought, shame: I could have entered instead. And then I though: so why not enter the 1 pm division? It is either that or go back home and cut the grass. And I did, for time only, since I was late. Fortunately Katherine and Anna-Rosa were at race control. I just had time for a coffee and baclava at Tishka's, and a nice chat about the financial situation with the old bloke at the table next door, before rushing back to embark and do the traditional rush-up-to-the-start-line-only-to-find-that-plenty-of-other-people-are-ten-minutes-late.

But it was a lovely day - too hot, really: after a bit I drifted over to the shady side; its nice being in a scull, you couldn't do that in a cumbersome VIII - so waiting at the start was fine. As I was a late entry I was at the back, with only a Robs novice girl behind me, who had the benefit of advice shouted from her bank party.

Sculling without having to worry about what might be coming the other way was a joy; I went rather wide around Grassy by accident, but this turned out to be a good thing because there was a narrowboat hugging the inner corner. I flagged a little down the reach, but ended up with an overall split of 2:31 and a time of 13:08 (a minute behind Katherine and Anna-Rosa). A time was what I really wanted: something to be a marker for future improvement, I hope. And to compare to others.

The full results are here (I'm 101, not alas spelt quite as I might desire). Trying to compare my time, I see I am the fastest and indeed the only CRA Open novice scull. So I won; err. But the fastest BR (British Rowing, as in can-row-off-Cam I think; though lots of clearly Cambridge crews entered as BR) time was 10:41; that was the novice time, beating the IM3 time, which in turn beat the IM2 time. How traditional. And those were by CULRC, so that doesn't help me much. Well never mind; there are plenty more regattas coming up.

AGM

These are the minutes of the 2011 AGM, held on Thursday 22nd Septermber 2011 at 8:30pm, in The Punter.

1.1 Confirmation of Agenda
2.0 Proposed Amendments to the Constitution (Secretary)
2.1 Temporary Membership definition (3.1) – passed subject to a clarification that a temporary member does not need to fill in a membership form (3.2)
2.2 Removal of reference to ‘Chairman’ (9.4) - passed
2.3 Amendment/Correction of ‘Distribution’ clause (15.0) - passed
3.0 Annual Subscription Proposal (Treasurer)
3.1 It was agreed that the annual subscription should be increased to £192/year
4.0 Reports from the 2010/11 Committee
4.1 Club Captain(Chris Wood)
4.2 Treasurer & Membership Secretary (Sarah Coates-Holland)
4.3 Men’s Captain (James Tidy)
4.4 Women’s Captain (Amy Tillson)
4.5 Safety Advisor (Paul Holland)
4.6 Equipment Officer (Andy Southgate)
4.7 Social Secretary (Rebecca Scourse)
4.8 Thanks to Mike Prior Jones for his work in making cox boxes, to Emma Howard and
Emma Bonsall for their effort in making the Head of the Cam run smoothly, to Tom for co-
ordinating HoC Task Team, to Alison for her coxing school efforts, to Simon for his work
with the beginners and to Chris for his captaincy this year.
5.0 Formal Dissolution of the 2010/11 Committee (Secretary)
6.0 Election of 2011/12 Committee (Secretary)
6.1 Final Call for Candidates
6.2 Elections
6.2.1 Club Captain – Chris Wood re-elected
6.2.2 Treasurer &Membership Secretary – Sarah Coates-Holland re-elected
6.2.3 Men’s Captain – Steven Andrews elected
6.2.4 Women’s Captain – Net Mansfield elected
6.2.5 Equipment Officer – James Howard elected
6.2.6 Safety Advisor – Dave Richards elected
6.2.7 Social Secretary – Becca Scourse re-elected
6.2.8 Kit Secretary – Lorraine Turvill elected
6.2.9 Webmaster – William Connolley elected
6.2.10 Secretary – Amy Tillson re-elected
6.2.11 Funding Secretary – position unfilled
6.2.12 Head Coach – position unfilled
6.2.13 Race Secretary – Emma Howard elected
7.0 Any other Business
7.1 Trestles need fixing
7.2 Mens VIII needs a rigger jigger replaced under the coxes seat
7.3 Cox boxes – James Tidy is giving the club one cox box on loan, and giving another to the club. Mike Prior-Jones is happy to look into making more.
7.4 Sponsorship – Current sponsorship deal will end next year – people are looking into asking their companies if they are willing.

Notes:
* This post was written in November. I've backdated it to the date of the meeting.
* I've redacted the attendees and apologies section, as I don't see why those need to be public.

Blades ready for the new season (and the ice filled darkness of winter rowing)

The gleaming new paint job on the men's IV and VIII blades (I hope that was the right order for the stripes!)

With the darkness drawing in and winter rowing beckoning it seemed like the perfect time to rejuvenate the clubs blades and with a whole club effort it seems to have been accomplished with relative ease.  Just seeing the blades looking so good certainly makes me want to get back in a boat even if we won't be able to see them in the dark.  Looking forward to seeing, or not, everyone back in the boats soon.

