Blog

Hi Team,
Chocolate money is due by April 14th – so sell hard or eat lots. As I am typing this I’ve had 3 freddos.
As I’m piling on the kilos all in the name of fundraising I am cheered by such thoughts as

• Errr heavier people are harder to kidnap
• Larger people are historically hot!
• No need for buttock enhancement surgery (can spend that money on cake)
• Constant health fears gives every day an exciting uncertainty and really helps you live in the moment!

Sydders
Sydney was awesome – I think Simon put stuff up on the blog.  Lots of raving on facebook including photo’s.

Learn to Row
Better late than never, let your friends know or alternatively go in disguise and ask all those questions you have been too embarrassed to raise, eg who is Karen Anzinger and what poor soul had parents who named him/her Punt Road, Why is Backsplash necessary when you are going forward?, why do I always yet the slow erging machine?
We have a LTR course starting for the next four weeks, on Sat at noon (fits in perfectly after Yum Cha) – which means that in a month’s time there will be lots of new faces around the club.  There will be a need for DS coaches so if people are interested in a new challenge, talk to Justin Thomas, Camel Musterer and DS coordinator.

Masters Regattas
Lots of fun if you dig ole people in zooties, they are not so easy to beat either, the older they are the bigger headstart they get, dig out your old fake ID which probably says you’re at least 3 years older than you are and we’ll use that for your entry.
Masters regattas – Think about your availability and let your coaches know if you are interested in racing (Click here for all the details).

Club Challenge Races
The club runs challenge races in fours, tub pairs and singles. Challenge races have been around for a long time and are a proud RRC tradition. Keep your ears and eyes open for information on when the races will be held.
See you next week.
Katie Gray PANS (Personal Assistant to Nicole Stupka)

Hi Teamies,
Ok, there has got to be something going on is this high powered rowing world of ours. Now let me think back to the minutes I wrote at our team meeting (not all that many as I have finally perfected the exact shade of white eye shadow to use to draw my eyeballs on the outsides of my eyelids and purchased (on ebay) a motorised pencil, to make it look like I was alert and busy).
Sydney – two weeks to go – RRC is training hard with the men’s rowing a shiny new 8 – bought with fundraising funds. So happy are they to use this, despite the fact that the men’s funds combined were enough to fund an our, (from Big W when they are selling their pool equipment late summer).
The Easter Bunny (sponsored by Cadbury in this emerging corporate world) is delivering our chocolates on Thursday and will be ready to pick up from Thursday night at the club. If you’re not there on Thursday you’ll find that your chocolates will be stored in the bar fridge with your name on them – your coaches/committee members have access to the bar fridge, so if your box level is lower than expected then hit em up for a few multiples of $1.20.
Now, while it is great to see the gold coins mount up, before you decide to you throw them willy nilly into parking meters and pokie machines and to obtain gold coin entry into the Camberwell market….. Remember, you actually need to pay for the choccies.
Payment for chocolates will be due April 26th at the latest to via B-Pay to your fundraising account.  If you don’t pay up we will pursue you to the end of the earth. You will never be able to relax again as you see a little yellow and black person in the distance wielding a money box in one hand and the Bob Stanley in the other in a threatening manner. It’s not worth it, unless you manage to sell millions of dollars of chocolate, then I suppose you might be able to hire a minder.
Happy Easter – remember Cadbury fundraising chocolates are better than Easter eggs or Lindt chocolate bunnies. Frogs and bunnies both jump, what else matters? Anyway, how many times have you seen a bunny and a frog in the same room hey!! Not many, there is a good chance that they are one and the same.
While the men lavish in our new hard earned boat, they continue to drag their heels in the fundraising stakes! Could it be possible that the lack the necessary charm to approach customers? Or the metal (and at times brute strength) to close the sale? (exception’s here being Justin “Trivia Night” Thomas and Barry “Chocolate Crew Coach” Campbell).
The stats on chocolate boxes sold:
75 = female (curvy, results oriented, smooth and polished sales people)
42 = male (ribby vegans likely to seen talking to the plants in the Alexandra gardens about the existence of drop bears)
Or 36% of sales to the boys and 64% of the sales to the women (Don’t have ASF donation stats yet, it may well have been detailed in the team meeting…).
However, what’s interesting to note – is that the DS women have ordered chocolates, but none of the DS men have. So we’ve taught them to row, do we need to teach them how to eat chocolate too?
Simon Crunden (man not boat), gripping his keyboard as he typed due to a serious deficiency in dairy, sugar, emulsifiers, soya lecithin, 476, flavours and traces of nuts, has some faith in his tree hugging, mung been munching boat loads of lads. He is hoping the boys use their powers of persuasion to sell chocolates in Sydney.
Or possibly forget their wallets and packed lunches and have to resort to eating the lot.
Simon, MNB also would like to point out (and pin his hopes on) the men’s number 1 chocolate fundraiser from last year (Martin) who has not placed an order for chocolates this year (sales fatigue no doubt) but there is no panic in the camp yet, as we have a number of strategies in place to ensure it will not be the men who will be buying the drinks on presentation night.
So girls, think of the Sav Blanc shouts and SELL, SELL, SELL. Let’s face it our new bingo arms will provide more weight on the oar, which can only be good news, and in my advancing years, drinks purchased by the male sex for the purpose of quenching my thirst as err well can I say slightly less frequent than in previous years.
katie gray
PATNS (PA to Nicole Stupka while she not looking after the horses and JK)

