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Although the year has not yet begun, we have already started working, so here is an update on what we've been up to since last term ended.

1. Returning Members - There is going to be a pre-term training camp to get everything up and running before the freshers arrive. There's going to be a lot of novice training to be done early on this term so we want to make sure senior squad training isn't compromised. The risk of this happening will be minimised if we have the senior squads already in the swing of things by the time the freshers get in a boat.

2. KPMG - Reading over the QCBC-KPMG contract, we discovered that given QCBC's performance for the academic year 09-10 was satisfactory, our sponsorship payments are due to increase. Our temporary contact (who is a marketing executive for the company) will be reviewing our performance and casting a verdict shortly. We have no reason to believe that we will have fallen short of the requirements - an old member who works in the industry said we had gone well beyond most boat clubs with similar sponsorship deals. We will keep you updated here.

3. Freshers' Week - This year Freshers' Week is longer than ever before - a whole week. The committee are going to be back in Oxford from the start to talk all things QCBC. There will be QCBC events running through the week, to help let the freshers know what we do and what we're about. Scheduled QCBC events:

- Wednesday. College Freshers' Fair.
- Thursday. QCBCBC (QCBC drinks in the beer cellar). The first of the term. Pre-Lava Ignite.
- Friday. During 'sports practices' - Rowing/Coxing Recruitment Meeting.
- Saturday/ Sunday. Try-out day.
- Saturday. QCBC to give out drinks at the bop.
- Sunday. 17:30. Mass Swim Test (Iffley Pool) --> G&D's (Cowley Rd) with a discount for QCBC.

I'd love to hear your opinions or ideas on any of these or more events that we could put on for QCBC members.

4. Coaches - We have interviewed a potential women's coach for next year and are to discuss this with the QCBC Steering Committee before moving things forward. The men's coach from last year has shown some interest in coaching the men again. The men's captain is also exploring other options and will be interviewing shortly. The viability of a separate external fitness coach for the senior squads, who can provide personalised programmes for each member is being investigated. The preliminary idea for lower squad coaching this year is to have all senior squad members involved - to stop all the work piling up on the Vice-Captains, as in previous years.

So, in summary - things are coming along.

QCBC would like to welcome the new Committee for 2010-2011. The following were elected in May:

President - Aletta Warne
Men's Captain - Ben Willis
Women's Captain - Sarah Mullin
Senior Cox - Vikki Chislett
Men's Vice-Captain - Rob Smith
Women's Vice-Captain - Anna Lytwyniw
Treasurer & 1837 Secretary - Greg Petros
Secretary - Nathan Roberts
Social Secretary - Lucinda Poulton
Internet Secretary - Matt Hart

Wednesday:

W2 arrived at the bungline a little late due to some confusion with timings which resulted in a less-than-ideal starting line. They were consequently bumped before Donnington bridge but learnt from the day's mistakes and were ready to come back with a good row on Day 2.

W1 had a solid start, gaining on Exeter from the get-go. We pushed right up to a quarter of a length through the gut and were within a metre of them up the Green Bank. Unfortunately, when the bump didn't come as soon as expected, we tried to make it happen individually rather than continuing to row solidly as a crew. They opened up a slight gap with an early crossing of the stream, which was psychological hell. In the meantime, we could see Linacre coming up on us from behind; and our minds were defeated. They bumped us mid-stream. Looking forward to Day 2, we decided to row our own race and let our legs do the thinking. We were going for the re-bump.

Thursday:

W2 had another early bump out, but were gaining on the crew in front.

W1 got bumped early. Another good start to the race, but Worcester were unstoppable. We gained a length on Linacre before Donnington Bridge and were rowing well - but could not hold Worcester off long enough to capitalise. Worcester were sure to bump Exeter on Day 3. We were going for the row over. Solid, strong and as a crew.

Friday:

W2 rowed a similar race to Thursday.

