Summary of term 1 of the 22/23 season at the Boat Club.
What a fantastic semester we have had. Our brand new committee (Dan- President, Andre- Secretary, Chris- Treasurer, Jack- Captain and Afonso- Vice Captain) worked hard over the summer to prepare the club for a year of growth, strong training and fun. With the incredibly generous help of Chloe from Carmarthen RC we started the year by increasing our fleet with a Janousek 2x and an Aylings 1x, the latter of which was rescued from the scrap pile at Llandaff RC and repaired. Massive thanks to Jack and Chloe for making this happen. Given our short stretch of water it was important for us to shift our focus toward small boats going forward. The slightly unforgiving autumn/ winter weather in Aberystwyth halted this a bit, but going into the spring/ summer term we’re looking forward to getting small boats out on the Rheidol regularly.
Freshers week was packed full of events such as a popular 100 meter erg challenge outside the student’s union attracting a mix of new members including some experienced rowers and plenty of novices. We put on 4 fresher training sessions that week and taught plenty of people to row, as well as a social to bring the group together and create friendships. Since then, training has been going well with good turnouts to our Tuesday and Thursday evening erg sessions as well as getting out on the water most weekends. These sessions have been fuelled by our freshers starting a new tradition of post-session Lidl yumyums, as well as frequent visits from marshmallow, the boathouse cat, to get us through tricky ergs.
Throughout the semester we went on plenty of fun socials as a group, including Thursday night trips to Harley’s karaoke, a Halloween party round Nick’s house, and a bonfire night beach bonfire. We also hosted an alumni event on the 15th October where we welcomed members from over the years back to Aberystwyth for a meal and night out as well as officially naming our 4x+ “Lowri The Beast Jones”. Our Stampfli 2x/- was also named after the club’s founder, Nick Shorten. These two have played a key role in the club’s formation and success, and their continued generous support of the club makes them worthy of having these boats named after them. On behalf of all at AUBC, we’re incredibly grateful to you.
In November we received a very generous delivery from Welsh Rowing of a Janousek 1x as well as three tubby singles with floats, to assist us with our novice programme. Massive thanks to Dan Fella, Will King and all at Welsh Rowing for making this possible, they will come in incredibly useful. The Aberystwyth weather over the last month has been very poor, with high wind limiting the amount of water time we’ve had. However, in the New Year when they days are getting longer and weather getting nicer we plan to get some serious mileage on the water.
Our President, Captain and Treasurer spent 2 consecutive weekends in late November/ early December at Llandaff RC in Cardiff doing their UKCC Level 2 coaching qualification. All three passed, allowing the club to improve our standard of coaching and will hopefully translate into strong performance in next year’s racing season (aka beating Bangor in Varsity 2023).
Our final big main event of the semester was Monmouth Winter Head in early December. We sent a senior women’s coxless quad made up of (bow to stroke) Harriet, Rosie, Zoe and Issy. Due to reasons mentioned above the women received little training time together as a group prior to the race. Despite this they did absolutely fantastically and made us all incredibly proud. We love getting our name and kit out there to show people that our club races competitively and intend to do a lot more of this in 2023, hopefully bringing home some medals in the process. We asked some of the women who raced at Monmouth to give some comments about their experience:
“Monmouth head was not just our first race as a crew, but the club's first race of the year! Which was an honour to be a part of. The bracing cold did not stop our eagerness and we gave it our all, encouraged by our fans on the bank, to thus leave with smiling faces (and mince pies and mulled wine).”
“The whole day was a lovely experience, rowing has such a unique atmosphere. I loved the whole day (even though it was SO cold) and I look forward to many more to come.”
“All that you’ll hear is ‘damn it’s cold’ but it’s completely worth it. The people you meet in rowing are the best in town and I have felt so welcomed into the team here at Aberystwyth. It’s amazing and I recommend it to anyone looking for a family in sport.”
It’s been a fantastic semester and with our mostly new committee fully settled into their roles we’re very excited about what the 2023 season will bring. In terms of races we have Varsity and BUCS regatta, as well as a number of regional regattas and head races currently being planned. We’re in talks about doing an Easter training camp prior to BUCS in addition to our now-traditional, it seems, end of year camp at Ross RC in June. Going forward we plan to put together a monthly newsletter to be released at the end of every month to notify members of upcoming important dates, events and training plans as well as news to be shared with alumni, family and the wider rowing community. This will be posted on our SU page (no login needed) and shared across our socials.
Thank you all for your continued support of our club. We hope you have a wonderful New Year and we’ll see you in 2023.
Dan Whitlock, AUBC President