Were you at the club on Saturday? It was the perfect day for soaking up the sun, enjoying Melbourne Head and a BBQ on our great deck (regatta report to come). Just as we have been making use of our beautiful venue you may have noticed that it is a popular spot for private function hire. The hard work of our facilities co-ordinator Lucy, and the rest of the committee, has seen the club as a whole benefit from the income generated from the use of our boathouse since its redevelopment. We are very happy to reinvest some of the profits made from the facility back into the rowing program and as a result have placed an order for a BRAND NEW Sykes boat!
The new Kevlar bow coxed quad/four Mould 10 will be a top of the range addition to our fleet and with 6 quads on the water at the same time on Saturday it will no doubt be a useful resource. It comes with quick release riggers enabling adaptability and easy storage on our new racking system. It will not arrive until the new year but in the meantime we are calling upon you, the members to suggest a name for it. Please submit all suggestions to [email protected] and the committee will choose a winner, whether it be in honour of a person or a creative novel suggestion.
As we move into the busy Summer and festive season we will be continuing to book out our boathouse for functions to ensure we maximise our potential for income to enable us to continue to build RRC and we thank all members for their understanding. Please make sure you are aware of what is going on by checking our online calendar.
Fundraising success = Brand New Boat
You may recall thanks to our super fundraising efforts of last season the club was able to purchase a brand new stern coxed racing 4+/4x+ and I am pleased to announce that it is finally on its way in a shipping container somewhere between China and Australia. This boat was specifically aimed for to help fill a gap in our fleet to assist coaching from the coxing seat particularly for our development squad. This item highlights the vital role of a cox to a crew and it is with this thought in mind that we could not think of a better person to honour when choosing the name of this boat than cox and coach extraordinaire at RRC, Derek Begg.
Derek Begg stepped down from the committee at the end of last season after serving 12 years in various roles including that of Secretary, Head of Rowing, Head of Club Development and general member. His time and effort during this period can not be underestimated and we all greatly appreciate all his hardwork, time and dedication to the club. His vital contributions have been critical to both on the water successes and behind the scenes in terms of coordinating lease negotiations and much more. Aside from his service to the club as a volunteer on the committee he has also probably coxed every member we have at some point and I personally have great memories of victories and achievements obtained in crews he has coxed and coached. For this reason the committee was unanimous in deciding that he was a very well deserved recipient of this honour.
The hope is that we can celebrate Derek’s great contributions to the club with the naming of this boat at our Christmas celebrations on Sunday 11th December (assuming delivery of the boat occurs as expected). Confirmation of the details of this day is to come so keep an eye out and make sure you reserve the day for some festive club races, bbq and fun. We would love to see as many people as possible old and new, friends and family at the club to celebrate this event and the upcoming Christmas holidays.
Fundraising helps grow the RRC fleet
Did you spot this smiling men’s crew enjoying a beautiful day on Sunday testing their new boat? It gives me great pleasure to announce RRC have made an exciting new purchase of a men’s eight, complete with a set of oars, second hand from Scotch College.
The purchase was made possible by the great fundraising efforts of last seasons quiz night and through a donation to the club after some RRC male rowers starred in an advertisement. Other purchases from the quiz night funds included the two new model D ergos plus a set of sliders and the observant members of the club will have also noticed a new set of four sweep oars. As is evident fundraising is a vital part of keeping our fleet growing and serviceable so I ask you all to please help where you can with our fundraising efforts, starting with buying a ticket for our grand final BBQ.
The women’s squad have also recently benefitted from a successful application to Vic Active Grants that resulted in a complete new set of pink handled sculling oars for a quad and one extra set of yellow handled oars.
It’s exciting times at the club as we look forward to the upcoming head racing season and our training camp. I hope to see many of you down on Sunday 20th September to enjoy some club races followed by brunch before we kick off our focussed training for the head season. Please ensure you sign up on Sportsnoticeboard or contact your coach so we know to expect you.
AGM Boat Naming Celebrations
Thanks to everyone who joined us this Saturday for the RRC Annual General Meeting. When the official business was completed our attention turned to celebrating the naming of three new additions to our fleet and enjoying a good catch up after the Winter break, with thanks to our bar and bbq volunteers Lynn May, Karin Bouvin, Dennis Beck and Tim Evans.
Following our call out to members to nominate names for our new singles we celebrated two new creative names to the tiger fleet – Tiger Shark, previously fondly known as ‘Martin’s single’ and Flying Tiger, one of a pair of singles purchased through this years fundraising efforts.
