Chairman’s & Website Update

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The Chairman has provided the following update following our committee meeting on the 9th June 2025:

Dear all,

We had a committee meeting last week. Below is a quick summary of the highlights:

  • We have been offered a coastal rowing boat as a gift from Exmouth rowing club. As a committee we have agreed to accept this wonderful offer. The boat will be stored on Coronation Park in due course. Look out for some pictures on our website
  • Membership. After growing last year quite substantially, we have lost 13 of our members. It would be great if we could try to recruit some more members. Please help, via word of mouth, if you can.
  • We had a great skittles evening. Not only was it fun, but we managed to raise nearly £1000. Thanks to all of you who supported this event.
  • Water based events:
    • The Seine boat regatta takes place on the 26th August. Kerry will publicise this event. If you want to take part you will be very welcome
    • We are sending a boat to the Great River Race in London in September. 9 of our members are keen to go to this event
    • In September we plan to do a row around the Mewstone and then picnic at Newfoundland Cove. All are welcome
    • In October we plan to do a row to Galmpton to grab one of their delicious pizzas
  • Reburbishments:
    • Morwenna has been refurbished
    • We have all refurbished one of the 440s
    • We plan to send Nancy to be refurbished over the next few weeks

Happy rowing!

Noel

Website Update

Our Constitution has been revised and the updated version (7 March 2025) is available to view and download HERE.

The Agenda discussed at the 24 Feb meeting is available (members only) HERE.

UPDATE & CHRISTMAS ROW

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Firstly a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all RDRC Members, subscribers and Facebook followers.

Secondly a reminder that it is the Christmas row tomorrow. I regret the details are not on the website or Facebook but you may be able to view them through the Events on the Water WhatsApp Group. Alternatively, if you would like to watch or support this event contact Kerry Rushton either directly or through the WhatsApp Group to learn how best to do so..

Finally you may be pleased to learn that, as part of our ongoing refurbishment plan, the set of oars formerly in Aimee have now been restored and returned and are once again available for use.

CLUB MEMBERS AND UPDATE

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Right to Participate in Rowing.

To protect the club and rowers it is important that organisers and coxes ensure that rowers assigned to, and participating in, our rows are eligible to do so. This is critical to the club’s indemnity and to ensure participants have the benefit of insurance protection. Adult rowers must be members of the club, participating as one of their 3 permitted “taster” rows before joining or a casual rower who has been invited to row with us and to contribute £5 for the privilege.

A list of rowing members is provided at LIST OF MEMBERS (password protected). All club members are invited to ensure they are on the list and contact the Hon Sec if they are not.

Organisers of rows, and coxes, should ensure only club members, rowers on a “taster” row or other invited fee-paying rowers use our boats and facilities.

Instruction and Coaching.

I have put a link to the coaching information from the old Kingswear Rowing Club on this site and coaches should direct novice rowers to This Page. This is also a refresher opportunity for more experienced rowers.

Man Over Board.

The videos of our investigation of techniques for recovering a man overboard are now accessable through our web page HERE. For anyone requiring a more in-depth view of the options, I provide the link to British Rowing’s video HERE.

Facebook

The website is now integrated with Facebook. Kiera Burnell operates the Facebook site. I can now selectively post information directly from our website to Facebook when publishing posts such as this.

Brian Longman

Webmaster

Man Overboard

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Alan Scobie wrote:

‘As part of the Club’s regular review of risk assessment and training, a hardy band of members, braved the freezing waters of the River Dart on Saturday, 30th November. Our aim was to test the viability of recovering a conscious man-overboard into our Seine boats, based on British Rowing guidelines. 

As videos show, the testing was a success, demonstrating that a conscious man-overboard can be safely recovered, using a variety of techniques, depending on his weight and the relative strength of the crew. 

As the volunteer crew experienced in fairly challenging conditions, it is vital that our rowers know how to control their boat and carry out a recovery. The next step will be to brief all of the Club’s coxes so that man overboard training exercises can be included in our scheduled rows. We all hope these emergency situations never arise but we do need to be aware of how to act if they do. The practice is important for the safety of everyone.

Thanks to all those who took part in the testing. It was certainly time well spent and a bit of fun too, for most….. I think!’

