Captain’s Update

Hello everyone,

Welcome to your latest Captains’ Update. With the great improvement in weather it is good to see rowing taking place on the Stour on most days of the week from 6am in the morning right through until 8.30pm on some days. It is good to see the increase in activity.

Recent Events

13th May – Ball Cup

The Junior Squad put in some great performances yet again at the event at which the Squad has been so successful in the past. Congratulations to Martha Bullen, Amelia Maskell and Amelia Moule for winning gold medals. The girls also picked up silver medals along with Freya Evans, Byron Bullen, Henry Tullin and Gareth Moriarty. There were also some positive performances from other members of the Junior Squad some of whom were at their first competitive race.

27th May – Nottingham City

Jen Titterington (SRC) and Bev Goodchild (IPS) claimed another victory at Holmes Pierrepoint on the last Sunday in May. This was fresh from winning the previous weekend at Wallingford Regatta where thanks to the stipulations of the organisers, the ladies rowed as an Ipswich crew as composite entries were not permitted. The conditions in the afternoon in particular were not dis-similar to the Orwell on a windy day with a ship going into Ipswich port. Well done ladies.

27th May – National Schools Regatta

Our Junior Squad girls quad of the two Amelias, Martha and Helena Griffiths competed at this national event competing as a very young J18. Special mention must go to Helena for stepping in so admirably as a last minute substitute following injury to Freya Evans. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube some of the rest of us were able to watch the girls final live back at the Clubhouse. The girls rowed well against some very strong crews, finished ahead of regional opposition from the Isle of Ely in their C final and came away ranked 16th out of 39 crews who competed.

2nd/3rd June – Peterborough Spring

Good weather and reasonable conditions made for two days of enjoyable racing for both Junior and Senior Squads. Saturday brought another win for our Junior girls quad fresh from National Schools but this time going one step further and competing at W.4x- level. The best individual performance came from Byron Bullen in winning J.18.1x beating off some very strong regional competition. The MasC.4+ won their event on Sunday and there was an extremely close finish for the MasD.8+ in the final, with side by side racing against York for the full 1,000m only to get pipped on the line.

Forthcoming Events

16/17 June 2018 – British Rowing Masters Champs, Holme Pierrepoint, Nottingham.

SRC’s MasC.4+ is entered for both days, with ladies doubles and a quad taking part on Sunday. Good luck everyone.

Saturday 23rd June 2018 – St Ives Regatta

We have a very healthy entry of Senior and Junior crews entered for this event in 10 days time. In fact if we get races for all our entries we shall be probably be fulfilling the same sort of role Maidstone Invicta traditionally play at our own Regatta – hopefully with the same degree of success.

14th/15th July 2018 – Kingston Regatta

Here is a link to the poster for this regatta. No decision has been taken yet as to whether the Club will attend this event, but with St Neots Regatta falling on 28th/29th July this year here is a mid-July event that some members might be interested in. If you are please let me know. It offers 1000m metre racing on Saturday and 500m on Sunday.

28th/29th July 2018 – St Neots Regatta

This has been a regular feature in the regatta calendar in recent years and always proves very popular.

5th August 2018 – Sudbury Regatta – “The International”

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11th/12 August 2018 – Peterborough Summer Regatta

1000m racing on Saturday and 500m racing on Sunday.

Capsize and Collisions

Thank you to everyone who assisted in organising the recent capsize drill at Hadleigh swimming pool on 19th May. We ran this exercise in conjunction with Deben Rowing Club and again this proved to be a success. The next capsize drill is likely to be in the Autumn and will be organised by the Deben. It will be another opportunity for any member who would like a refresher to come along. In the meantime there is a useful short film on YouTube prepared by British Rowing that provides a good reminder to all of us of what to do in the event of a capsize.

Pete Donovan our Safety Officer has asked me to remind everyone that every capsize should be recorded in the Blue Safety Log which is now kept in the Clubhouse near the filing cabinet, as should every collision. Members involved should write up the incident on one of the blank forms in the book immediately thereafter so that Pete can review when he is next down. Where members feel that the matter needs to be brought to the Safety Officer’s attention urgently they should comtact the Safety Officer. Any incident involving damage to equipment should be reported immediately to the boatman.

Safeguarding

At Sudbury we pride ourselves on the positive interaction between our adults and junior members, both when we are attending events and when we are together at the Club. I think it is useful to remind all members of the key elements of British Rowing’s Safeguarding and Protecting Children Policy, which as an affiliated Club we fully support:

British Rowing is committed to:

Making the welfare of young people paramount – this means that the protection of children at risk may override the rights and needs of those adults working with them.
Enabling everyone, whatever their age, culture, disability, gender, language, racial origin, religious belief and/or sexual identity to participate in rowing in a fun and safe environment.
Taking all reasonable steps to protect young people from harm, discrimination and degrading treatment and to respect their rights, wishes and feelings. Taking seriously all suspicions andallegations of poor practice or abuse and responding swiftly and appropriately to them in accordance with current procedures.
Ensuring that all British Rowing employees who work with young people are suitable for that responsibility and provided with relevant training.
Requiring all its Member clubs, Competitions and Regional Councils to accept responsibility for the welfare of the children in their care in accordance with British Rowing’s policies and procedures, and to incorporate these in their constitutions and rules.

Within in our Club we should all try to bear these points in mind whenever we are inter-acting with our young people using the facilities of the Club. The Club’s Welfare Officer is Rosemary Hogsbjerg who is known to most if not all of you. More detailed information on safeguarding can be found on the British Rowing website.

Happy Rowing!

Sean

Captain, Sudbury Rowing Club