Cygnet Weekly News 7th September

Hi All, 

Back on the air again after a week swanning around the Alps...

One main topic for this week and that is the start of the Get Fit and Row course that is being run jointly with BBL. It was the first session last night and 27 would be rowers turned up, 11 guys and 16 gals. This is a great result and by far the best uptake we've had for a while. We've have to collectively make sure they get the best experience from the course and that a large proportion sign up as next generation Cygnets. Sian has been doing a fantastic job in advertising a recruiting and scheduling the sessions. With such big numbers it means she will need lots of helpers to run the sessions. We will be splitting them into 3 groups and running 3 sub sessions in parallel with a combination or fitness/circuit, erg, tank and tech talks. We need at a minimum of 4 helpers per session, but more would be better especially helping coaching on the ergs. Once we get them on the water in October we'll need coxes, and boat sitters aplenty. Right now Sian needs at least one more person for this Saturday morning (11- 12:30) and on for the Monday (14th) evening session. Can you get in touch with Sian if you can do either of these (Sian Kunertsian_kunert@hotmail.co.uk ). This will be a recurrent theme in the newsletter, but this is something we all need to get involved with as it is starting to build the base of the club which we all know we have to do. And I think we'll all need to buy Sian a drink or two every time we see her. 

At the weekend there were a few of us out in singles and doubles enjoying late summer sun and rough water. It is good to see a new group of scullers getting together, improving their skills, getting to know the river better and developing their river craft. The more people we have who can steer, the more flexibility we have in putting crews together when we are short of coxes. So it would be good to have everyone who's been rowing for over a year to be signed off to steer our boats. We had an open day on Sunday which got a good response, most of those we saw have signed up for the GFAR.This weekend the emphasis is getting the crews who are racing in Pairs Head on the water. Ideally they should go out as a pod and do pieces against each other either side by side or one boat chasing another. It really focuses the mind and gets you used to race conditions, it certainly helped the Nov 4+ before Oxford to do side by side pieces with another crew. I'll put the crews out on Thursday. Laurent, Raph are you around to join the group? Whilst at the club at the weekend can we re-rig the boats that for various reasons and not rigged? 3 of our 4s are not currently rigged after various road trips, we need to get them rigged again to make sure we don't lose bits of boats or riggers get damaged. So bring a rigger gigger on Saturday morning.

Further ahead, it's sculling camp on the 18/19/20. Nick has sent out the details so please sign up via the Doodle Poll. In the current squad there aren't that many who haven't sculled before, so it would be good to treat this as a mini training camp and organise some pieces, maybe a mini head race if the river conditions allow. And some of the GFAR guys are keen to come along so it's a good opportunity to meet them and make them feel part of the club. We'll need a number of volunteers to go down on Friday to rig the boats, get them across to the bungalow and generally set up camp before heading to the pub. Nick will be chasing for volunteers!