March 2008
This year's Captain, Sarah Park, is now being sought the intricacies of website updates and her log should follow soon.

August 2007
So, the days are counting off until my time as Captain of Thames RC comes to an end.  Sarah Park will officially take up the reigns of Captain from 1st September, and from that day I will become just another club member.  I've really enjoyed my two years as Captain and I know it will take me quite some time to change gear and realise that all the problems of the club are not my responsiblity anymore!

Since I last wrote, a lot (as ever) has been happening at the Club.  We've had rain, floods and mud.  Racing at Women's Henley, Henley Royal, Nat Champs, Home Countries to mention but a few.  Gold medals for the girls who represented England in the 8+ and 4+, Women's Henley medals for the Intermediate 8 (plus the frustration of a row-over in their final).  Disappointment for the men's crews that didn't qualify for HRR and then frustrating racing for those that did qualify.  It was great to see so many of the girls in the GB squad crew in the Remenham Challenge wearing Thames kit, but a shame they were beaten by the Germans.

We also had to deal with the resignation of Paddy Ryan from our Men's Head Coach position.  Paddy has been a valued member of Thames for some time now, and it was with sadness we learnt that from September he'd decided to take up a coaching position at Docklands with London Youth Rowing.  Their gain, our loss!

Behind the scenes since then, there has been much activity to recruit not only a new Men's Head Coach, but also a new Women's Head Coach.  The women's coach will also be responsible for rebuilding our High Performance Group and making sure that Thames continues to be represented at the highest levels in women's rowing.  The men's coach on the other hand will be tasked with continuing the programme to push our men's squad back to being on a par with our rivals and to see another Henley medal back at the club within the next two years.  We are currently interviewing for the women's post, and hope to have new coaches in place for the start of the season or as soon after as possible.  With two full-time paid coaches in place, it really will be down to the rowers to do their bit.  We'll have the boats, the gym, the coaches and the training programme - all that will be left will be to start delivering the results!

Finally I'll take this opportunity to say thankyou to all of you out there who have supported and helped me over the past two years, and ask that you will do the same for Sarah as she steps into her new role.

Good luck to everyone racing at Peterborough next weekend and at City of Oxford sprints the weekend after.  Have fun, win lots of pots  and make sure you bring the boats back in one piece!

June 2007
The sun has finally started to make more regular appearances and the TRC trailers are clocking up the miles as crews start to go to regattas every weekend.  As Captain, this time of year can be a mixed bag.

Moments of pleasure - cycling along watching Hoff and Richard win the S1 pairs at Met Regatta or sitting on the bank in the sunshine at Walton regatta watching real side by side racing on a bendy river (much more exciting than the multi-lane conveyor belt at Dorney ..
Moments of frustration - seeing the women's 2x and 2- both rowing/sculling back with equipment failures..  breaking a sculling blade during a race is not something I'd like to experience myself.
Moments of annoyance - wishing people would learn that when we say a trailer has to be unloaded within 24 hours of it getting back to the Club - that we mean that.
Moments of sympathy - as crew selections for Women's Henley and Henley Royal are finalised.  If there was a rule that the number of club members at any one time had to be divisable by 8, we'd be ok.  But its a fact of rowing that there are always more rowers than there are seats in the boats.
Moments like no others - meeting Prince Michael at the club for his annual visit.  He was definitely impressed by the novice women's 8.  Does that count as a royal seal of approval I wonder?

Metropolitan - 2/3 June
Another mixed bag in itself.  Good results from the women's Intermediate 8 - winning S3 and S1.  Good improvements from the Lwt women's 4-, gaining 9 seconds over 3 races against their rivals in Twiglet-ness, MAA.  A win in S1 pairs from Bryan and Richard, but some improvements needed from the men's crews.

Twickenham & Putney Town
The regatta season has really arrived.  The temperature may have dropped to 10 degrees and the wind may be howling outside, but honestly - it is summer and we are racing!

Putney Town – 19 May
J16 1x winner - H Bradbury
J16 2x 2nd (lost to Magdalen College School in final) (Jones, Oulton)
WS4 4+ 2nd (lost to Imperial College) (Samuel, Masters, Slagle, Green, cox - Beslee)

Twickenham – 26 May
Vet C 4+ winners (Maby, Powell, Seddon, Robson, cox - Gurl)
WS3 8+ winners
W 1x Vet B winner Sarah Park (beating yours truly in the final by 2/3 length)
WS4 1x winner Harriet Townsend

Just a small note about the Vet A 4x which I also raced in at Twickenham.  Due to the lack of any female veteran competition we were entered into Vet C men's 4x instead.  Then being treated in true by the book fashion as a 'male' crew in an open event, the Vet C crew from Ardingley were given a 9 second head start... which in very ungentlemanly fashion - they proceeded to take.  Unsuprisingly, despite a very enjoyable row, they finished a lot more than 9 seconds ahead of us.  In fact they even had the cheek to start spinning off the course before we'd even finished.  Who says that chivalry is dead...  (plus one of our crew is four months pregnant!).

Congratulations also go to Catherine O'Riordan who got to the semi-finals of the J16 1x at the National Schools Regatta.   Our  highest placed TRC J16 for some time!

Next weekend things get serious with the Metropolitan Regatta and hopefully more results to report.