We also took the opportunity to name a third single in honour of Julia Avis. Julia joined the club in 2001 and over many years served on the clubs committee as vice president and in the role of president from 2006-7. One of her great contributions to the club was the amazing amount of work she and others put in to the hugely successful ergothons of 2003 and 2004 which raised funds to enable the purchase of our current trailer. After completing her learn to row at Richmond she went on to win two state championships in the W8+ and Head of the Yarra in 2003. These are just a couple of her achievements and we were delighted to recognise her contribution with the naming of a single.
The 2015-16 RRC committee with one nomination per position was confirmed at the AGM.
President – Karen Doggett
Vice President – Geraldine Goss
Secretary – Kathryn Macrow
Treasurer – Vicki Brennan
Captain of Boats – Barry Campbell
Head of Rowing – Rochelle Stokes
Facilities Coordinator – Lucy Crunden
Fundraising Coordinator – Cat Hardie
2 Ordinary Members – Derek Begg & Shern Timmins
What's in a name?
Some RRC members may be thinking that boats grow on trees given the abundance of new RRC fleet that has appeared at the club over the last season. If only it were true, in reality however the hard work and willingness to part with a dollar by our members, the work of the fundraising sub-committee, generous but less active current members and a surprise anonymous donation has seen four new singles and a coxless quad join the RRC fleet.
Recent fleet purchases and donations:
A 2nd hand Sykes coxless quad
To supplement our coxless fleet and provide a boat better suited to our lighter rowers we announced at the AGM in 2014 the club had purchased the former Ted Woolcock (new name TBA) via fundraising activities from YYRC.
Two 2nd hand Swift 60-70kg Singles
The success of the Christmas Raffle raised the funds for the club to purchase a 2nd hand Swift single from Genazzano and advance function bookings of our fabulous new building enabled the committee to tip in general revenue funds to purchase a second single from Genazzano.
2nd hand Swift 90kg+
Martin Foster had generously allowed members to use his Swift single for the last few years while he and Nicole have been busy developing our next generation of coxswain’s and rowers. The committee has offered to purchase the single from Martin and he has graciously accepted our offer to add this single to our fleet.
New Sykes Initiator 90kg single:
The email from Sykes advising that our new single was ready for delivery and that they were sworn to secrecy on the origins of the order had the committee and the captain amazed by the generosity of you the RRC members thank you whoever you are.
This sudden influx of fleet items has left the committee with a slight dilemma. We need names for our new fleet and as a committee we’ve decided that our amazing and generous membership should be the ones who actually suggest the names. If you have a suggestion for a name, then email [email protected] with your idea or drop your suggestion in the secretary’s box in the gym, before April 2nd 2015. The suggested names will then go to the next committee meeting where we’ll choose from names suggested by the membership.
Thanks, Barry Campbell – RRC Captain
Access During Redevelopment
We are fortunate that Lloyd Group, the builders for the redevelopment, are experienced in working in environments where people continue to use the facility while building works are happening. However, there will be some interruptions and changes to access during the building works. Below is a broad outline of what is happening. Continue reading “Access During Redevelopment”
The DEM'N Quad
A big congratulations to everyone involved in another great day at the club on Sunday 10th November. It gave me great pleasure to officially name the two newest boats added to our fleet. We welcomed Dennis Beck, Emma Catford, Martin Foster and Nicole Stupka to officially name the new mid weight coxed four and quad which we purchased earlier on this year from Latrobe University Boatclub. This boat gives us great flexibility in the fleet enabling us to take one boat on the trailer for both sweep and sculling races at regattas and fills the gap left by the retiring of the James Butcher. The boat was named Dennis, Emma, Martin & Nicole, or to be known in the shed as “THE DEM’N” after the very successful masters mixed quad crew that represented Richmond both state and nationally. Along with their successes on the water each one of them served for many years on the club’s committee and were instrumental in the running of the club from 2008 until the present day. A well deserved honour for them all.
We also officially named the new double/pair, another flexible addition to the fleet. The sesquicentennial (150 years) was a very generous anonymous donation to the club given to us to mark the milestone of 150 years of continuous operation and we are very grateful to the mystery supporter of the club who bestowed this great surprise on us at the Gala Dinner in September.
There was action on the water too as Justin Thomas and helpers again organised a very successful club time trial event that gave everyone a chance to warm up their legs for the upcoming head racing season on the Yarra. Line honours on the day went to the men’s quad of Michael Gehling, Charlie Burke, Michael Calvert and David Micallef coxed by Michelle Joy.
Just to let you all know the next event at the club will be on Saturday 23rd November when multiple Richmond crews will be taking to the Yarra to compete in the Melbourne Head course. The bar at the clubhouse will be open for the afternoon following the conclusion of racing so friends and family are welcome to come along and support RRC.
The fun keeps coming too as Christmas is just around the corner so look out for information soon about this years RRC Christmas ‘Hoe-down’ to be held on Thursday 19th December.
See you all soon.
Karen Doggett
RRC President