After a well-deserved summer break, it was a pleasure to welcome back coaches, students and school staff to our sites. We spent the first sessions getting to know the new environments and settling into new routines of rowing!
A group of ex-AAYR students are invited to a Summer Rowing Camp at St Edwards School in Oxford. All students involved have remained in the sport, rowing at their local clubs.
The annual regatta takes place with over 70 quads taking part in the event. It is a great success and runs smoothly. The Graham Miller trophy is awarded for the first time, to the youngster that has made the greatest improvements to their academic and personal life.
Holiday rowing camps take part at a number of our bases. The aim of these camps is to encourage the youngsters to join their local clubs.
National Junior Rowing Championships becomes a virtual event, due to problems with the venue. This results in over 10,000 entries and a lot of the AAYR schools take part.
The number of schools taking part breaks through the 40 mark for the first time. These schools take part in the Indoor Championships at Birchwood High School and over 400 youngsters enter the event. The event runs as two divisions for the first time.
Liverpool John Moores University bestow the award of Honorary Fellow to Richard Sinnott as recognition of his work with AAYR. This is the highest honour the University can bestow.
The new name All Aboard Youth Rowing comes into being and the new website also comes to life.
Henley Stewards Charitable Trust continue to be our major funders and we are very grateful for their continued support. It does help to have the backing of a major player and we look forward to continuing our relationship.
British Rowing have also been a great help. Behind the scenes we have been able to take some big steps forward, and this would not have been possible without their support.
To conclude, we have thirty seven state secondary schools taking part in forty sessions per week. That’s potentially four hundred youngsters per week!
The regatta ran on time, following on from the new format that we tried the previous year. Over thirty two schools took part and lots of youngsters got to experience the thrill of a boat race. Salford and Culcheth were the Girls and Boys Champions.
