Club Committee

20014-2015 Manifestos

Lydia Bass - Women's & Overall Captain

I am a first year geographer, currently in my second term of rowing with W1. Rowing with First and Third has been a defining part of my time at Trinity so far, one that has given me some of the greatest highs of the past two terms. I have met so many driven, committed and like-minded people within the First and Third community, a community that I want to help lead next year.

My experience:

I completely accept the fact that I am inexperienced. I have rowed for two full terms and only experienced one set of bumps. However, I believe that this will have very little bearing on my success as women's captain. I will be greatly helped by the fact that there will be four previous women's captains around next year to help me and provide advice. I have spoken to Daisy, Fordy and Julia at some length (and Thomas briefly) about the potential of my captaincy and I am confident that I will be able to draw on their wealth of knowledge and experience, but without relying on them to make decisions for me.

Also, the experience that I do have of rowing is some of the most relevant experience I could possibly have for a captaincy. I have experienced the mental and physical commitment required in a successful headship campaign and the stress, self-doubt and trepidation that have to be overcome in order to perform when it is required.

Experience also has absolutely no bearing on my enthusiasm, my commitment and my organisation. I showed my keenness to fully commit last term when I took a seat in a crew with the vision of working for the Lents headship; I cannot think of a bigger commitment for a rower to take on in their first term after novicing. Those who see me the most often on the women's side will know that, although I may not always be the most high-functioning member of the crew before 7am, I am never negative about rowing before an outing, even on the worst days. From watching Daisy's attitude last term, I have seen that maintaining positivity and enthusiasm is crucial to crew morale and is sometimes the only thing that keeps people going through the most difficult times.

Next year:

I am under no illusion that maintaining the strength of the women's side next year will be an easy task. However, I do believe that with the right focus and with the continuation of the 'nothing but the best is good enough' attitude that currently resonates in the women's side, we can continue the successes of the past year.

I have been fortunate enough to enter the women's side at a time of great success and I have absolutely no intention of letting this slide. After four years of dedicated work by too many people to name here, we once again hold the Lents headship. That headship needs retaining and we need to continue to make a strong campaign in Mays, as the current boat has the clear aim of doing this term.

After assessing the number of returning rowers we have in Michaelmas, I will make a decision whether to finalise a crew early in term or run the crew with a squad format through to nearer Fairbairn's. The drive throughout next term must be to developing fitness and a strong squad of senior rowers in order to give us our best chance come Lents.

I would like to continue Daisy's success from this year in getting the full W1 Michaelmas crew and a significant number of novices to commit to January training camp. The week in Newcastle this year set the crew up with the best platform on which to start the bumps campaign last term. I would also like to work on improving the social cohesion between incoming novices and the senior squad. Many of those who give up rowing after novice term or do not come on training camp are influenced by the fact that all their friends seem to be dropping out and it can seem intimidating to continue when you feel that you do not know anyone else who rows. I think that some kind of social with seniors and novices would aid this problem somewhat, although I do appreciate that it may be difficult to organise.

Having never seen novicing from the outside, I will listen carefully to all advice and comments given on the developing novices in Michaelmas term. Despite our mutual inexperience, I will work closely with next year's WLBCs in order to ensure that the most promising novices are given the most encouragement possible, but also that all the girls who row throughout Michaelmas term experience both great coaching and something of the social side of rowing, key to novice retention.

From what I have managed to ascertain so far, we are unlikely to have access to as consistent coaching as W1 have enjoyed this year. A main priority over the summer will therefore be to source coaches. I also plan to approach Ian, although I am aware we cannot expect to rely on him as a consistent coach.

Social:

Looking back through previous manifestos, aims of greater social cohesion between the men's and women's side is a recurring theme. I appreciate the difficulty in organising social events which include large portions of the club, particularly when rowing is a sport involving so many early mornings, but I honestly feel (and have felt for some time) that this is something that is lacking and would aim to organise more impromptu social events throughout term.

Overall Captain:

I also think that I would be more than capable of taking on the role of overall captain. I may be the 'freshest' rower to take the captaincy in a long time but this in no way means that I somehow care less or will take this less seriously than those who have gone before me. I have already invested too much time and emotion in the future of this club to let its success slide and I hope you would trust me to be able to take it forwards into next year.

• I would need to do a lot of legwork over summer in connecting with bufties etc. but this is legwork that I am very happy to do so I do not expect this to be a problem
• I would also familiarise myself with our relationship with Cantab Capital Partners over the summer in order to continue to build the relationship with our sponsor
• I will not have a dissertation/finals so I will not be neglecting captain duties in favour of academic work at any point during the year
• I will not be trialling, thus all my rowing energies with be concentrated within First and Third rather than elsewhere
• I am well acquainted with a large portion of the men's side and genuinely care about the success of every portion of the club - I would work with Chris to put the club as a whole on the best platform for success.