Category: Banter

‘So come on boys pull your weight and fundraise’
These are the immortal words of the RRC Head of Rowing and what we believe to be a challenge to the Men of Richmond to beat the girls in the latest fundraising drive at the club – Selling Chocolates.
This is good, we men like a challenge so here it is:
Given that males make up 40% of the Richmond (RC) population, the challenge is that we will raise more than 40% of the monies received from the chocolate fundraiser.
If we, the Men of Richmond succeed, the girls have to shout each of the boys a drink of their choice at the forthcoming (June) presentation night. If we lose, then the boys have to reciprocate the deal.
To track progress of the challenge the organisers of the chocolate drive have to provide updates on the blog on where we are at in terms of the money raised for the chocolate drive.
The catch is that orders for the chocolates have to be in by today (24 March) and you have to have sold your last box of chocolates and money deposited to RRC by the first week of May.
To order your chocolates you need to click on the link and indicate how many boxes you would like to sell.
Of course the challenge has to be accepted by the girls. The final terms of the challenge are up for negotiation but any amendments must be agreed by both parties via the blog by 5pm today (24 March).

The John Latham (boat not man) and Ron March Jr are wired for sound thanks to the efforts of Nick and Barry.
Nick donated and installed a speaker and full loom into the Ron March Jr. and Barry has donated and installed a speaker and loom (sound only) into the Latham. This makes coxing/coaching these boats so much easier and bow seat can now actually hear what’s going on.
So, now it’s only the Ron March without sound.
TIP – For those who would rather listen to their iPod and not their cox, there is a groovy attachment available from NK that allows you to connect your iPod so it can be played through the speaker system of the boat. One gadget the B Team will be looking to add to the essential rowing kit for sure!
Nicole Stupka

Enter your tip for this weekend’s AFL Grand Final between the Cats and the Saints. Entry is $2 and the closest to the mark takes the pool.
My tip is Cats by 20 points.
Enter by using the comments field.

This from Martin…about the only place they didn’t investigate was the Anglers!

The men’s squad struck form in the first regatta of the season easily winning the Men’s C Grade Quad Scull at the Essendon Saltwater regatta last Saturday.
In appalling windy and unseasonably hot conditions, the crew of Tim Foster, Sam Morrison, Troy Durham, Matthew Lane and cox Jo Lian-Lloyd kept their cool to record one of the best times on the day.
Not to be out done by the men, the women’s C Grade Quad Scull of Laura Schouten, Annalise Gehling, Geraldine Goss, Edith Hamilton and Jo Lian-Lloyd picked up a win in a very competitive field to also kick start their season in fine style.
In a surprise result, the glamour mixed quad of Franzi Locher, Simon Crunden, Jim Cooper, Leonie Cluse and cox Derek Begg finished third in the mixed masters category only eight seconds behind the winning Cardinals crew (who they passed during the race???).
Jim Cooper summed up the day in a nutshell for the glamour quad saying that they may have only been eight seconds behind but at no stage during the race could they have made up the time as the crossed the line with the tank running on fumes.
“While we went down by only a slight margin the real bonus for the glamour quad was flogging the Richmond dual Australian champion mixed quad and boy am I getting some mileage out of that” he said.
“Over the last month we have had several very ordinary mornings on the Yarra with everything climate change can throw at us including wind, rain, barges, even dolphins and the dual Aussie champs have been missing in action, presumably tucked up home under the doona hiding from the conditions and as a result, we managed to conquer the conditions while they (the Aussie champs) found it all a bit too tough” he said.

Just when we thought that funds would be a bit lean for the Bairnsdale Camp, enter the two favourites Kevin and Martin who have racked up a couple more frequent sleeper points to increase the tab to $18.
Unfortunately the GPS didn’t get a work out this morning as it spent most of its time in Mike’s jacket pocket resting from being overworked by the glamour quad on Tuesday.
I will look at setting it up in the boat (it has a mount) so the cox can read it without having to wear it (or find it in their jacket pocket) or alternatively we can attach a line and a hook to it and throw it out the back and see if one of those pesky Dolphins will take a fancy it to while we are doing X km/h down the river.
Despite the bit of rain, both the four and the eight showed plenty of good form on the water this morning and we even managed a few comments from other coaches along the bank….
Other Coach: ”They are looking alright, what are they training for?”
Simon C: “Dimmy”
Other Coach: YFI type look followed by “Oh”
Just a reminder that we need to make sure we are at the club 15 minutes prior to push off so we are on the water pushing off for 0630. Today there were only four people at the club at 0615 and as a result we didn’t get going until 0650 which cuts into the amount of time we can spend on the water.
Finally…Welcome into the fold Jono, good to have you on board and great to see that you had to accept a lolly from Vickers during your first session at RFC…awesome.
Simon C

