Club Committee

2008-2009 Manifestos

Lower Boats Captains

Pedro Cunha noviced with First and Third in Michaelmas 2004 and has rowed in M1 since May 2005. He was men’s captain 2006-2007.

Gonzalo Garcia first noviced at school, and joined M1 as a fresher this academic year. He now coaches M2.

Emma Leadbetter noviced as a cox in 2005 and has since coxed in various crews from foot to head of the river. She currently coxes M2, and is coxing captain 2007-2008.

Peter Ford also noviced as a schoolboy, joining M2 in Michaelmas and the headship crew in Lents. He now rows in M2.

Main aims for Michaelmas 2008.

1. Recruit every male fresher in college and make sure everyone hears about the boat club from day one.
2. Put together five novice boats to compete and win in Clare Novices and Fairbairns.
3. Identify novices with potential and encourage them to develop their rowing technique via an in-club devsquad.
4. Have fun - encourage people to adopt the rowing lifestyle, whether they wish to row casually or competitively.

Novices

Organise plenty of formals, bbqs and informal socials to encourage bonding between novices and senior rowers. Persuade senior rowers to get to know the novices and allow them to feel integrated into the club.

Run an efficient recruitment and tubbing programme and make sure no-one slips through the net.

Organise coaches from amongst the senior rowers, as well as taking on coaching responsibilities. Ensure that each novice boat benefits from consistent and quality coaching.

Encourage the most talented and keen of the novices to get more involved - joining senior land training sessions, attending a weekly novice development session, including coached ergs, watching video, core and fitness, and using the new tracer and the virus sculls. Buddy up promising novices with senior rowers.

Emphasise the need for quality over quantity for water sessions. Discourage useless earlies in favour of daytime outings. To this extent, availability will be one of the factors taken into consideration in novice crew selection.

Main aims for Lent 2008.

Field at least five boats for Lents. Again we will find quality coaching from club members and bufties and provide a structured training plan. We aim to retain all lower boats headships and improve the clubs standing in the Lent Bumps.

Crew selection will involve some simple erg tests alongside assessments of technique and attitude from coaches.

Integration of the novices into the senior squad starts early on. We will give plenty of information in advance about on and off-Cam training camps, and aim to build on small boats work from Michaelmas to improve the best novices to senior standard as quickly as possible.

We will work to put together a graduate boat with a structured holiday training programme. We will also talk to people who have taken a break from rowing and present them with good opportunities to get back into the sport.

We will co-operate with the men’s captain to allow our most promising novices to move into the upper boat squad more easily. This year the club retained nine rowers from NM1 and NM2, and around six from lower novice boats. We hope to improve on this and to increase the rate at which novices are able to make it into the top two senior boats.

In conclusion

We feel that we have both the experience and enthusiasm to make the changes needed to improve the way that the club attracts, teaches and retains novices. We are confident that we have the time and organisational skills required, on top of the ability to coach novices ourselves and to co-ordinate other coaches. Although we come from different rowing and academic backgrounds we are good friends and will be able to work together efficiently as a team. We are happy to discuss specifics of our plans for next term, and to take on board suggestions from this year’s novices as well as more experienced members of the club.

Proposed by Florian Gruessing
Seconded by Ming Chee Chung