By the time you read this blog it will be 13 years since BUBC last qualified for Henley Royal Regatta - our Men's squad's ultimate goal.
Now admittedly the standard for qualifying for the Temple Challenge Cup has risen dramatically in the last decade but the students who qualify are not super human.
The universities that do qualify do have certain advantages: a steady influx of students who have rowed prior to coming to university, an uninterrupted three years to train the crews (BU's placement year kills us); control of their land training environment, access to long stretches of water and a committed coaching team.
So how could the Alumni help:
1) Promote Bournemouth University as a great place to row to anyone you know. We need to get more experienced rowers to enrol from year one.
2) If you are in a position to offer rowers placements do so on the basis that they join local clubs and continue to row
3) Help us lobby Bournemouth university to provide land training facilities actually on the university campus. We are still training at Winton School at fixed times. We need a 20m x 20m room to put our ergs and weights in so we can train 24 hours a day and alleviate the pressure on students who sometimes have lectures that start at 7pm.
4) If you are involved with clubs with access to long stretches of water invite us to train at your club .
5) If you're still involved in rowing or want to get back come down and coach - guest coaches are always welcome. Another voice saying the same thing is always valuable.
Give it some thought. As you can see there are more ways of helping than just giving money - although we need that to.
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