Update on the Ely College rowing programme
Many of you will know that we have been running a scheme for almost four years with the aim of making rowing available to local state schools. Ely College has been our main focus for logistical reasons, but we have also offered opportunities to the other Colleges in the area from time to time.
We initially offered short taster courses to about 60 Ely College students, and this produced our first cohort of 16 students who undertook to come to the club once a week before school from September 2019. This group made very good progress and we were hoping some could compete at Head Races and Regattas from Easter 2019 onwards. But the sessions had to stop once Covid lockdowns came into force, and we were not able to restart until Easter 2021. At this point about 100 students signed up for short taster courses which ran on into the autumn term. We felt that this level of interest dictated an expansion of the scheme and so we set up two groups of 16 from October 2021, one mainly Year 8 and one mainly Year 9, who visit on Wednesday and Thursday mornings respectively, from 7am, until 8:30 when they have to go back to College.
I’d like to pay tribute to the students themselves for their continued regular and enthusiastic participation, to Mr Jason Coe from the College – who has been the lynchpin for all of the arrangements and almost invariably attends twice a week himself – and to the Isle of Ely Rowing Club coaches whose consistent dedication and cheerfulness keep us all going.
Some of the Wednesday and Thursday youngsters are so committed to our sport that they have opted to join the Sunday junior section too; and so they get two outings a week.
One crew, a J14 boys’ quad, competed in their first formal race at St Ives regatta on 18th June. They had a bye in the first round and so ended up racing a crew from Huntingdon which had already raced and won. Our crew came second – but we all thought they looked very good. You would never have known that one of the crew was a last-minute substitute, after one of the original group tested positive for Covid.
On Wednesday of that same week Ely College allowed all of the Year 8 and 9 students in the current groups to leave school early and have an afternoon of informal races in scratch crews against King’s Ely. Most of these races were won by King’s boats, but we had a couple of key victories and some very close finishes. This was a very exciting afternoon’s racing and a large contingent of parents, plus the Principal of the College, came to support us.
The last event in this hectic week was for ten of the Ely College youngsters who were invited to go to Cambridge on Saturday to meet rowers from North Cambridge Academy, who row at City of Cambridge RC as part of the developing East Anglia Youth Rowing scheme. We have been watching this scheme evolve, partly to see what other schools in the area can achieve, and partly because there may in future be some opportunities for us with EAYR potentially providing us with a coach, or even some sponsorship.
The two school groups first did some individual and relay erg challenges, then sprint time trials on the Cam near the boathouses. Side by side racing would have been difficult there, and it was also quite windy! But in any case we couldn’t really have a race in quads against NCA, who have been learning sweep rowing in eights! Nevertheless, it was all good fun; the Ely College students gave a good account of themselves, not just by behaving impeccably, but also by proving that they can row in scratch crews in unfamiliar fine quads, on unfamiliar water.
The last few sessions of the summer term will be in small boats (singles and doubles) while we have the ideal weather. The same groups, with maybe a few new people to fill any gaps, will continue in the autumn term.
Earlier I mentioned other Colleges. We offered taster courses to Year 8 students from Ely, Witchford, Soham and Littleport (LECA) during the 2022 Easter holidays and 20 took part. Several have either joined the junior section or the College sessions on Wednesdays and Thursdays – some have even joined both. We plan to run a similar taster course in the summer, but so far there has been only a trickle of applications.
Erg challenge underway
Jason Harre
