Author: Iain

We restarted club sessions last weekend. Due to COVID-19, we are using Fitclub.me to organise ourselves. We had our first eight out in 10 months.

A quieter month, but there is still a lot of sculling and quads and fours are going out regularly. The fun boats initiative has been a real success and Water Vole and Snuffy are probably the busiest boats in the club.

The COVID situation is volatile, but so far rowing has been exempt from the new Rule of 6. Therefore we have decided to restart our regular sessions. We must record our outings and keep sessions under 30 people, so we  will use Fitclub.me to manage crews.  Sessions need coaches and session managers, so we will ask for volunteers. Richard Berkley will send out an email explaining how it will work. As COVID regulations are changing constantly, we may need to cancel this at short notice.

Goring Gap News are looking for a volunteer Sports Editor to report on the local sports clubs, including ourselves. If you like GGN and want to help the local community, contact Paul Bradstock.

These attractive, high quality GGBC mugs are still available. £8 each or 6 for £40. Proceeds go to the club. Email Ros Crowder if you would like some.

The big news this month is that British Rowing are allowing us to row in coxed or coxless fours and quads.
Eights should be allowed from 29 August if nothing changes.
To allow track and trace we have to keep records of who has been in which boats. If you want to go out in fours and eights, organise a crew and reserve your boat at FitClub.me.

Stuart Cowen updated the circulation plan to make it clear that scullers are allowed to set off downstream from the bridge pontoon so long as it is safe.

Thanks to the efforts of Richard Berkley and the coaches, we now have 55 members rowing in club singles.

Boathouse
Huge progress has been made on the slipway. We hope it will be complete by September. Massive thanks to Stuart Hunt, Roger Moore and Brian Barnes among many others.

Doug Hamilton is working on the mezzanine and it is nearly usable.

Goring Gap Boat Club has been awarded £5,498 of National Lottery funding from Sport England’s Community Emergency Fund towards supporting the club during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.

The outbreak of the virus and the consequent shutdown of businesses from March 23 has left the sport and physical activity sector facing a period of uncertainty.

In response, on March 31 Sport England announced a £195m package to help the sport and physical activity sector through covid-19. Within the package is a £20m Community Emergency Fund, of National Lottery money to deliver immediate funding to those who have a role in supporting the nation to be active but are experiencing short-term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the impact of coronavirus.

The grant was awarded to GGBC to cover essential running costs for the period March 23rd to July 31st 2020, helping to ensure the club could maintain their place in the community.

Tim Hollingsworth, Sport England’s Chief Executive, said: 

As the body responsible for the growth of sport and physical activity participation, we want the vital grassroots organisations that make sport and physical activity happen in this country to not just to come through this crisis but to be in a position to thrive again in the future. The £20m Community Emergency fund, made possible by National Lottery players is part of a multimillion pound package of support we are providing to ease the pressure on a huge number of the organisations who are central to the nation’s health and wellbeing. We are proud to be able to provide vital funding to Goring Gap Boat Club to help it through these extremely challenging times.

It has been six weeks since lockdown was eased. The club is nowhere near normality, but we have come a long way.

General News

Sadly, the willow by the pontoon fell down, only just missing our launch and the pontoon. Thanks to Richard Berkley and John Hyde who cut it to size without injury. The good news is that our frontage is now a bit more open and it will be easier to launch from the pontoon.

Despite lockdown we have had a surprisingly healthy influx of new members. Please make them feel welcome!

Picnics are now allowed, but only for members’ families.

Rowing

Richard has organised single sculling coaching on Saturdays and Sundays within British Rowing’s COVID-19 restrictions and we now have 40 scullers assigned to club singles. A silver lining of lockdown is that many people have dared to try sculling that otherwise would not, so I think this will have a long lasting positive effect. If you would like to get involved then please contact Richard.

For those of you who don’t want to go out in our fine sculls we have a number of other options. These include our punts, Snuffy for stable sliding seat sculling in family groups, Canadian canoes, stable single sculls with floats and a new fixed seat boat for family groups or picnics.

If you want some guidance on using these boats contact Andy McKenzie.

Boathouse

Boathouse volunteering has restarted within government COVID-19 guidelines and steady progress is being made.

Our water-flushing toilets are almost ready.

Brian Barnes has an ambitious plan of work, so please contact him if you would like to help.

Volunteering

We got an excellent response from the call for help with mowing. Big thanks to Matthew Crowder, Belinda Drew and Andy Hyde for offering to do the job.

Stuart Hunt and Chris Gardner both mended a push mower each and we have a sit-on lawn tractor from Anthony Jordan.

I am really pleased we got this help as David Key and Nick Digby were overworked. Despite this they have kept the site looking great and complying with the strict constraints of the council’s ecological plan.

If you would like to discuss anything, please get in touch with anyone on the committee.