It’s been a while since my last newsletter, things have been very busy at WYR with lots going on. I will outline our plans for the future below, which I hope you will find as exciting as I do.
I can begin by saying that the whole Team have had a couple of get togethers. Our first one being a training session for all the Trustees, Volunteers and Coaches. It was a valuable session and one of the few chances we all have to get together; as well as undergoing training, many tales were swapped and experiences shared. Our most recent event happened in mid-November and was our annual fund-raising dinner at Mere Court Hotel. A great time was had by all and the support from the wider rowing community was very much appreciated. Steve O’Connor was our main speaker and he enlightened a spell bound room with tales of the great work that Fulham are doing with the prison service amongst their other activities.
Sadly, Covid saw off our competitions this calendar year, but we have plans in place to make sure they return in 2022. Our indoor competition will once again be at Birchwood High School on Thursday 27th of January. Schools, please make a note of this date and start booking transport and making all other arrangements. A very early guess at timings would suggest 9.30am till 2.30pm. The main aim of the Event will be to pick our year 8 teams to go to London for the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships on Friday March 4th. We will select three teams for this trip, one from WYR, MYR and NYR. We may also send a SEN team, if we can make the finance and logistics work. As well as the year 8 competition on the 27th of January, we will also run races for other year groups, so please feel free to bring them along. This will be a big event for the youngsters, we hope to have up to 30 schools and 450 students taking part.
We will be ending our school year with a regatta on Wednesday 6th July, on the River Mersey at Warrington Rowing Club. This is for all of our schools and should be a great occasion, the rowers can invite friends and families to come and watch their newly found skills. It will start at 3pm and finish at 6ish depending on the race schedule.
I am delighted to report that our new home for Mersey Youth Rowing is working very well, we now have ten sessions a week from a mix of Liverpool and Wirral Schools. We are hosted by Liverpool Victoria Rowing Club and they have been most helpful allowing us the run of their club during the day. Interestingly, all of our coaches at MYR are students and this was a bit of a leap of faith, but I am very impressed with the way they conduct themselves and impart their knowledge to the young rowers.
Northwich Youth Rowing got going with schools from all over Cheshire joining Knutsford, who were able to make a start last year. We are still talking with a number of other schools from the area and it is hoped more will join us soon. Northwich Rowing Club have embraced this project and are the perfect hosts. Their coaching gang are all veteran rowers and as with the students at Liverpool Vics they delight in creating bonds with the youngsters that enable them to make the sessions enjoyable. In the last couple of weeks NYR have just taken on a group of teenage Afghan Refugees; it takes great skill to get through to them but the smiles and fist pumps make it all worthwhile.
Our expansion plans are ongoing with our new base. In September 2022 we will be establishing Greater Manchester Youth Rowing which will be based at Agecroft Rowing Club. This is a good fit for our growth plans, Agecroft are a club that we know well and their base in Salford is well positioned to serve local schools. We are in the process of establishing a coaching team for GMYR, we are still a few short so please let me know if there is anybody interested.
Warrington goes from strength to strength and benefits from having a bit more history than the new sites. Getting going at the start of the academic year is much easier as they know what is involved to make the most of the project.
Warrington Rowing Club have benefited from having a steady flow of new junior members transfer from WYR. One of the girls from the 2nd year of the project has just finished 5th in GB Junior Sculling Trials and looks set for a fruitful 2022 season. Her colleague, also from WYR has just signed a Scholarship to study in the USA. More promising athletes are following in their footsteps.
During the summer of 2021 we tried to run a summer camp, with varying degrees of success. Next year we are going to modify the camps and pick 10 youngsters from all the schools at each site. They will be selected for the camp with the expectation that they will be interested in joining the host club’s junior section at the end of the course.
We also continued with our ongoing programme of Coach Education during the summer of 2021. Another batch of new teachers are now qualified as BR level 2 Session Coaches and some of them went onto complete their RYA Powerboat Course as well.
Our much-trumpeted study with Liverpool John Moores University has at last started. Some of the coaches and school leads will by now have had an email from the academics running the study and indeed, the first interviews should be taking place this week. Fingers crossed we should have some valuable data in a couple of years.
Ben and I have been heavily involved, with London Youth Rowing and Henley Stewards Charitable Trust in a project called Rocking the Boat. This was a video-style conference event that was intended to highlight the outreach work going on in the country and encourage more people to get involved. Feedback indicates that it was well received and we are involved in plans for next year. As part of this process Ben and I have been involved with other schemes around the country, lending a hand with our experience and knowledge of the last few years.
I will close by reminding you about ‘Easy fundraising’, if you don’t already support any other cause, please list Warrington Youth Rowing. It will cost you nothing but will be a great help to us.
Richard
07970796917 richard@warringtonyouthrowing.org.uk

