By Ellie Bayton
The 2011 Easter camp took place from Monday 11th April through till Friday 15th of April. The plan for the week was for the students to row in the morning while the juniors did jobs and then after lunch they would swap round. Over those five days numerous jobs and improvements were made around the clubhouse including knocking the ceiling down and taking the carpet up in the girls changing rooms, treating all the bay doors and also the portable sculling rack, painting the darker areas of the bays and especially Matt’s removable racks which will make a big difference to manoeuvring and storing boats around the bays.
The weekend before the camp, the weather was beautiful however come Monday it did nothing but rain. This didn’t stop new faces coming down and really enjoying themselves, learning new skills and techniques, and thankfully didn’t put them off as several of them carried on coming down each day. On that same day Sarah led a course for half of the juniors, the ‘Junior Indoor Rowing Leaders Award’, which the other half would complete on the Thursday. Despite the weather everyone made a really enthusiastic start to the week and all the jobs. On Tuesday the weather brightened up just in time for the new juniors, having learnt the basic s, to take part in the capsise drill which they all completed successfully. Some members of the club who were racing at Northwich went out to train while others tried out new crews. After lunch work was started on cleaning the bar; carpets were taken outside and cleaned while the floor was swept and mopped. In the girls changing rooms, the carpet was taken up and the boys changing room was mopped.
On Wednesday the weather stayed good and work was started on treating the four pairs of doors and the portable rack. All members new and regular went out again and had successful outings. Especially Paul, one of the new beginners, who went out in a double with Oliver, three days after his first ever outing in a boat. Thursday remained fair while the beginners ventured all the way up to the Motorway Bridge and back. Thursday was also a very productive day as the ceiling in the girls changing rooms was brought down and most of the rubbish bagged up. The excess rubbish and left over plastic and sponge from the old boat racks was also bagged up ready to be taken to the dump the next day. Treatment for the doors was also finished on Thursday. Friday, the last day of the Easter Camp, was fair and the water was still, perfect for an Easter Egg Hunt! Iain went up the river in the launch and hung chocolate eggs on the overhanging trees from the Scout Hut to the Aqueduct on both sides of the river. Crews set off, some more competitive than others, and generally had a really good laugh manoeuvring in between the trees searching for the treats. During lunch that day mixed doubles were drawn for a friendly mixed doubles tournament, however some crews got so competitive during the egg hunt there wasn’t enough time for this to happen. Hopefully this will happen at some point in the future or at the summer camp. Friday also saw the finishing off of all the jobs and also two, full, trips to the dump.
Overall over the whole Easter Camp as well as the regular club rowers 12 new juniors came down to try out Rowing, 5 of these came for the whole week and made really good progress. The regular rowers and racers spent the week trying out new crews, training for the upcoming race, Northwich and also learning how to use sweep oar. Plenty of really useful jobs were done, improving the look and efficiency of the clubhouse. I’m sure everyone would agree, a very positive week with really good results from the race at the end!
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