October 2004
October News Round-up
General
The AGM was held on 15th October. Wallingford now has a brilliant new captain – Ben Townsend.
We had a fantastic club clear-up. Thanks to the women’s squad the weights room now looks less like a dungeon and you can find things in the work room. The men and young vets did a great job clearing the boathouse and under the bar. Other squads spruced up the rest of the club.
The purchase of a new launch in underway.
Things for you to do
See the Club Admin page for details about:
Wallingford Winter Head – Sunday 5th December
Kit – a Message from Dabir
Concept 2 Hall of Fame – Vote before 16th November
Squad News
News from Susan Allen – Beginners Squad
We recently had session 6 so we are half way through the course. Approximately 50 people on the course split into two groups one men the other women. Its been hard work for Martin and Susan dealing with large numbers but we are grateful for the help that other club members have given us by way of coxing and just being there as extra hands to help out when boating etc.
We have definitely got some good potential for a good Novice squad next year and feel that 'things' are now making sense to most of the people on the course - it takes time and patience from us coaches but perseverance and determination from those who are learning to row!
News from Emily Hutchinson - Women’s Squad
WRC LDS – 2nd October
Liz Barker: 2nd in WS3 1x (16m59secs)
Lucy Smart: 2nd in WS4 1x (17m01secs)Reading Small Boats – 10th October
WS2 4+ came 1st beating Reading RC on home ground!
The crew was Rebecca Mitchell, Clare Borsberry, Ruth Baroni and Sue Jones with George Robinson coxingSquad Trials – 23rd October
Lucy Smart came 20th and Esther Dingley came 25th out of 40 competitors in Trials for WLwt – congrats to them both!News from Pete Sudbury - High Performance Group
Paul Mattick won both LDS and Lwt men's October trial.
Tanya Pollit won WLDSH and was 3rd in the trial.
Jen Goldsack won S1 at WLDSH and was 15th in the trial.
Amelia Van Manen won S4 at WLDSH.General news:
LOTS of new recruits each week joining up to the Women's Squad. Delighted to have so many new members and hope that they will continue to enjoy their time with WRC!
23rd October National Trials
The results from last weekends nation trials (esp lightweights ) look pretty good for Wallingford!
Captain's Speech
For now, available as a word document. Soon to be converted to a "web page"
Regatta Sculls
The club has just bought three new Burgashell sculls and will be buying another two when funds are available. To celebrate the enormous contribution made to our coffers by the hard work of the organisers of the club regatta and heads these boats will be named after the leading lights of the organising committees. That is the Rachael and Phil Haycock, Roger Brown, Andrew Breen and also John Bunn who has done so much work on the brilliant rafts which make our heads such a success.
Here is John’s account of how the rafts came to their present configuration:
A Short History of the Wallingford Rafts by John Bunn
Building the rafts was a rather long term, but necessary, project. Colin and I started in 1993 by replacing a couple of very old rafts which were falling apart and were dangerous when used for the regatta. We made the design simple and modular so that individual units could be joined up like a LEGO set. Colin Baker and I then added a couple each year (sometimes even three) until we had a set of 12 units (by 1998) and all the old ones had been replaced. At the time, there was the possibility of the club getting new premises and we thought that the modular arrangement would make it very much easier to optimize an arrangement for a new location.When the May regatta base moved from Castle Priory across the river, the modular arrangement gave us a lot of flexibility to develop a separate arrivals and departures raft system. Also, of course, it has been helpful for the winter events - particularly as Colin has gone on to build corner pieces, etc.
Some of the units in the front row were designed to float a little lower in the water so as to assist scullers. We also rebuilt the ramp in 1997. Last year Colin built the 13th raft unit.
Colin made a brass plate for each unit which has its name and launch year engraved on it. The plates are fixed on the side of each unit.
We had all the timber cut to size at the timber yard but, even so, there is a slight discrepancy (only a few mm) in the length of the individual units. There is an optimum arrangement for the units to minimize the effect of this discrepancy and make the metal connections between the rows most effective. Having an individual name on each unit has helped us, over the years, to manage the discrepancy.
2nd October - Wallingford Long Distance Sculls
For the first time both mens and womens 1x were won by Wallingford scullers. The Wallingford sculling group did amazingly well, especially the women.
WRC sculler Paul Mattick beat eight-times champion Guy Pooley's 2002 record of 14:35 by one second while winning this year's men's race. Tanya Pollitt won the women's, but Guin Batten's 15:32 record (also set in 2002) remains unchallenged.