Bumps: day 4 and round-up

[Day 3 - Day 1, 2012]

Well, its all over now. The last song has been sung, the last bottle drunk, the last burnt sausage consumed, the last nail painted, and the last naked quad rowed up to the lock.

How did we do, overall? Speaking as one of M1, I'd say "the boys dun good" - we had only one bump up, but we rowed well overall and had a really very exciting row-over on the last day, chased hard by Champs 2. Elsewhere, the picture was a less rosy. M2 went up on day 2, bumping the evil arch-villain Will Wyckham in the process, but alas it all went horribly wrong on the next 2 days when Tabs 7 upgraded both their rowing and their boat, and they ended one place down overall. M3 had keeness and determination going for them, but that wasn't reflected in their results, since they earned their spoons (which John had painted up for M1 two years ago, but which we fortunately didn't need then).

The ladies perhaps suffered from their success of last year. W2 rowed over 4 times, unable to catch up with City 7 ahead; W1 went down 3, but with a mighty row-over on day 3.




Video of M1 friday, a frame-grab from us going down Plough reach in a Champs sandwich (click for video). Its hard to see how close we are - alas the cameraman is focussing on the excitement of Tabs 3 bumping Tabs 2 in the far distance. However, I think we're probably closer than we thought we were. David Ponting took a nice pic at nearly the same time.




Steven would like to make it clear that rumours of naked quadding have been greatly exaggerated.

Refs

* Day 3
* Day 2
* Day 1
* Amy on Day 4

* The bumps chart pic is semi-ripped from Vera analytics.
* Champs 2 bowcam.
* M1 friday from madprof77; W1 on thursday.

Bumps day 3

[Day 2 - Day 4]

Less pizzazz and enthusiasm today, as the results are more muted. The pic is M2 having just done their practice start outside the Plough, rounding Grassy on the way to the start. Click for more.

M3: down again, poor chaps. M2: down, bad boys, to Will Wyckham and his gang of reprobates in their shiny new Stampfli. Get 'em tomorrow again, boys. M1: row over. Closed on Champs 1 but not enough.

W2: row over. W1: row over, but an exciting one. See Amy's blog, and video.

Refs

* Day 2
* Amy
* William
* Paul
* M1 at Jet Photographic
* M1 video by Rob Payne

Bumps day 2

[Day 1 - Day 3]

And so it falls to me once again to chronicle our efforts. As it happens, this was a good night for M1 and M2, who both went up. Here we are, happy to have bumped City 3:



M1: L to R: Andy Southgate (4); Steven Andrews (5); Chris Wood (2); Ollie Crabb (S); James Tidy (Cox); Chris Metcalfe (3); William Connolley (B); James Howard (7; with George); Chris Smith (6; sub for Tom Watt who managed to injure himself at the last minute, aiee). Photo credit: Gytha (but I did my best to sabotage it by leaving my SLR on aperture priority). Full story in tedious detail here.



M2: Ralph, Paul (Captain), Andi, William, Emma (Cox), Dave (hiding), Katherine, Gary, Rob, who bumped Tabs 7 (CCL, featuring Will Wykeham, Chesterton renegade who gets his comeuppance).

Elsewhere the news was not so good: M3 down, W1 down (so we're now higher than them, so James may win his bottle of whiskey off Freya), and W2 rowed over.

Weather for the evening: cool, still, threatened rain, but didn't.

Refs

* Day 1
* William
* Amy
* Paul
* Rob Payne's video

Bumps day 1

[Day 2]

Day 1 of the Cambridge City bumps, which we've been training for... well, since the end of last years's bumps.



In the pic: W2, who rowed over at #30. They get to chase City 7 again tomorrow, but now have City 8 bumped up behind them. M3 went down one to #53, just above the sandwich boat at the bottom of division 3. A thrilling race with an exciting conclusion round about the Plough, where they weren't quite saved by the InveterEight.

M2 rowed over at #32, with Leys Lysander (old boys, so probably pretty well the same crew as came though M2 last year) bumping out ahead of them, giving them a shot at Tabs 7 (CCL, boo hiss) tomorrow, if they can hold off Champs 5. W1 are down one to #13 to a very fast Xpress crew.

And M1: we had a good row. We quibbled about it a little afterwards, and in the pub, but it was good. However, it wasn't a useful test: behind us, Champs 2 got Nines 3 fairly quickly - before first post - and ahead of us Tabs 3 (Hills Road) got City 3 around about the Plough (irritatingly impeding us, forcing us to stop (for one glorious moment I thought we'd bumped them; but it didn't last, and we'd had no whistles) and restart). James then flogged us down the reach for some obscure reason, we stopped for some beer, and then went to the Waterman. Tomorrow will be the true test.

Oh, and did I mention that bloody Georgina held up M1 for 20 mins while they pratted around? Wazzocks.

Refs

* Amy
* William
* Paul
* M2 going round First Post (Jet) and M3
* Videos: M1; M2