Sitting in my kitchen writing this news letter is a sad indication of the situation that we find ourselves in. White stains on my fingers and the smell of fresh paint in my house is another sign that things are not normal: DIY is not listed as one of my super powers. We are all desperate to get back to our day jobs and get our youngsters active again. Goodness knows what effect this latest lockdown will have on them, but we are ready to help them get back on track. The information that we have at present is that pupils will start to return from Monday 8^th March and we will be ready from this date. Will this return date include Year 8? Who knows? But when your rowers are back in school and are ready to go please give us as much notice as possible. Most of our coaches are self employed or students and may well have to move things around to accommodate rowing sessions.

We can though report on some activity from the end of last year. We managed to squeeze in our capsize drill during the last days of the Autumn Term. This was very much a last-minute thing and I was delighted with the way the schools adapted and made the most of the occasion. The swimming ability of our group is still on average very poor but it is better than a few years ago. Buoyancy aids will remain the order of the day whilst the youngsters are on the water. Many thanks to LiveWire for making this event happen, their team were very helpful and understanding.

Over the years we have worked with London Youth Rowing and behind the scenes they have been a great help to us. We have always tried to support the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships which is their flagship event. Sadly this event fell foul of Covid but they managed to replace it with a virtual indoor rowing league and every month there is a new challenge. All of our schools took part in the December Challenge and we were going to carry on with this excellent scheme through the winter but Covid had other ideas. The competition is open to anybody, anywhere and there were even a number of entries from Australia and New Zealand. We did though have some excellent performances. Our old girls Iffy Marinos (Boteler now Priestley) won the girls age 17. Elle Kadir (Culcheth now Priestley) won the girls age 16 and was the fastest of all the girls. Kimberley Bentun (Birchwood) was joint 3^rd with Elina Bormane (Padgate) in age 13 behind two young ladies from New Zealand. Tamara Collar (Cardinal Newman) was 3^rd in age 12. For the boys Michael Kadir (Culcheth) won the age 15 by a margin. Evan Wray (Birchwood) placed 2^nd in the age 14 with Steven Davies (Padgate) a close 3^rd. Lucas Tinkley (Cardinal Newman), Kam Finni (Knutsford Academy) and K Stone (Bridgewater) all shared the top spot in age 13. Lucas Tinkley and Ollie Stanton (Cardinal Newman) came 1^st and 2^nd respectively in age 12.  If any schools would like to present medals for these results please let me know and I am sure I can find some for you to hand out. For the full results go to the London Youth Rowing website on the online league page where you can find us in the December results.

Assuming that we do get back on the water at some stage in this academic year, we have our end of year regatta to look forward to. Initially we had it down as Monday 28^th June but we have pushed this back to Wednesday 7^th July starting at 3pm and finishing around 6pm. It will be on the banks of The River Mersey at Warrington Rowing Club and it will be a great opportunity for our young athletes to show off their skills in front of family and friends who will all be welcome. Please come along and support this inspiring event.

Can I remind all school heads that we would be delighted to see you during any of our training sessions and we might even take you for a ride in one of the coaching launches!

We have recently become members of The Sport and Recreation Alliance and we were featured in their Daily Update. To see the article, follow this link.

https://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/news/children%20and%20young%20people/alliance-shines-spotlight-on-warrington-youth

I will close by reminding you about ‘Easy fundraising’, if you don’t already support any other cause, please list Warrington Youth Rowing. It will cost you nothing but will be a great help to us.

Kind regards and let’s hope for better news soon.

Richard

07970796917    richard@warringtonyouthrowing.org.uk

We stopped operating on 17^th March and sadly, there was no Youth Rowing activity until Sir Thomas Boteler braved the sunshine on the 21^st of September. The shadow that Covid-19 cast will be remembered for decades to come. The dark days of spring and early summer are hopefully being replaced by an autumn term, full of hope, imagination and eager young rowers.

We have not been idle during the downtime and have taken the opportunity to review all our back-office activities. Elaine, our new Trustee, has done a sterling job sorting out all the paper work involved in keeping our coaches qualified, up to date and effective. Club and school contracts are also being implemented as well as policies to keep our youngsters safe. These policies can be viewed on our website: www.warringtonyouthrowing.org.uk.

