Queens’ College Boat Club are inviting rowers, alumni, parents and friends to join us at our May Bumps Garden Party on the afternoon of Saturday 15^th June 2013, the final day of May Bumps. Following the success of last year’s event, we will once again be serving a selection of food and drink all afternoon at our prime riverside location on First Post Corner – the perfect place to watch QCBC get some bumps on the most prestigious day of the college rowing calendar.

Tickets are available for purchase at £25 each for adults, £10 for children, and £5 for parking on site.  We will provide a selection of food, Pimm’s, Gin and Tonic’s, and other soft drinks, plus a great view of the racing on the river.  Any profits raised from the event will go towards funds to support the club. Saturday’s races commence at 11am, and the day will conclude with the 1st Men’s division at 5.45pm.

For tickets and more information please contact our Alumni Secretary, Charlie Drury, on charlied250 _at_ googlemail.com

QCBC runs a seat sponsorship scheme in which we ask previous members of the club to donate annually to the New Boat Fund by sponsoring a seat in one of our boats.

There are currently seats available at different price levels. In return you will have your name placed on the respective boat and our website. Seat sponsors are entitled to complimentary tickets to the Pimm’s Tent on the final day of May Bumps each year.

For more information and the giving forms, please see this page.

As always a huge thank you on behalf of all the current members of QCBC to all alumni currently giving. Your money was used last year to purchase a new Womens First VIII named ‘The Duchess of Cambridge’, and we hope to raise sufficient funds to purchase a new lightweight racing IV this summer to enable the club to compete more competitively in Fours Head of the River and the University IV’s races this Autumn. Donations from alumni are also used to allow our top crews to race off-cam in London, Bedford and Henley each year, and to subsidize our off-cam training camp in a few weeks to Norwich.

We always like to hear from previous members of the club. This year the Pimm’s Tent is on Saturday 15th June and we are encouraging as many members to gather old crews together to come back and support all the current QCBC crews racing. More details to apply for tickets will be posted in due course.

The inaugural QCBC poetry prize is awarded to Sam Lawson for the series of 5 poems forming M3 Lent Bumps race reports in the style of Homer’s epics.

An incredible week. So many races that can never be done justice by a line and a colour on a chart. Both our first boat coxes demonstrated the fine art of the arm in the water hand-brake turn around Grassy. It left FAT with overlap on M1 on day 1 but they kept their cool in the middle of a very tight sandwich and got the bump up on LMBC to take and hold 3rd on the river. W1 found the maximum of the confusion and carnage for the week and rowed 5 races. The 2 row overs that made the chart are testament to the pure rage that allows you to be overlapped by half a boat length coming out of Ditton and make it to Peter’s Post. M2 won their blades in fine style. One of the best steering coxes on the river and they only went around First Post corner once. W2 made a storming return to the River, having not raced last Lents and were very unlucky to be only up 3 after the blading crew 2 in front crabbed on the last day.

Thank you so much to everyone who has coached, subbed and coxed this term or umpired and marshalled during the regatta.

And a video of that Queens’ W1 Day 3 Lent Bumps 2013 row over

Well done to all the crews racing for QCBC this term and thank you to the coaches, coxes and bank parties who make it possible.

Race results so far this term:

Winter Head to Head
M1 – 3rd in M1 division in a total time of 13:25
W1 – 10th in W1 disivion in a total time of 17:18

Newnham Short Course
M2 – 4th in M2 division in a time of 7:33
W2 – 7th in W2 division in 9:25
M3/4 composite – 7th in M3 division in 8:37

Robinson Head
W2 – 3rd in W2 division in 6:26
M3-6 composite – 2nd in M3 division in 5:46

Bedford 4s and 8s Head
M1 – 4th in IM2 in 6:30, 3rd in IM3 in 6:22
W1 – 12th in IM3 in 7:57, 1st in Novice in 7:44
M2 – 9th in IM3 in 6:55, 4th in Novice in 6:48

Pembroke regatta
M1: beat Magdalene M1 by 1 1/2 lengths and Hughes Hall M1 by 2 lengths, then lost the semi-final to Caius, who won overall, by 1 length
W2: lost to Jesus W2
W3: beat Emma W3 by 1/4 length then lost to Clare Hall W1
M4: beat FAT M6 by 4 length then lost to Magdalene M3 by 1 length

Well done everyone who raced and thank you to subs, bank parties and coaches.

Some (hopefully eventually all) the crews have written about their races on this page.

Bring on the bumps!

11 novice boats. 5 senior boats. Biggest club on the river; which was amazing apart from that Thursday eight eights went out at the same time, which was just stressful. Selling out the Boat Club Bar Crawl, Fireworks and Fairbairns Cocktails was straightforward. All went very well. Our huge club made friends and gained a little bit of money.

The senior squad was extensive. For the first time in 4 years, Michealmas Senior W2 existed. As a four admittedly but a dedicated and lovely four, who trained hard and deserved their 7^th place in Fairbairns. They give us great hope for a return of Queens’ W2 to the river in Lents. M1 spent their term in a royal battle with King’s to be the fastest crew on the river. Knocked out of Uni Fours by King’s, who won it; they won Winter Head; then the crews diplomatically tied for the Fairbairns title. W1 started the year with 1 rower returning from the May’s boat and a completely new coaching team. They improved massively to 10^th place in Fairbairns. Also on the meteoric rise were M2, who gained about 5 places every race to become the fastest M2 in Fairbairns. The committee affectionately dubbed M3 the less senior seniors at the beginning of term and then they got organised and much better at rowing and made their nickname seem a little rude.

It was wonderful to welcome so many novices to the squad and we have seen a great deal of potential on the water. A huge thank you to the LBCs and other novice coaches for the thousands of emails, endless early alarms, face paint, spare kit etc. Thank you also to the novice coxes; you didn’t wreck any of our equipment. The least destructive novice term in years. Novices, please all come back next term and we’ll teach you to win races; which it must be confessed we didn’t quite get round to.

Apart from the LBCs, we didn’t spend all term in the boathouse.

The Memorial Charity Erg at the beginning of term was a moving event, which raised a grand total of £1857.16 for WWF.

Every college entered Queens’ Ergs. It was a huge event and very successful. The technology worked more smoothly than ever before. The t-shirts are still all over the place on the river and will be helping us all stalk the other Lents crews and work out where the novices have gone into other club’s squads.

Bring on the bumps.

Thank you to everyone who joined up to race Queens’ Ergs last night. It was a fantastic evening.

A massive thank you to all the QCBC marshalls and officials. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Congratulations to Clare men and Churchill women for their victories in the novice first boats competition. Full results will be posted here soon.

The Queens’ porters have a large box of lost property. Please claim it.

Thank you and well done to everyone who has taken part in and supported our 24 hour erg relay to raise funds for WWF in memory of Marcus Hughes-Hallett.

The last stroke happens at 12 noon on Sunday. Come down and join us in QBar if you can.

If you would like to contribute, please visit the just giving page.

The Rowing Squash will take place on Monday 1st October at 2pm – 3:30pm in the Fitzpatrick Hall. Please come along to meet current members and get more information about rowing at Queens’ – and there might also be some free food.

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