May 2007 - Back again.

There seems to have been an awful lot going on that has stopped me from writing things here, so apologies if you've been missing me!

Since I last wrote, over 70 members of the senior squads have been on training camp to Temple-Sur-Lot in France and our novice women took a trip to Wimbleball for their own training camp.  We've won three pennants in the Women's Head of the River (Novice, Senior 4 and Club), plus had Thames members in two other pennant winning crews (Veteran and Head).  We tried to do the Head of the River but the river got the better of us.  Our novices are mainly no longer novice, but whilst they still were, the novice men took a trip to Dublin and gave the locals a run for their money in their first side by side race.  Our Vets are still veteran (except for half of my Vet B group who have gone to the lengths of getting pregnant simply to avoid racing with me in the summer.  Seems a bit extreme!) and our Juniors are increasing in numbers.

Last month we had a boat naming ceremony to top all boat naming ceremonies... It had been almost two years since the last one, so we had built up an embarrassment of new boats (some not quite so new), but all proudly named in most cases by the person they were named after.  The sun shone, the champagne was poured over a total of 14 boats and the crews looked resplendent in their TRC kit, and the event was topped off with lunch in the Hall for 100 people.

Meanwhile - the regatta season has done what it always does - creeps up on you and before you know it, you're half way through it.  The results seem to be coming in thick and fast.  The senior women won the Victor Ludorum at Poplar (for the second year running), 12 of our novice women have lost their novice-hoods at a combination of Bourne and Chiswick regattas.  Our top men's pair came second to Leander in Elite pairs in their first race at Wallingford.  The top end of the women's squad went to Gent to buy chocolate and came back with a silver and two bronze medals.

So roll on Putney Town, Twickenham and Met!

22 February 2007 - Or not racing?

Although the Tideway may look pretty much like it always does, most of the Thames upriver of Richmond lock is experiencing strong stream conditions and many places are on red boards, meaning they can't get out and row.  The knock-on effect is that quite a few Head races have been cancelled.  This includes the Remenham Challenge, which unfortunately fell foul of the Thames Regional Rowing Council and the requirement to provide adequate details of safety plans before the event.  So a combination of river conditions and an increasing focus on safety (no bad thing really), mean that apart from the novice men who took a trip up Nottingham for the Head of the Trent, and the men's crews who took part in the Boustead - there hasn't been much racing going on.

The club has however been buzzing the last few days (as it alway does at this time of year), as the crews have finally been announced for the Women's Head of the River Race.  There should be a total of 12 women's crews racing with Thames members on board.  Not a bad turn out!  Let's hope we manage to get some decent finish positions too.  We'll have crews aiming for the Headship right through to Senior 4, Novice, Junior, Vet and casual crews.

My only plea is (and this goes to men, women, vets, everyone) please look after the boats.  If you damange your boat in the next couple of weeks, the likelihood of it being fixed in time for the race is pretty low.  So if you break it, then it's your crew that won't race!

10 February 2007 - Racing at last

That long dark teatime of the soul that is training during dark, wet and cold January has come to an end and we are finally seeing some races taking place, and more importantly some TRC wins.  Quintin Head although not the most high profile of the Tideway Heads was a great introduction to racing for our novice crews and gave our women's eights a reminder of what is to come when they race the full Head course in March.   Well done particularly to the Novice Men's 8.  Not only did they win the pennant, but they came 10th overall.  (Looked very smart in their matching kit too!).

Tomorrow brings the return of one of the longest standing grudge matches on the Tideway.  The 50th race for the Boustead Cup.  A race which first took place 60 years ago and has been held almost every year since then between crews from Thames RC and London RC.  Three crews from each club will battle it out, side by side from Chiswick Bridge, finishing this year at the Thames flag pole.  Last year TRC were the victors in the most important race of the first eights, the race which is for the actual Cup itself.  The forecast for tomorrow is proper Tideway weather - cold, wet and windy.  Never mind the University Boat Race, tomorrow's race is about two clubs which have an impressive combined rowing history of nearly 300 years, two local clubs that row on this bit of river every day of the week.  I hope you'll be joining me down at the river watching and cheering our boys on!  First race starts at 11.30am.

January 2007 - New Year’s Greetings

At last, a new year and a new website. It’s been a long time coming, but I definitely think it has been worth the wait. Time permitting I shall occasionally be putting my musings or rantings up on this site for anyone interested in reading them. I know that some of you like to know what I spend my time on, as I clearly don’t spend it training seriously anymore…

The racing season will soon be starting up in earnest, with the first big event being the Remenham Head. This will give many of our new members their first taste of rowing, and for me will hopefully see me taking part in an eight formed from our new “young veteran” women’s group (if such a thing is possible!).

Before we know it, we’ll be rattling through all the months and various big events and will suddenly find ourselves faced with the big ticket events like the Head of the River Races, Henley Royal and Women’s Henley. So this is the time of year to really make the most of every single training session. I shall be doing my best along with my Deputy Captains and the rest of the committee to keep the club running smoothly, so that you can concentrate on your training. I know when I’m doing a good job if everyone simply comes down to the club at the weekend and goes rowing… Sounds easy doesn’t it!!

Good luck for 2007. Here’s to wins in every part of the Club!