North East Rowing on-line

We have seen another good year in this region in our high performance 'shop window', we are about to go into another year which will see a number of changes in the region. These are changes which must be embraced to allow the sport to adapt to both social and performance changes.
HIGH PERFORMANCE
Over the last five years we have seen more of our juniors gain international honours and our seniors are now also gaining international honours. This year we have seen honours in Junior World Championships, U23 World Champs, World Senior Championships and Vet World Championships. We have also seen considerable successes nationally at all levels.

We are now seeing progress with 4 new tutors and assessors qualifying this year - we still need more if we are to turn this into more qualified coaches on the water. We are seeing the appointment of professional staff in this area, Durham Univ, Newcastle Univ, World Class Start, Tyne, CSC, Durham & Tees are advertising part-time CSC's. This should ultimately increase standards and participation as new members see there is quality coaching available.

Continue generally to thrive, high profile events ie Northern University Boat Race, Durham Regatta continue strongly and other events are adopting 'primary' event status to boost flagging entries. The NRC Sculling Series continues as a unique event, entries continue to grow and we have had a smooth transition from Gordon Beattie to Sarah-Louise Milsom & Charly Curtis. The series is so popular that some heads this year had 2 divisions.
SAFETY
We have seen what can happen (Tragedy at READING) and we MUST continue to work with both regional and club RWSA's to ensure the highest standards of supervision are maintained on the junior sections and also with seniors. We must all stop some time and think RISK – we are not invulnerable!

Was a first for the region and a success with the highest turnout in UK as a % of clubs
represented. Most people had some input into the Regional Plan. It is our sport; we must keep ownership in this region. Next Club Conference is on 21st January

COOPERATION
We seem to be in an era of co-operation,the talk is of Rowing Partnerships, Area Sport Partnerships Regional Crews/Squads, Inter ,Club training sessions, loan of boats between clubs, pooling of transport, Inter regional teams, World Class Start, Regional lightweights, U23's I hope it continues and grows. Clubs are the basis of our sport and we should not forget this, we should also not forget the bigger picture.
PARTNERSHIPS
You have heard now about the proposal to restructure based on three areas, I must now emphasise that if we do not go down this route it will become harder and harder to find the good people to run the various offices in the region. We have been unable to persuade/attract anyone in this region to be Regional Junior Rep- because the job description is too onerous for one person. This is the example I will use - if there are three Junior Reps for the area one from each of the 'river partnerships' the workload is shared and the 5 course meal becomes bite size, Coaching commission and safety should be similarly broken down.
CDO
We have a newly appointed CDO Robert Cree (Tees RC). We now have our own CDO. My thanks to Loretta Williams for all the hard work she as put in much unseen. She has been geographically overstretched but enough of that. To Loretta, on behalf of this region, our thanks.
PEOPLE
We have good people here I would like to say thanks to some of them
Megan Bell - ARA Divisional Rep
Mark Bell - NRC Secretary
John Mulholland - RWSA
Barbara Millns - Fwd Plan Supremo
Wade Hall-Craggs - Coaching commissioner and mover within the region
Kate O’Sullivan - Lots of unseen work (PRESENTATION) Volunteer of the year award
Tutors and Assessors - inc Peter Hoare, David Robinson, All balanced between Full time jobs clubs families
Ken Hastie - Umpires and your Brilliant comms system which is quite unique
Malcolm Proud - Land Training Centre Manager
Sarah-Lousie Milsom and the NRC Scull series Secretaries
Peter Graham - JIRR team Manager
Junior Coaches who have co-operated in absence of Junior Rep.

NEXT '
OUR FWD PLAN is the blueprint, put together with input from all. Let everyone make it work.

Alan Granlund


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