A few ‘frequent sleepers’ arriving a bit late this morning and as a consequence, the Bairnsdale thirst quencher tab is looking a bit healthier at $14.
Reminder that training starts at 1400hrs this Saturday and we will be meeting upstairs for a 15 – 20 minute meeting prior to getting on the water.
Those who are able to make it down a bit earlier can get oars on the bank so we save a bit of time when we break after the meeting.
See you all on Saturday.

The ‘frequent sleeper’ board worked a treat this morning and enabled the two crews we had down to get on the water on a damp Melbourne winters day in record time.
The only issue being that no fines were handed out so the beer fund is look a bit sad to say the least.
Quality row in the eight with those in the boat ramping it up the legs on the lap home backing up some good work during the power stroke exercises.
Thanks to the people who text or emailed that they would not be available this morning as it helps with organising crews on the day.
Don’t forget Saturday training kick’s off at 8 am followed by the AGM at 10:30 am.

Afternoon Rowers,
Firstly and most importantly, 42 days of winter left to go. 6 weeks from today, so for those bottle blondes out there just the amount of time from one hair appointment to the next. Also according to this google search, we could be just 42 days away from wealth and happiness!
A lot can happen in 6 short weeks so get cracking.
Club Races
Club races were heaps for fun we had 6 fours racing, any engineers who were clever enough to move the foot stretchers in the Latham (boat not man) had better let me know so I get to rowing the night before to readjust these.
Well done to Derek for whooping Sally, Dave M, Rochelle and Kate D into first place. The crew dominated and was undefeated for their four races.
As hypothesised yes, boys can cook great bacon and eggs and Kev made awesome rum/raisin pancakes. There was a welcome absence of cheesy noodles and noodles cooked in beer as suggested by one blogger, though I’ll make a note of that gem of a recipe idea for next time Nicole busts me on ebay and sends me to do her supermarket shopping.
Tigers on Wheels
If you even want to dream of keeping up with Sarah, Sharon and I in “around the bay” in the 60km/h section join the gang as per Sarah’s emails most Saturday’s at 7am.
Election Time – Emma 09
Club elections & the AGM are on Saturday at 10:30 am followed by a club photo at 11:30 am.
People have nominated for all committee positions, except for Vice-President. We will be taking nominations from the floor on Saturday.
So, please think about running and getting involved. To nominate for VP you need to have been financial club member for 2 years. Any questions about committee stuff, please talk to anyone on this years committee or with past committee experience including Martin, Dennis, Emma, Derek, Annalise, John Latham (man not boat), Simon Crunden (man not boat, although you will probably get more sense from the boat), etc.
Katie Gray
PANS (PA to Nicole Stupka, previously PA to JK until she was transferred to the Darwin Oar Rowing Society and now champions the DORC’s up there)

Great turn out for our inaugural Thursday morning and the rows in both the eight and four certainly provides plenty of encouragement for the season to come.
Apologies for the teething problems….I hope to have the few issues we experienced this morning under control for this weekend and the following Thursday AM.
Firstly boats – Martin confirmed the eight will be back in the shed on Friday so we will need to do some work on that for Saturday. We need to organise for a few people to be down at the club a bit earlier (say 1315hrs) so we can section and rig the eight for the 1400hrs row. If at least eight turn up earlier that will make light work of the eight.
Sam is on the case re the coxes and will be following up Elaine for Saturday and hopefully confirming another cox for the next two Thursdays while Mike is up in Sydney.
We will need a minimum of two sets of lights for Thursday AM, two which we have already got and I suspect we should have a spare set floating around in case we need to split crews down into smaller boats. I will get these ordered today and hopefully we will have them for next week.
Kev had an idea that we have some sort of board up so people could mark off their names when they arrived so we know who has arrived (or not). I think this will be a good idea as it was a bit of mayhem this morning trying to work out who was down. Kev do you have any ideas for this (or anyone else for that matter)?
Good to see a few old faces back this morning and also good to see that some have not lost any of their bravado when it comes to dealing with the cold weather….could this be a return of the legendary wife beater?
See you all Saturday….Simon