Regrettably our website subscription does not allow me to embed videos directly. I think I have found a cheating work-around. I posted to Facebook and then linked back to our website. If this worked you can see Video 1 here. Tell me if I am wrong.

and Video 2 here/

RDRC Hoodies

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Message from Noel Cornforth

Chairman RDRC

We are going to get some hoodies made, as agreed at the Annual General Meeting.

They will be navy blue in colour with a red inner hood. They will have our logo embroidered on the left breast. On the back will be our logo, again embroidered, but it will be much bigger and will look great!

If you want to order one, the cost is £35 of which a very small proportion will go to the club.

The sizes are:

Size conversions

SizeXSSMLXLXXL3XL4XL5XL
Chest to fit343640444852566062

Please let me know, by email, if you want one and what size you would like at n.cornforth@hotmail.com

Thanks,

Noel

RDRC Update November 2024

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Chairman’s Report

During the AGM it was suggested I gave a quick summary of the points that came out of the
committee meetings. So here is the update for November:

Safety

  • We plan to do a man over board practice in the next few weeks to find the best ways, if any,
    of getting someone back onto the boat.
  • We now have safety bags for all 4 of our boats that are on the water.

Finance

  • We hoped to have refurbished one of our seine boats in the late summer. The weather will
    now not be favourable for doing this. This will mean 2 of our seine boats are now planned
    for a refurb next year.
  • We have designed some excellent hoodies sporting our logo on the front and back.
    You will be offered the chance to purchase these over the next few weeks.

Events on the water

  • Last year we had a lovely fancy dress row up to the FBI in Dittisham. We plan to repeat the
    event this year. This event will be publicised very soon. Hope to see you there!
  • Due to the shorter days, most of our scheduled rows are now taking place earlier in the day.
    This makes it hard for those working to enjoy these rows. As such we will be installing a
    Saturday morning row at 9am. The boat will leave from where the largest part of the crew
    comes from. Look out for Cliff’s poll.
  • Recent weeks have shown us there is still a shortage of coxes. 4 more are in the process of
    being trained. If you are interested in becoming a cox then please let us know

Events off the water

  • There will be a repeat of the successful skittles evening sometime in February.

Bosun

  • We recently had a set of oars refurbished and put back into Aimee. Unfortunately, one of these oars has subsequently broken. We think it is beyond repair.
  • The set of oars that were in Aimee across this year are now being refurbished.
  • An automatic bilge pump is now in our 440 Fly. We will monitor the success of this and may look at
  • installing across our other boats if successful.

Happy rowing

Noel

Website Update

Brian’s Note: I undertstand that a gig at Barnstable was recently hit amidshipe by a fishing vessel leaving one person slightly injured and one in the water. It can happen – be prepared!

Committee Members Updated – See sidebar on Home Page and Who’s Who.

Aims of the RDRC Committee 2023 to 2025. See page HERE.

Minutes of AGM – see HERE.

Minutes of 11 Nov 24 committee meeting – See HERE.

Our Constitution – Updated. See HERE.

Finances Update. See HERE.

Past Events – Head of the Dart 2024 – a Cox’s perspective. See HERE.

AGM – Chairman’s Presentation & Answers to Questions Raised

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Chairman’s Presentation

Our Chairman provided an excellent presentation at the AGM which set ot the Club’s objectives and the progress made towards their achivement.

Those present at the AGM would have also seen our planned expenditure and intended maintenance programme and heard about our financial situation and the financial challenges ahead.

The presentation is presented in AGM Minutes so all club members can see our achievements and intentions.

If you are a subscriber to the website, but not a RDRC member, you will not be able to access the AGM page.

Website Capability

Cost and Scope

In committee, and at the AGM, members asked about enhancements to our website based on capabilities they have seen in other websites. Videos and membership application forms were of particular interest. The situation is too complex to have been dealt with fully at the meeting.

Our website is based on a personal subscription which costs £36/year. In addition, we pay about £15 for website hosting. It is possible to process financial charges through the website, but these would be subject to a surcharge of 8% per transaction. Upgrading to £74/year Premium subscription would reduce the transaction charge to 4% and give a limited video clip capability + better interface to social media. However, this would not enable plugins which provide most of the nice to have “bells and whistles”. See WordPress prices HERE.

Membership Forms and Fundraising

At present, forms can be downloaded from the sebsite, but cannot be completed and submitted online. To use forms and the many other enhancements and ease of use features of WordPress requires a Business subscriprion which costs £240/year. This would enable me to install plugins such a forms, but many plugins are only available at an additional cost / item. This level of subscription would also enable me to provide most of the other features you see on commercial websites. There would still be a transaction charge of 2% unless you upgrade to eCommerce which costs £432 / yearand has no transaction charges.

