Last chance to get your tickets. $25 each. Bar open at 6.30pm. BYO Food.
Excellent auction items on the night – don’t miss out.
Theme – “What I want to be when I grow up”
https://trybooking.com/BIJSO
RRC Annual Quiz Night – Friday 13th March
Get your tickets now. $25 each. Bar open at 6.30pm. BYO Food.
Theme – “What I want to be when I grow up”
https://trybooking.com/BIJSO
End of Year Regatta Recap and New Boats Named
It’s been a busy few months of regattas culminating with Melbourne Head, Head of the Yarra and Carrum Regatta just last weekend.
Congratulations to the 4 crews who represented Richmond at Head of the Yarra, a mixed masters crew, one female D grade crew and two male D grade crews. There were good performances by all following a large amount of training in the run up.
We made the trip to Carrum, for the Carrum regatta last Saturday for the final regatta of the year. Richmond was well represented at the regatta which saw a large amount of elite and school crews competing. A strong contingent competed in every category from Open to D Grade with crews in all boat classes except eights.
Competitive performances on the day saw wins for:
- Dario Sportelli in the C-Single,
- Lachlan Stewart, Richard Healy, Tom Brooks, Pavel Oborin coxed by Ainsley Raggatt in the D Grade Four
- Kirstie Fergy in the D-Single
- Amy Catlin and Lily Innes-Irons in the C-Pair
- Dario and Ainsley in a composite mixed double
- Thomas Brooks, Richard Healy, Lachlan Stewart, Pavel Oborin in the D Grade Quad
- Kirsty Fergie, Aline Dejaegher, Jon Roberts, Allan Randall coxed by Rosie Dickson-Hoyle in the mixed quad
A day after Carrum we held our final club races for the year. Three eights took to the water to fight it out. Clearly the starter was not loud enough for one crew, with “attention” being the new “go”. Congratulations to the crew of Derek Begg (cox), Michael Gehling, Kim Begelhole, Jingyi (Alex) Huang, William Golding, Kathryn Spinnler-Jenkins, Lily Innes-Irons, Emily James and Red Skelton who took out the win.
We then gathered to name our three newest boats. Firstly, a double named Morpheus by Ally Dejaegher as part of our recent raffle to name a boat at Melbourne head.
Then Yass Queen, a new mid weight single named by Dana Hill, also as part of our recent naming raffle.
And finally the Riverboat Jasper, a single kindly donated by captain Barry Campbell.
Following the smashing of bottles we retreated to the club for our annual Christmas lunch to celebrate the year gone. We also wished Kathy Macrow a happy 60th birthday on the day!!!
Happy Christmas and don’t forget your New Years Eve party tickets!!!
Yarra River clean up event
The Yarra Riverkeeper’s Association has organised an event on Sunday 26th May, to clean-up the river around the boathouses and remove any rubbish from its banks. This is a fabulous opportunity for us to show that we care about our river, and to support a great environmental cause.
RRC will be donating a Learn to Row spot as one of the prizes, and it would be brilliant to see our members participating in the event on the day.
If interested, meet in front of MUBC @10am on Sunday 26th.
You can sign up to the event on facebook here
RRC 2018/19 Presentation Night – Tickets on sale now!!!
This years RRC Presentation Night is now only a few weeks away on Friday 31st May at 7pm. So pack away the zootie and dress to impress as we celebrate all the achievements of our club members for the last year.
We’ll be honouring all of these along with our Annual awards including rowers and coxswain of the year. Club races and time trial winners will also be announced so make sure you’re there to receive your awards!
This evening is also the perfect opportunity to thank everyone who has made the year possible including coaches, coxes and volunteers. It’s the ideal time to come together and celebrate all that is great about our special club and the friends we have there.
Early bird tickets including a three course meal for $50. Tickets purchased after Friday 10th May will increase to $70 per person. Drinks will be available to purchase at the bar.
Tickets are on sale now at Trybooking. Bring along your partner or friends for what will be a special night at the clubhouse.
RRC Quiz Night Auction Items Announced
The quiz night is less than 2 weeks away – Friday 15th March – hope you have your tickets!! Just to get you excited here is a list of current auction and silent auction items (still happy to receive more Items contact shern.timmins@gmail.com)
Can’t be there on the night and see something you like – get someone else to bid on your behalf – remember all proceeds go towards some shiny new boats!
RRC Quiz Night – Friday 15 March 2019 – Tickets available now!!!
Spring training camp 2018
Had a lovely outing in a double which was more successful than my single (mostly because I wasn’t steering), before heading off to dinner at Nagambie Rowing Club. Had a great catch up with some new rowing buddies till they turned off all the lights which I think was our cue to leave. You know that you’re enjoying it when you don’t realise that everyone else in the pub has left! Back for an early night before an early start (which apparently was a lie in compared to last year!).


So 7am Saturday we got up, put some eights together, and got on the water to row up the beautiful Goulburn river. Mixing the crews up I got into another eight going up and down the course, and thanks to Kathy had my first experience lying down in a rowing boat! After munching down on a lovely lunch (thanks Zoay) and probably too much cake, we headed off in a four to take the course with Dave coxing.
