New rowing club for college

Steve Callaghan and Kevin Hennessy accompanied 12 keen IB12 students for the first practice session of the newly formed Rowing Club. The group set off at 0600h on Saturday morning for a full day's rowing at the Grosvenor Rowing Club on the River Dee in Chester. Grosvenor has established a successful outreach programme with schools interested in starting rowing. The St. Clare's group consisted of beginners with a few individuals who have rowed before. After a quick breakfast at 0930h, Steve started the group in the gym on the rowing machines to demonstrate technique and timing. The mid morning session on water introduced the group to the 4 person boat, the cox, stern side and bow side. It was difficult to take it all in at first but the group's techniques were improving. After lunch we completed work in an 8 man boat and at times it looked like a spider dancing crazy on the water. The session ended with a race in which one of the boy's teams narrowly defeating the all girls team in the final.

The students that attended the first rowing club session were;

Paul-Lukas Hoffschmidt; Daria Li Marienfeld; Alexandra Dreier; Marcin Wojnowski; Matthew Greenwood; Andrew Reece; Zachary Ely; Sarah Burlein; Stepan Nazaretyan; Miriam Eimannsberger; Berenike Lucia Struve; Christopher Caioni; Dinmukhammed Abilov.

We are finalising arrangements with one of the Oxford University boat houses to use their equipment and facilities to enable the club to meet on a more regular basis in Oxford.

September 2010