Alternatives

An alternative, would be to host our membership activities on a seperate (but linked) site such as MemberMOJO which is used by many small clubs and organisations. This would streamline and automate our membership processes, it has no transaction charges and would cost £50 / year. See MemberMOJO HERE.

Charitible Funding and Donations

While the website can promote the opportunities for fund raising, the transaction charges make direct fundraising through the website unviable. Just Giving and Go Fund Me were suggested, but both of these take either a flat fee or transaction charges or both. Of the two, Go Fund Me seems best suited for our purposes and has a transaction charge of about 2%.. Links for donations can be made from our website to whichever charitible funding site we may use for this purpose.

Family and Friends Rowing

The website page (How to Get a Row) has been updated to reflect, the 3 rows under “taster” conditions before payment is required at £5 per session. This update includes payment details and a will have a link to the forms which are required to be completed for safety / insurance purposes. BACS details for payment have been included.

RDRC Chairman’s Update

Dear All,

I have been asked to offer a quick summary of what was discussed in the committee meeting yesterday. I have offered to do this for 1 month, as a trial. If you find it useful, then I will do after every meeting:

Membership: We presently have a total of 70 members.

Treasurers report: We now have clear sight on our costs versus income which is enabling us to make good decisions. This year we will should be able to break even. It was highlighted we are forecasted to have some higher spend over the next couple of years that we will need to bridge.

Safety: Our Safety Officer was not present at the meeting.

Water based events: We have recently competed in the Great River Race in London and the Head of the Dart race in Totnes. You should be able to see some great photos very shortly on our website. In August, half of our members, we involved in the seine boat regatta as part of the Royal Regatta. We came 2nd overall.

Shore based events: We expect to be holding our next land-based social event sometime in November. Look out for details very soon!

Bosun: We are pleased with our newly refurbished oars. We have agreed to put them in Aimee over the next few days. Aimee’s present oars will then be refurbished.

Website: The old website has now been decommissioned. Please take a look at the new website if you have not already.

And finally, may I remind you all that our AGM is on Thursday 10 th October at 7pm where I will provide a quick overview on what we have been doing as a club and what we plan to do over the coming year. I hope to see you there.

Noel

Website Update

Anyone who wishes to have more detail can view the Minutes of the previous meeting and the Agenda for yesterday’s meeting through this LINK. This is in the Protected Area of the website and is therefore restricted to members only. You need to use your password to access this area which was sent out by email at 11:12 on 12 April 2024. (Note: Not all 80 subscribers are members).

An up-to-date financial statement will be available prior to the AGM.

Contact me if you have forgotten or can’t find your password.

Brian L

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New RDRC Website

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Welcome to our new website for all Members of the River Dart Rowing Club. Please SUBSCRIBE to the website so you can receive notifications by email of new Posts on the site. We will try to keep these to the minimum necessary to enable you to enjoy all the benefits of your membership and to be kept informed of all issues which may affect you. Your email address will be known to the WebMaster, their deputy and the Club Chairman. Your email will already be known to our Treasurer and Membership Secretary from your original application or renewal. Emails from the website will not reveal your email address to other recipients.

If you no longer wish to be a member or do not wish to receive further email notifications, please UNSUBSCRIBE from our membership and ignore what follows. You can do that through this email or by going HERE. You can manage what notifications you receive from that page.

For those still reading, this is the first full release of information relating to the website which is still a “Work in Progress”. The website fulfills 3 main functions:

  • Firstly, it provides general information which enables members and visitors to see the range of activity on offer, to attend open activities and to apply to join the Club.
  • Secondly, it provides detailed information relating to policy, administration and operation of the Club. These latter elements are password protected with access limited to subscribing members and Honourary members.
  • Thirdly, it provides the detailed instructions which enable you to participate fully and safely in the range of activities on offer. These elements are also password protected and only accessible by subscribing members.

The current Password has already been supplied to known members and is case-sensitive. You should only have to enter it once on any visit to the website. Please do not share this password with non-members. Save this password to any auto-fill application you use to make future visits to the website simpler.

Feedback, to help us improve the website content and presentation, is always welcome. Please use the “Comments” box which you will find at the bottom of most pages on the website.