Onto Saturday night’s AMAZING bbq and the infamous box biting championships (which I had being getting demonstrations of and tips for, including the importance of footwear choices and not wearing tight trousers, throughout camp). The aim of the game is to pick up a beer box with your teeth, having hopped at least three steps into the middle of a circle, while still standing on one leg. The box would then get slowly smaller being expertly cut by Michael. I was very proud that I made it through the first round but not even Charlotte and Kat could beat the human pretzel, aka Keith. Congratulations! So after a wild game of Exploding Kittens (thanks Amy), it was off for a not so early night but still early in the general scheme of things. Rowing is seriously affecting my body clock!



Two outings later we were taking all the boats apart again and packing them all onto the trailers to head back to town. After washing the boats and putting them all away it was off home for the earliest night of the weekend! Overall I am definitely a lot better at rowing, made lots of new friends and got to show off my very blistered hands to my colleagues on Monday (I’m still not sure why I did that – I’m not sure they appreciated it!)
Thank you to everyone who helped organise camp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lucia Denniss
Further fleet investment announced at the 2018 AGM
The Richmond Rowing Club Annual General Meeting was held at the club on Saturday 28th July 2017. It was an opportunity for club members to come together, hear from the Committee about the clubs operations over the past year. It was great to see so many members present on the day.
Thank you to all Committee members for their significant contributions through the year. A brief summary of the year’s activities is provided below; the full Annual Report including all Committee member reports is attached RRC Annual Report 2017/18
Membership Growth – During the year, we increased the number of our financial members from 125 to 142 at 31 May 2018, a 14% increase. This achievement was through a combination of attracting new members and retaining existing members.
In particular, we increased the number of Learn to Row courses to four and scheduled three courses on summer evenings resulting in increased retention of Learn to Row participants. Our Development Squad is maintaining good numbers with dedicated coaching focused on improving their skill levels. We plan to continue this in 2018/19, continuing our Learn to Row program and transitioning Development Squad rowers into the competitive and social rowing squads.
Demonstrate Club Success on the Water – As a major step forward for the club, we engaged our first paid head coach resulting in focused training programs, squad structure, selection criteria and focused coaching. This has contributed to some excellent regatta performances through the year. Although Basil has returned to the UK, we have appointed Matt Wilson as our Head Coach for the coming year – he will be starting with us in early August.
Member Engagement – The club runs a number of events to bring club members together, from our Training Camp and regular circuit sessions, to social events like Quiz Night and New Years Eve. In 2017/18 we held 6 successful major events at the club and a number of smaller events.
The Committee plans to continue this level of events in the current year. This takes a significant effort to arrange and we are always looking for volunteers to assist. Our club would not be able to operate without all of our members who volunteer their time in so many ways. As we look towards the coming year, we will be asking for more help and creating more volunteer roles to take some of the pressure of the usual suspects. If you have a special skill or would like to help regularly, please reach out to the Committee as we would love your support.
Governance and Finance – The clubs finances remain strong, underpinned by income from hiring our amazing venue. This allows us to invest in the rowing program, but we must also continue to invest in our facilities, to generate this revenue. This year we refurbished the bar and kitchen to bringing it up to the standard of the rest of the club.
During the year, we also invested heavily in our fleet and equipment, christening both a men’s and women’s brand new top of the line Sykes quad/four and investing significantly in our refurbished gym. We were also able to purchase a new set of oars for the men’s eight and pair, whilst benefiting from a VicHealth Active Club Grant for a set of sculling oars.
In addition, the Committee is pleased to announce we have ordered 3 more brand new boats to improve our fleet with a men’s and women’s double/pair and a coxless quad for our most competitive crews. These additions will also allow other crews greater access to better quality boats as we replace our oldest boats in our fleet.
A major part of the AGM is to elect a new Committee and saying farewell to any departing members from the Committee.
Geraldine Goss, our outgoing Vice-President has been a member of the Committee for four years, the last three years as Vice-President and Fundraising Coordinator before that. During this time, she has supported two different Presidents and numerous Committee members. She has been active within the Fleet subcommittee and in considering Richmond’s licensing requirements. Whilst at the same time she has been incredibly successful as a rower. Thank you for all your assistance.
Laurent Demay steps down from the position of ordinary member having contributed strongly over the past year with new member communications and fundraising activities.
The new committee for the 2018-19 season consists of:
President – Jon Roberts
Vice-President – Aline Dejaeger
Secretary – Kim Begelhole
Treasurer – Kathy Macrow
Captain of Boats – Barry Campbell
Head of Rowing – Tim Evans
Facilities Coordinator – Lucy Crunden
Fundraising Coordinator – Christine Sullivan
Two ordinary members – Yashwini Vegi, Stefanie Dudczig
Congratulations and welcome to our newest Committee members, Kim Belgelhole and Stefanie Dudczig.
Following the conclusion of the AGM we took to the water for some fun with club races. With a change in formal to get us ready for Head Season, the races were a time trial format from the Island to the Club. Congratulations to all those who took part.
Thank you to everyone who helped with the bbq and bar afterwards, especially Gypsy, John and Laurent for preparing the food and Karin and Dennis for looking after the BBQ.
RRC Presentation Night Awards 2017/18
- Mal Scott Award – Male Club Rower of the Year – Jon Roberts
- John Sawyer – Female Club Rower of the Year – Shern Timmins
- Male Masters Rower of the Year – Leigh Sullivan
- Female Masters Rower of the Year – Michelle Joy