December 11, 2021.

There's a lot of symbolism in those numbers: 20211211. It feels like it should mean something, but: it's doesn't. Instead, how about a wrap up email for the year? I figure if I send this now, only a week after the last one, I should be good for a bit and not have to be scratching together one of these while waiting for Santa to meet the pilot light in the fireplace.

• Boston University
• Rowing Canada Aviron Coaching Conference and Semi-Annual General Meeting
• The gate code has changed
• Mark moving to the land of Grandparents
• Hoses
• Tomorrow: the Atlantic!
• The Barge
• I don't think you could ask for a better year.
• Signing Up For Rowing
• We aren't in this movie

Boston University

If you subscribe to the Row2K Twitter account, they have videos of various bits and pieces of interest. A couple of weeks ago, one of them was about what the women of Boston University had to go through to be recognized as a bona fide rowing program. https://www.row2k.com/video/NINE/28503/. It's 8 minutes and interesting - Jessica, one of our life members (#14) was stroke of their boat when she attended school there, and Kelly, one of the Juniors from VRC a few years back went there for school as well. 
If you do watch the video, and want to add new lenses to your perspective from the 1970's to now, try adding different groups beyond women: LGBTQQIP2SAA, people with think differently, people from non-European backgrounds and so on. Society is evolving in ways that I don't think anyone expected 30 years ago. It's about merit where it's actually important. For rowing: it's about how you move the boat. Some of the work we have been doing has been about making rowing accessible to people that didn't know they were welcome.

Rowing Canada Aviron Coaching Conference and Semi-Annual General Meeting

The Rowing Canada Aviron Coaching Conference and Semi-Annual General Meeting (notice how I put the cool stuff first) is coming up: the two-day annual conference will be held at the Delta Hotel (Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort) in Victoria, BC from January 28 to 29, 2022, with the Semi-Annual Meeting taking place on January 30. The RCA Excellence Awards evening will take place on January 29. Virtual sessions will be held on Tuesday January 25 with keynote sessions also streaming live. Registration and schedule information for the virtual sessions will be announced shortly.
In person registration, and Session details are here: https://events.eply.com/2022RCConferenceEN3364257?mc_cid=505debb2eb&mc_eid=b0a9b44683
I'll be there - hopefully with others joining as well...

The gate code has changed

DUCK is no more. I know many of you spent anxious moments trying to figure out what the duck was the combination (thank you Anne and Jenn for your help for the last 2 combinations). However it has changed. If you have been paying as anticipated, or if you have made arrangements to have it: you should have received an email from me today (check your junk carefully). If you think you should have it, please contact me via slack or email. I am not infallible and one person has already contacted me.
Please make sure the gate is locked in order to keep the trash pandas, and others who have not paid, out of the compound. 

Betcha didn't know that there is a Double AA Baseball Team called the Rocket City Trash Pandas.
With their own clothing line. I did look into it for us, but there are some costs that are hard to justify at the moment.

Mark moving to the land of Grandparents

Mark Hetherington has some grandkids that he wants to spend more time with, and they are in the UK. So, sadly he is moving there in the start of 2022. If you don't know Mark, likely you know his work on repairing Rolf's boat when no one else would, building our wooden racks, the shed, and applying goop to boats to keep them floating (the right way up), making trophies and so on. He's not going to the Emerald Isle, but he's going home and that counts for a lot.
He's going to be missed by ourselves, the RCA Licensed Umpires in BC, Burnaby Lake Rowing Club, a number of the paddling clubs around False Creek, and Bard on the Beach along with the people who stayed at his AirBnB. Here's to a function in early January to say good and thank you for keeping us together. And dry.

Hoses

Please make sure the hoses are turned off: the weather is getting colder and if the water freezes in the hoses, it could burst them. They were closed when I was down there so thank you for that... if you could also drain the hose once you shut off the valve by the sink. 

Tomorrow: the Atlantic!

Jessica M's boat: In Deep Ship starts their journey in about 16 hours. There is live race tracking on the event website: https://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/. No doubt they could still use your assistance with some of the cost of this endeavour and the groups they are fundraising for... if you get a chance: https://www.indeepship.com/donations

Bon voyage to Jessica, Jess, Joe and Lauren! 

Please don't smoke

Particularly because there is gasoline stored at the compound for the engines. Additionally: smoking can lead to difficult health issues and challenging circumstances.

The Barge

For other clubs, having a barge means having 2 old 8+'s strapped together with a coach walking up and down on planks between the two boats giving specific instructions. In False Creek, it means the Barge that rode up on shore during a really high tide and a storm surge. That thing's not going anywhere anytime soon. Like a lot of other stuff in False Creek. There was a high tide this morning and a really high tide a few days ago, and that thing's still there. I guess we'll have to wait until spring, or until they get a big inflatable sausage under it to roll it off the beach. You can check Katcam for updates: http://katkam.ca/

No doubt it would be cheaper to build change rooms, a gym and showers for us somewhere than to deal with this. This is what happens when people don't tie up their boats properly and look after them. Perhaps if they got an engine for it, like those smug SUP people have.

I don't think you could ask for a better year.

It started off with one of our coaches from past years, Julia, rowing in the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race, Katie at the World Under 23s Championships, Andrea at the Olympics then a week later at English Henley, followed up with Head of the Charles. Sebastien, Katie, Caitlin L, and Mary rowed at the Canadian Championships and now Jessica is crossing the Atlantic. Each of those people earned that through making their own decisions, hard work and diligent training, and for all of them: coaching that happened at other clubs. Maybe just a wee bit with us. 
Closer to home we created programming in conjunction with Colour The Trails, Canucks Autism Network and Big Brothers. In the Rowing Canada Aviron membership system we show as having over 120 individual registrations, not including more than 50 people who were registered through Rowing BC as part of the Community Rowing Program, or the 15 life members that we register as volunteers. That compares to just a couple of years ago where we had just over about 50 people on the books. And it was a lot of work by a lot of people... I would like to thank some of the people that put in a lot of effort this past summer to make those numbers possible:

• Our coaches: Renee LaFreniere, Mary Law, Katrina Wittenberg, Caitlin Lawrence, Jasmine Holmes, Audrey Tsai, Jason Cho, Brandon Hillier, Zach Moss and Sean Leyland.
• Our other board members: Lauren Isbister, Eve Limbrick-Oldfield, Carolyn Oliver, Samantha Roberts, Don Marshall, Sergio Fernandez and Terry Barkman.

Signing Up For Rowing

We aren't in this movie