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 7th 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 10th 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.