Club races are on this Sunday. Squad bosses, please make sure your rowers RSVP by Friday morning. The boss is on a need to know basis. If she’s in the dark you won’t have a cox or any equipment, which will put you at a significant disadvantage in the race. You may be left with the rejects from biggest loser who may be walking past the club house on their way to the food court, to cox, again putting your crew at a significant disadvantage. Also the boss needs to know for catering and if you have rejected biggest losers coxing for you they will eat all your food and you will have to go to jail because it’s unlikely they are accredited coxes. Anyway by all accounts the food in jail is worse than the men’s crew’s cooking….think blended.
The format will be 3 x 350 m and then finals followed by brunch.
As alluded to, it is catered by the men’s squad! Think beer and cheesy noodles (cheese and 2 minute noodles), hopefully they have ordered pizza the night before and not eaten it all (or had it for brekkie) and they will bring that, don’t eat the one with the prawns on it as it’s unlikely it made it to the fridge over night.
If you’re going to Sydders you’d better rock up as the plan is to have rowers race in the crews that they are training in for Sydney and this is a last chance at race practice.
Fundraising
Chocolate orders are due this week! Maybe even today. Drop them off at the club in the black secretary box or to Karen, Karin, Susie or Rochelle.  Fundraising is the responsibility of each club member and it is the ONLY way we can upgrade fleet.  Like the new tub four coxless quad and eight that we acquired this year.  These boats cost together more than 33k. To the money bags that suggested raising the club membership fees, that’s why we have the option of donating cash if you don’t like flogging or eating chocolates. Personally I’ll sell them to my postman’s diabetic Nanna to save my hard earned rowing PA’s salary and it gives me a chance to put those funds towards Gatorade, print cartridges and a cross backed sports bra to ensure my back looks less like a kitten playing with a ball of string and does not distract 2 and 1 from our winning endeavors.
Last year you may remember the male members of RRC sold in total 1 strawberry freddo, and I think that was to Simon (man not boat as the boat wouldn’t buy a thing) as two would have put him over his calorie quota for the week. This year they have laid down the gauntlet and no I am not talking about Mrs Gauntlet my grade 2 teacher, I am fairly sure they have set the solid (excuse the double meaning here) respectable female chocolate sales people a challenge.
Basically if the soon to be heavy and pimply boys manage to sell more chocolates than the girls we have to buy each of them a drink at presentation night. If the girls sell more they will buy each of us a drink at presentation night. Sounds easy, personally I could eat chocolate for Australia and can vouch for the rest of the B team, hell I just ate 3 frogs while I was writing that sentence. The trick is, when you feel ill, just have some water and you’ll find you can keep on eating, also it’s cheaper and quicker and less messy than cooking a meal, something for those of us with families to keep in mind, and how happy would your kids be! And it’s not like they would lose weight. Also I have a feeling the boys drink beer, where as girls, ta daaa, expensive drink tastes. So don’t let me down gang. Click on Simon (man not boat’s article below and in that you can click again (it’s like a game!)) and you can order your choccies.
http://wp.me/pzFWD-7Z

Sydders
I have been spending a bit of time pretending to clean the BBQ out the front to disguise my obvious perving of the men’s 8, and no not the Melbourne men’s 8, no not the Mercantile Men’s 8, not Powerhouse (well it’s not like I turn the other way) but our very own men’s 8. They obviously figured they might as well row hard as their name was on the board and they seem to owe their coach about a slab in late fees. Anyway it’s working. The men’s eight is looking like a sure thing and improving by the day in preparation for the NSW club championships regatta in Sydney.
Crews are in the final throws of selection and Richmond will have a team of 25 people representing the club at the regatta….A team which we can use to play a small round robin in netball with 2 refs and 3 subs after….
Katie Gray
PA to Nicole Stupka or PANS (formally PA to JK who is now living in Sydney working on becoming DR JK aka PADRJK)