W1 didn't row as well as the previous two days. We knew we were going for the row over, so ended up rowing within ourselves, played it a bit safe. But of course, in bumps, that's not safe...there's always a crew coming up from behind - resulting in us getting bumped. For Day 4, we were going to have to front-load the race, like we should have done on Day 3. We were to push from the gun and then push again and again. The aim was to end the week on a good row, whatever that brought.

Saturday:

W2 had a fantastic race on Day 4. They rowed strongly through the gut, holding off Christchurch W3 until Lincoln W2 bumped them - giving the Queen's girls an easy row over.

W1 executed their race plan. We hit the rowing hard from the start, coming up to within a length of St. Anne's quickly. However, we weren't strong enough to push St. Hugh's completely away, who caught us early on in the gut.

The results from Summer Eights 2010 were disappointing to the outside onlooker, but the standard of rowing in the Women's side of QCBC has improved dramatically over the last year. The main change has been in the attitude towards land training in terms of building fitness and strength - how important it is in the development of a sustainable squad. We are feeling positive for the year to come - with a strong base of returning rowers keen to keep QCWBC on the up.

Summer Eights 2010 was an exciting one for the Men's club, for M1 particularly it was the culmination of a year of hard work with many of those rowing in the M2 boat having trained with M1 over the course of the year. The results we saw were not fantastic though, with M1 getting bumped Wed-Fri and M2 receiving spoons. It would be unfair to the oarsmen themselves not to make clear that all but 3 men's rowers in the club had less than a year?s rowing experience under their belts and that their dedication to training and improvements in performance have been phenomenal over the year. Next year almost all of the 1st Eight are remaining and much of the second boat are continuing as well, so we are looking forward to the future.

M1 Performance

Day 1 - Day 1 saw us chasing St. Johns and being chased by Jesus. Jesus were widely touted as 'a weak crew' and we had high hopes that we would at the very least hold them. Jesus went on to get 3 bumps over the course of Eights and were not as weak as described. We were caught convincingly just before the gut.

Day 2 - Day 2 saw us caught by Lincoln in the gut, which was made all the more painful after our disappointing clash with them during Torpids.

Day 3 - Day 3 saw us caught by LMH and we very nearly made it out of the gut. At this stage morale was fairly low, however many of the kinks that were evident to those who had rowed in past events had been ironed out. The crew had settled down and were rowing a great deal better by this stage

Day 4 - Day 4 saw a much more relaxed crew arrive, but also more focussed. We had the best warm up and pre-race row that we had had all week and the atmosphere was markedly different, if only because we knew that we could only drop one more place! St. Anne's had rowed over for the previous 2 days and judging by their form could have expected to catch us through the gut. The race began and we settled very quickly and got into a good stride. We held St. Annes until the gut, when a push brought them to within a canvas. However, the crew held their pace and did not panic which meant that St. Annes collapsed by the time we exited the gut, to such a degree that the Christ Church M2 crew who had been several lengths behind bumped them outside Hertford Boat House. M1 went on to row over and avoid spoons. Later, Christ Church M2 visited QCBC with Champagne.

Summer Eights was by no means successful for the men on the bumps gained/lost tally, but in terms of setting the club up for the future it has been very encouraging. A group of rowers from multiple year groups completed a training plan, improved dramatically within themselves and have found a sport they intend to stick with. Next year we begin with many returning rowers and an appreciation of why we train and what the rewards are for doing so. There was a realistic expectation in the crew of what we were going to achieve this Eights and such aspirations for next year that I'm very much looking forward to competing with QCBC again.

If you would like to see video footage of Eights our onboard cam can provide, please see our YouTube channel, QCBCOxon. Days 1-3 we rather hopefully had the camera on the bow, and there is some depressing footage of crews disappearing into the distance before we eventually slow in the gut. Day 4 however is extremely exciting (from a Boatie perspective) as we mounted the camera on the stern where the cox can be heard, the struggle with St. Anne's can be seen and their eventual break and bump relived (mostly by M1 it must be said).

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Seconded.

