We had our annual pilgrimage to NJIRC at The Copper Box in London. The team was smaller than the previous year, as the cost was becoming prohibitive. We took the fastest twelve girls and boys from our indoor competition and they performed admirably. This is a fantastic experience, watching twenty four children from a large number of schools bond into one large team. Apprehensive strangers at the beginning of the day, and then frantically swapping phone numbers with other students at the end of their adventure.  Thanks to London Youth Rowing for organising this great event.

Our two competitions were a great success and went off well with healthy numbers of children attending. At the indoors we had over 400 children entered. This was very much the limit of the Birchwood Sports Hall, and we will be looking to make changes to the format for January 2025

September 2023 started with plans for a new site based at Runcorn Rowing Club. Initially, this was going to be called Runcorn Youth Rowing. It was a slow start but by March 2024, it had grown to four schools. It’s hoped that by next year we will be up to seven schools. Like Northwich, Runcorn Rowing Club, is based on the River Weaver which is generally a very well-behaved piece of water, ideal for our young athletes.

In September, we also launched a new site at Rudyard Lake hosted by North Staffordshire Rowing Club. This was not on the agenda, but Macclesfield Academy had initially wanted to join Northwich Youth Rowing and then couldn’t get a timetable slot to fit in with the Northwich schedule. The easiest solution was to open at Rudyard Lake, a beautiful stretch of water near Leek in Staffordshire. This site does need some more schools and more attention from us, but the team at North Staffs RC are doing a great job. More to come here next year.

In the summer of 2023, we started talking with Alistair Marks, Marieke Hagemans and Nathaniel Reilly-O’Donnell of British Rowing about our future plans. They were keen to see how they could help us to professionalise and become more sustainable. Through their support this enabled us to appoint Jen Hinds as our new Office Manager. Jen is well known at Warrington Rowing Club and is an experienced coach for Warrington Youth Rowing. Her experience of rowing, energy and knowledge of IT and Marketing is a great addition to our team. Alongside Jen we now have a fundraising team that is tasked with the sustainability of the Charity. The support from British Rowing, alongside the long term visionary support from Henley Royal Regatta Charitable Trust, has helped us to move forward and become more established.

In July we eventually held our regatta with a slightly reduced entry due to a teachers strike on the original date. We were pleased to welcome along Siobhan Cassidy, Chair of The Boat Race Company as a guest and she was delighted to see so many youngsters taking part in a regatta for the first time. It was a radically altered format and in general it worked well. Knutsford and Winsford were the winners on the day.

Based on the results of the indoor competition we were able to select a team to take part in the National Junior Rowing Championships at The Copper Box Arena in London. All four of our areas were represented and we sent the largest team to date, comprising 40 rowers and 35 adults.

We managed to hold our two Youth Rowing competitions this year, despite a teachers strike on our original regatta date. The indoor competition was held at Birchwood High School on 25th January. We had our biggest entry to date with 375 young rowers taking part.

Rocking the Boat, the outreach conference that we help to organise with London Youth Rowing and Henley Stewards Charitable Trust took place in October and I’m delighted to say that we played a major part, organising several speakers. Scott Whitfield from LJMU was able to highlight his work and his study into our work and I’m pleased to say it was a big hit with the audience. Rocking the Boat 3 is in the planning stages.

The new academic year that started in September 2022 was yet another step forward. Greater Manchester Youth Rowing, based at Agecroft Rowing Club sprang into life. Else where it was a case of sustaining and growing our current sites.

The schools in Warrington, some of them now seven years into the project, soon got to grips with things and most of them where active by early October. We lost two of the schools for various reasons and they took a year out but promised to return next year. We did, though, gain two new schools in the shape of Penketh High School and St Gregory’s Catholic High School. The coaching team at WYR is now well versed in the way we do things. They continue to impress with their dedication and willingness to adapt and improvise. The coaching team at WYR was bolstered by the addition of a British Rowing Grow Coach in the shape of Quin Dunne.

Action on The West Float Dock continued at a pace with plenty of action on the water. North Liverpool Academy increased their sessions to three per week and three other schools increased their sessions to twice weekly. We were delighted to be able to introduce two new schools to the Mersey programme. South Wirral High School and Dixons Broadgreen both joined the fold during the spring term. Our student based coaching team at Mersey are performing well and are always up for a challenge, especially as they work on a commercial dock. I’m sure we will all miss the navy ship, that has now moved and was an interesting feature on the skyline.

The river Weaver saw plenty of activity with local schools continuing to participate and utilise the modern facilities at Northwich Rowing Club.

Agecroft Rowing Club now play host to Greater Manchester Youth Rowing, and it is interesting to see the youngsters working alongside athletes that are on the GB pathway. Six schools eventually signed up with five of them coming from United Learning, a large trust with schools all over England. Our coaches at GMYR are by in large young adults and some of them are on the GB pathway. Its great to see these coaches passing on the skills that they have been learning, whilst being coached themselves by GB coaches!

The end of year regatta took place at Warrington Rowing Club with 19 schools taking part. The day itself was very busy, but the children thoroughly enjoyed it. It did though highlight that we need to drastically re think the event and plans are already under way for a different type of competition. At the regatta, we award the Roger Chicken Award for the school that has had the best performance during the year. The 2022 award went to North Liverpool Academy.