Sadly, we will lose one of the highlights of 2020/21; our trip to The Copper Box in London for NJIRC has fallen foul of Covid. This a great shame as it has become the focus of our winter indoor programme. This will also mean that our social highlight, a Fundraising Dinner at Mere Court, will also be a casualty of Covid. The dinner has been a great show case for us as well as a major fundraiser; we can assure everybody it will be back. The lack of our trip to NJIRC means that we will be reshaping our indoor activities and there is an exciting new programme being developed by our friends at London Youth Rowing. It will involve a number of sites in GB and other bases around the world are also being invited to take part. The beauty of this scheme is the low cost in money and time, it can be completed during a normal session. More news of this exciting new venture will follow as it becomes available.

We have also undergone some major changes.

Mersey Youth Rowing has moved house. The arrangements that we had at Mersey Rowing Club and Liverpool Watersports Centre were becoming increasingly unpractical. It was fun to row just under the iconic Liverpool sky line, but sadly things didn’t work out. So, we have relocated to Liverpool Victoria (Vics) Rowing Club, which for those who don’t know is based on the West Float Dock, Birkenhead. Vics have welcomed us with open arms and there are a number of advantages to being based there. Amongst these will be the use of their gym area in the winter months – a big improvement for our coaches who spent most of last year lugging ergos around the City and delivering sessions in our schools. It has though meant that our pool of schools is changing, for some getting to Birkenhead is just a step too far. Ironically, for some schools it is easier and so schools such as North Liverpool and De La Salle will continue with the project. We have added Fazackerley and we look forward to welcoming them all to our new home. We will now be casting our net in Birkenhead in search of new rowers from the local area.

Our coaches have also changed, Paul has moved on and Jess will now be working solely in Warrington. We have though gained Jessica and Libby who are both at University in Liverpool. Ralph also joins the gang that will be led by last year’s coach, Sam. Our Ambassadors for Mersey now include Professor Zoe Knowles of Liverpool John Moores University; she is keen to get involved helping to promote Mersey Youth Rowing.

Northwich Youth Rowing is starting to blossom into life. This was a logical step for us as links between Warrington and Northwich Rowing Clubs have always been strong. Northwich is an ideal base for us to strike out into the heartland of Cheshire as well as serving the town of Northwich. Initial interest has been strong with 8 schools registering a keen interest. Covid though has damped the enthusiasm of some schools joining the programme. NYR have started to work with Knutsford Academy and it is hoped Hartford and Weaverham Schools will be starting soon.

Kevin will be leading the NYR coaching team that will also include Carole, Helen, Mary and Dave. Their line-up of Ambassadors is impressive with ex-WYR coach and now Police Officer, Phil Lyons, stepping into more ceremonial shoes. He is joined by the pride of Northwich Rowing Club Matt Langridge, current Olympic Champion and passionate supporter of the scheme. Ex England and Lancashire cricketer Peter Martin also joins the team. He is new to the sport and is involved at Northwich as a parent, but is very keen on youth development in sport.

Warrington have also added a couple of new coaches and we are delighted that Janet and Lauren will be joining us. Our new Ambassador is Ric Egington and he will be dropping in from time to time when he is in the area. Ric is a former junior at Warrington and went on to win two Olympic Medals and two World Championships. Our Warrington schools are returning and we are close to full strength. We are delighted that New Horizons will be joining us this academic year and it will be interesting to see what effect our sport has on the pupils. Despite this, the cloud of Covid is still hanging around, it may dampen our activities. Strange, very strange times, but we will keep pushing on.

WYR would like to express out thanks to all the Heads and Schools that have started and are just about to start this academic year. We fully understand how difficult and different this year is; your vote of confidence by simply continuing with us is greatly appreciated. For those schools that have yet to start please let us know if there is anything we can do to help, our programme is very flexible and our coaches are ready to get going.

The Half Term break has just been and we were able to run a British Rowing Coaching Course at WRC. This was the first and only course to run in GB since lockdown and we are very grateful to Rachel Hooper and the Coach Education Team at BR for getting it off the ground. Things though were very different, the first day was done through a virtual platform and the practical days were all very Covid safe. The success of the course means that Joe Peacock of North Liverpool is now a qualified rowing coach. As is Rachel Ince of Knutsford Academy and Paul McKean of Cardinal Newman Catholic High School. It is very good of theses teachers to give up their holiday time to enhance their knowledge of the sport. As well as the 3 teachers, 5 new members of our coaching team were also able to complete the course. WYR have now put almost 30 coaches through their basic training, a great way to facilitate the expansion of our sport.

Capsize drills have not yet happened but I am waiting to see if we can get one organised for late November or early December, it all depends on Covid!

A couple of our old girls are embarking on selection for the GB Junior Rowing Team and this can be an expensive process. To help them along the way Warrington Youth Rowing has set up a fund called First Step, the aim of which is to help our alumni realise their dreams of representing their country. If you are in a position to do so, any contributions gratefully received!

