Club Committee

2015-2016 Manifestos

Matthew Griffiths - Men's Captain and Overall Captain

Men's Captain

I have been rowing for nearly 10 years, and I have spent the last 5 years rowing for First and Third. First and Third has given me a lot over these years and so I would like to give back something to the club. I have been heavily involved at all levels of the club as a rower, coach or committee member and so I have a good perspective on how the club works.

Before I rowed at First and Third I rowed at Eton, and I was lucky enough to be there during a period of Eton's dominance in rowing and I have also rowed in several successful First and Third crews. I have also rowed in several less successful boats and so have witnessed the difference between crews that row fast and those that row slow. The key separation between the two different sets of crew is attitude. It is the attitude of never accepting good enough and always striving for that little bit more, be it on the erg, in the gym or on the water. It is this relentless quest to always be a little bit better than before that has kept me motivated and rowing all these years.

Over the course of this year we have seen on the men's side this attitude emerging across the senior side and it's been awesome to see this development. My key goal as Men's Captain would be to build upon this attitude over the next year as it is this culture that creates fast crews that win things and take headships.

How would I like to achieve this?

I would like to work with Tom Rose, previous captains and the steering committee to develop a plan for the entire year starting over Summer and finishing at Henley. This would highlight the key aims for each term and allow the rowers to clearly focus on what they need to improve.

The plans for the coming year would depend on the coaching system, the skill and fitness level of the rowers and the opinions of senior members of the club.

For Mich term my primary focus would be on developing more internal competitiveness within the club. This would be done either through a trial eights system or through small boats; the culmination of the term would be in a head to head race between the trial eights or a sculling and pair ladder. Concurrently with this system there would be land training to improve the strength and fitness of the rowers and to develop their own internal sense of competitiveness.

For Lent and May term the primary focus would be to go as fast as possible in Bumps. To achieve this selection would be done in the first two weeks to get people into crews as quickly as possible. I would also aim to send 2 boats to Head of the River after Lents to promote continuity in training and to allow rowers to compare their performance to the rest of the country.

To promote more continuity in training I would also plan pre-term training before Mich and May terms to expand the amount of time rowers in the club get to spend in a boat.

Overall Captain

Coaching

Tom Rose has done a superb job this year of coaching the men's side. Unfortunately it is unlikely he will be around next year. Coaching is likely to be one of the greatest issues facing the club over the next few years and this is one I would like to tackle through various approaches:

• Use Iain. Iain is a very good coach and I would like to see if I could get him involved with small boats coaching. I would also be interested in seeing if there were more ways of getting him involved with more coaching in the club.
• Investigate more external coaches. Rosemary has done a great deal of useful coaching for us, but I would be interested in testing out more external coaches to see if any could be usefully incorporated into First and Third.
• Use more Bufties. I would also like to work with the Association to see if we can encourage more Bufties to come down for a couple of days to do coaching.
• Encourage more internal coaching. Coaching by rowers of the club is currently performed in a rather ad-hoc fashion. I would work with all levels of the club to get more rowers within the club coaching.

Supporting LBCs

One job of the Overall Captain that is frequently neglected is supporting the LBCs. LBCing is one of the most important roles of the club and is often performed by the most inexperienced members of the club. I would work with Neil and other senior members to develop a plan and guide for the year which the LBCs would be able to follow and also follow their implementation of the guide. I would also encourage senior rowers to perform more coaching.

One thing that was done quite well this year was integrating the novices with the senior side, and this is something that I would be keen to build upon, with joint land training sessions and water sessions.

Proposed by Sean Collins
Seconded by Imogen Grant