Newsletter#2, Trinity Term, 1997 (27th June)

From Em Thomas, the Women's Captain:

The final report from my brief, but mostly successful Journalism career (well, they've all been published!)

Four women's VIIIs were training this term (I use the word 'training' loosely!). The 1st Eight were under the awesome coaching team of Tim Foster, Matt Pinsent, Neil Chugani, with the odd input from Anu! Ollie Jones was again looking after the 2nd Eight, hoping for a repeat of last term's success.

Unfortunately, Rowing On proved to be a stumbling block for the 3rd and 4th (Beer) Eights. The 3rd Eight, despite a good performance were the victims of the high standard of Rowing On crews this year, whereas the Beer Eight succumbed to a boat-stopping crab 100 m short of the finish. The 2nd Eight qualified fourth and continued their winning streak bumping Christ Church II, St John's II, St Hilda's II and New II to gain blades and a fixed position. A wonderful achievement!

After a scare on the first day, with New College being a little too close for comfort out of the Gut, the 1st Eight eight rowed over comfortably on Thursday and Friday. Saturday saw the re-appearance of the threat from New, culminating unfortunately with a bump in the Gut, on a day that saw only 3 boats row over in Div 1. Finally, a brief mention for the 3rd Eight who came back strongly from the disappointment of Rowing On to narrowly lose in the semi-finals of Oriel Regatta to the eventual winners of their event.

As I usually seem to say, this term has been one of mixed fortunes. The senior squad's early season foray into IVs at Wallingford was fun, and both fours won their first round match-ups, but that was as far as it went.

The term saw the addition of several members to the Men's 1st Eight, with the 2nd Eight benefitting from the overflow. Ned Fletcher, ex-Radley boy (expert moaner!) came in at bow, and along with Ben Brookes is currently training with the lightweight squad, and will be representing them at Henley. Harry Bond returned for his now annual bout of summer rowing to stroke the boat. Jason Liu, with his cosmological size added to the boat's horsepower. And finally Dan Bebber, who by the time you read this will be a married man. Congratulations Dan! Our first race outing was a great success, winning Coate Water Regatta, beating, of all people, Brasenose in the final. Eights Week did not go so well. Despite bumping Wadham on the first day, the next three days did not exactly go to plan and we ended up going down one place overall.

The 2nd Eight was much improved this term, and rowed well during Eights, but could not avoid losing two places overall.

The 3rd Eight had great comedy value, but the effort that they put in did not deserve the spoons that they received.

The 4th and 5th Eights, although not rowing-on, provided a solid development base for next year's rowing.

And now I sign off as boat club captain with a wish of good luck to all for next year. (Well, I'm in the process of trying to get college to purchase a pair actually!) It was fun. Sometimes!

I don't normally take much space in these newsletters detailing the machinations of your committee, following the dictum that the less you know about how Rowing Society business is conducted and sausages are made, the easier you'll sleep in your beds at night. But I feel I should mention the departure for darkest Zambia of the Iron Chairman, Richard Peters (M.82), at the behest of his employers, Coopers & Lybrand. Since there is already an adequate memorial to his 5-year tenure - it's made of brick and full of Catz boats, in case you hadn't noticed - I needn't add anything other than wonder what his successor, Bruce Mitchell (M.54) plans on doing to top that. Bruce is replaced as Membership Secretary by John Mitchell (M.89) - er, yes there is a family connection, but not so much nepotism as Bruce wanting to make sure his successor does it right. Chris Talbot (M.62) and Becky Henwood (M.91) swap jobs to become Treasurer and Secretary respectively, and Peter Ainsley (M.56) is elected to the committee. Right, that's the fogeys out the way, here's a list of who actually rowed in Summer Eights:

Anu Dudhia (e-mail: dudhia@atm.ox.ac.uk)

Links

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