M2 rowed on in Torpids last Friday. Sadly, due to people dropping out at the last minute it was a real struggle to a vrew out. It was the first time that the crew had all rowed together and one member of the crew had not rowed since last Trinity. Besides this they rowed well, and most importantly looked good.

Sadly they did not qualify. However, this is a promising start for Summer 8s and we will hopefully be able to retain some of the promising talent from M2.

Well, we've survived to the end of 6th week and Torpids is just round the corner...  Outings are looking promising, with the crew really starting to work together and getting the idea of continually rowing at a race pace.  Remember ladies, slow on the slide, quick in the water!

Unfortunately, we've had some illness to deal with, resulting in training sessions either having to be cancelled or having poor turnout.  This is, hopefully, all behind us now.  The women's captain, Aletta, has been a great help to us in taking over an outing when Dai was busy training with M1 himself and I wasn't feeling well, as well as coaching an erg, along with Ben, one of the men's vice captains.  Our thanks to them for their hard work on this.

Sadly, we have taken the decision not to put out a W3 this year, as we don't have enough people to make up the numbers.  However, we have entered a crew in for Balliol 2nds Regatta, which will take place on Thursday of 8th week (11th March).  This gives our rowers and coxes to gain some more of that vital experience, as well as an opportunity to have some fun.

With everyone watching the river flag status like a hawk, the race is on to get the final preparations done and keep our fingers crossed for Torpids!
x

....and this is only my third post. I do apologise.

So, it's been just over three weeks now and what a lot has happened! Abingdon became rowable again after a frustrating two week spell of ergs, circuits, ergs, runs, more ergs - never the most popular of training schedules, but an effective use of otherwise dead red-flag time. Since then we have utilised our water time well, concentrating on finding a good rhythm and length, first at lower rates and then for short bursts as well as in longer pieces. The Torpids 1st VIII was decided about 2 weeks ago and since then outings have been as a crew. The land training continues to go well with a healthy squad of 11, with erg scores improving every session and our now-standard circuits warm up at a thigh-pumping 10 minutes of squats.

Last weekend, the 1st VIII went to Bedford Head to compete over the 2km course in two divisions. Unfortunately, both our cox and coach were taken ill at the last minute, so couldn't accompany us - but thankfully the senior men's cox offered his services, enabling us to compete. The day was an overall success. It was the first taste of external racing for all of us, and the first of our races as a crew. Everyone gave it their all, and even though our times weren't fantastic, it was invaluable to be able to get two long, hard pieces done at high rate in a race situation. We now know what it feels like to row solidly for 2km and are starting to get the feel for what coxing calls get us moving as a crew, and which ones are less motivating or technically useful. Putting the crew in a high-rate, high-power situation also meant we could see where our technique starts to fray as we get tired - things to perfect over the next two weeks.

The crew are glad to have raced and are not despondent about our times or the things we need to work on. Quite to the contrary, they are spurred on by their first race of the year; more focused and determined to arrive at the bung line come Wednesday of Torpids ready for four hard, but good rows. The change in our training is definitely helping. As erg intervals get shorter and starts begin to appear in our outing plans, the crew can smell Torpids just around the corner - and they're hungry for some 'slow boats' meat.

Greg, be happy - I've finally got round to posting on the forum!

This term, we have 14 girls doing land training sessions as part of our Lower Women's Squad.  The erg scores have been steadily improving, along with their rowing technique.  General fitness is improving as well - come on, everyone loves circuits...

At the moment, Dai and I are in the midst of choosing the second eight for Torpids, and I have to say there are some difficult decisions to be made!  We're having an outing on Saturday morning which should act as the decider.  We're also hopeful about putting out a third boat in Torpids, as members of last year's W2 have said they would be willing to sub in - I'd love for everyone who has put the hard work into training to get a chance to row in their first bumps races!

The W1 coach, Paul Taylor, has offered to attend some of the Lower Women's training sessions, which should see a huge improvement in their abilities and give us a boost.  We are also looking at refining the LW training schedule once W1's new one is confirmed.