Lastly if you know about Easyfundraising and you don’t support anybody, please can I politely ask you to list Warrington Youth Rowing as your chosen charity. The same goes for Amazon Prime, we are now on their list. These two schemes cost nothing to contribute to but can make a difference.

All the best

Richard

richard@warringtonyouthrowing.org.uk

What a wonderful message of encouragement and motivation from Sir Steve Redgrave CBE – winner of five consecutive Olympic Gold Medals, not to mention the three Commonwealth and nine World Rowing Championship Gold Medals!

As the most successful male rower in Olympic history, we were thrilled and moved to receive this and share with our young rowers.

We stopped operating on 17^th March and sadly, there has been no activity since then. The shadow that the dreadful Covid-19 has cast will be remembered for decades to come. Dark days in spring and early summer are hopefully being replaced by a new autumn season, full of hope and imagination. Fingers crossed activity will start Monday 21^st September, nearly 27 weeks later!

We have not been idle and have taken the opportunity to review all our back office activities. Elaine our new Trustee has done a sterling job sorting out all the paper work involved in keeping our coaches qualified, up to date and effective. Club and school contracts are also being implemented as well as policies to keep our youngsters safe whilst in our care. These policies can be viewed on our website.

Sadly, we will lose one of the highlights of 2020/21; our trip to The Copper Box in London for NJIRC has fallen foul of Covid. This a great shame as it has become the focus of our winter indoor programme. This will also mean that our social highlight, i.e., Dinner at Mere Court will be another casualty of Covid. The Dinner has been a great show case for us as well as a major fundraiser; we can assure everybody it will be back. The lack of our trip to NJIRC means that we will be reshaping our indoor activities and there is an exciting new programme being developed by our friends at London Youth Rowing. More news to follow as it becomes available.

We have also undergone some major changes.

Mersey Youth Rowing has moved house. The arrangements that we had at Mersey Rowing Club and Liverpool Watersports Centre were becoming increasingly unpractical. It was fun to row just under the iconic Liverpool sky line, but sadly things didn’t work out. Phone calls were made and we have relocated to Liverpool Victoria (Vics) Rowing Club, which for those who don’t know is based on the West Float Dock, Birkenhead. The Vics have welcomed us with open arms and there are a number of advantages to being based there. Amongst these will be the use of their gym area in the winter months – a big improvement for our coaches who spent most of last year lugging ergos around the City and delivering sessions in our schools. It has though meant that our pool of schools is changing, as for some getting to Birkenhead is just a step too far. Ironically, for some schools it is easier and so schools such as North Liverpool and De La Salle will continue with the project. We have added Fazackerley and we look forward to welcoming them all to our new home. We will now be casting our net in Birkenhead in search of new rowers from the local area.

Our coaches have also changed, Paul has moved on and Jess will now be working solely in Warrington. We have though gained Jessica and Libby who are both at University in Liverpool. Ralph also joins the gang that will be led by last year’s coach Sam. Our Ambassadors for Mersey now include Professor Zoe Knowles of Liverpool John Moores University; she is keen to get involved helping to promote Mersey Youth Rowing.

Northwich Youth Rowing is starting to blossom into life. This was a logical step for us as links between Warrington and Northwich Rowing Clubs have always been strong. Northwich is an ideal base for us to strike out into the heartland of Cheshire as well as serving the town of Northwich. Initial interest has been strong with 8 schools registering a keen interest. Covid though has damped the enthusiasm of some schools joining the programme hence, NYR are looking forward to welcoming Knutsford and Weaverham Schools as trail blazers for the scheme.

Kevin will be leading the NYR coaching team that will also include Carole, Helen, Mary and Dave. Their line up of Ambassadors is impressive with ex-WYR coach and now Police Officer, Phil Lyons, stepping into more ceremonial shoes. He is joined by the pride of Northwich Rowing Club Matt Langridge, current Olympic Champion and passionate supporter of the scheme. Ex England and Lancashire cricketer Peter Martin also joins the team. He is new to the sport and is involved at Northwich as a parent, but is very keen on youth development in sport.

Warrington have also added a couple of new coaches and we are delighted that Janet and Lauren will be joining us. Our new Ambassador is Ric Egington and he will be dropping in from time to time when he is in the area. Ric is a former junior at Warrington and went on to win Olympic Medals and World Championships.

Our Warrington schools are returning and Sir Thomas Boteler are as ever are first out of the blocks. The cloud of Covid though is hanging around and it may yet dampen our activities. Strange, very strange times, but we will keep going.