Giving back to the community

Hi everyone,

As some of you know, Kathy Frey rowed with us for a bit and also rows in the whale boats. She's a part of a fundraiser and would appreciate our support. I won't try to rephrase what she said, so I'm just going to cut and paste from an email. Please help if you can.

If people would like to come and walk that would be great or if anyone knows me and would like to sponsor me, they can send a check made out to CNHC-Walk...mail it to me at 31 Jefferson St. Fairhaven, or if they would just like to send their donation directly to Community Nurse & Hospice Care 62 Center St. Fairhaven, MA 02719 that would help too. Any amount will help...if everyone just gave a little, it really adds up. The band is really good.

Beautiful Weather

Well it looks like we're going to have a good week of classes. No rain, wind, etc for a change (unless I just jinxed it). For those of you that have been on the fence about whether you want to try rowing, come down and see what we're all about. There are lots of people giving it a shot and loving it. You just may surprise yourself!

We're also taking registrations on our website for both Learn-to-Row classes, as well as competitive teams. Sign up if you plan to row in September. We start up the week of the 13th. For the competitive teams, we may have a meeting before the 13th so we'll be going by who's registered online when we contact you in the case we do have the meeting ahead of time. You don't want to miss out!!

Great day so far

The sun is shining, the humidity has given us a break, and people are signing up for our competitive teams! So far we have 4 girls signed up for our Youth Novice comp team, and 2 adults signed up for our Adult comp teams! You can sign up on our website too. There are several other kids that have expressed intent to join the teams so we're looking good for our fall novice teams!

Also, Patrick Kielty (another UMass alum - GO UMASS!) has been a fantastic supporter for us. He's spreading the good word about what we're doing and getting us in contact with some great people that are in a position to really support our efforts. Thanks to Patrick!

New Bedford really is an amazing place and the amount of support we've gotten thus far has been fantastic. I love being here and meeting the people I've met. New Bedford is the perfect place for this endeavor and we WILL make New Bedford, and it's Acushnet River, a destination in the rowing world. Many long term plans are in the works and so far it's been all green lights for us!

Zephyr

Yes, a zephyr is a light wind, but it's also the name of a single scull. And guess what. Paul Milde of Peinert Boat Works in Mattapoisett has just given us use of his!! Some of you may have seen it sitting in slings inside our storage cubby at the Seaport Inn. It had been loaned to Chris Corkery (former owner of Seaport Inn) and unfortunately Chris is no longer with the Seaport Inn. However, Paul has decided to allow us use of the boat for our programs!! It is much appreciated and the boat looks to be in fantastic shape. It's not a racing single - it's a bit wider - so it will be perfect for new scullers. We may now need to add new programing to our schedule since we have a single and a double now!

Thomas E. Weil

I'm very excited about our speaking program for the September 9th Kickoff event. We're going to have some fantastic speakers. Our very own Mayor Scott Lang will be there and for those of you that may not realize it, he's the reason we're even here. If it weren't for the efforts of the Mayor and Matthew Morrissey, the Executive Director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing. They are amazing supporters and if you see them, please shake their hands and say 'thanks'.

In addition to the Mayor and Matthew, we'll have Bruce Smith, the Executive Director of Community Rowing Inc. up in Brighton. He's the guy that has the expertise and connections within the world of rowing to make New Bedford Community Rowing successful. He's rowed and coached all over and has started many clubs in many places.

For a local flavor, I'll get up and say a few words along with 1 or 2 of the kids that have discovered rowing this summer. I personally have been touched by some of these young adults and I hope that we can have the same affect on them. They have great attitudes, are a lot of fun to work with, and have an amazing amount of potential.

Lastly, as our keynote speaker, we have been lucky enough to confirm Thomas E. Weil to join us. He's got a long list of credentials: Rowing Historian, Scholar, and Lecturer; Author; Trustee, Nationals Rowing Foundation; Founding member and director, Friends of Rowing History; Visiting Curator for Rowing History, Mystic Seaport; Trustee, River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames; Life member, North American Society for Sport History; Director, Yale Crew Association.

There's more, but that should give you an idea of Tom's experience and wealth of knowledge. He's given a lot of speeches over the years and just reading one of his recently inspired me and had me thinking completely differently about the sport of rowing. We're very lucky to have him and I hope you all make it out to the event to hear these great people speak.

RSVP to jgoodman@nbedc.org if you plan to attend. Guests are welcome!

The rain has returned

Hopefully the rain will go away by this afternoon, but if not, let's just hope that at least thunder and lightening don't materialize. Now that we have an erg at the docks, we'll be able to work 1-on-1 with the athletes and do some drills on land if we can't get out on the water. We also will be moving our equipment from cubby #5 to the first, little cubby and we could always tackle that task today.

For those of you that know you want to race this fall, please go ahead and register online. I'll be working on setting up coaches and trying to get more coaching launches, and it'll be a huge help to know how many athletes I'm trying to plan for. Here is a link to the competitive team sign up form: REGISTER There are several options - adult men and women, and youth girls and boys. If you have less than a year of rowing experience, you'd be a novice. The 5th option - "COMP" is for anyone that has raced before or has been rowing for a while. Signing up for that doesn't mean you'd be on a different team, but it'll help us know what we're working with and can enter you in races properly. Now that we have a four and a double, there are a lot of options for fall racing and training!!

"YYYYYMMMMCCCCAAAAAAA"

(you know you hear it)

Okay, so things for the winter are possibly taking shape. Yes, we'll be forgoing the boats during the winter, but not the training! There are a few options for us in terms of where we can train over the winter and the New Bedford YMCA is one of them. I met with 3 great people over at the Y today, thanks to our own Gary Schuyler for setting it up.

Nancy Bonell is the VP and COO, Mary Beth Gamache is the Wellness Director, and Tara Pacheco is the Associate Executive Director. They were all great and had lots of ideas. I think Tara may even join the team! We examined space options both for storage as well as during a class. Storage will be a challenge, but they seemed eager to come up with a way to make it work. We discussed scheduling of classes and boy are they busy. There are a few times we could hold class there, either in the early mornings or later evenings. It's looking like 3 days a week would work, and now we just need to come up with fee structures along with access rights accordingly.

So no fear, athletes!! We'll make sure this winter will include rowing and that by the time Spring season hits, you'll all be fit as a fiddle!

Regatta Central

Regatta Central is going to be a huge help to us in organizing our event. There is still a lot of information to be worked out, but we'll be posting on our website, and linking with www.regattacentral.com to organize all of the entries, payments, waivers, etc. I spoke at length today with Traci at RC and she was a wealth of knowledge! We'll be able to post a lot of information and easily track entries. Stay tuned and spread the word! We want all of you to race at our regatta!!!

Oar Progress...sort of

The oars are making progress, thanks to Will. He sanded more, primed, and then painted the base color. We've discovered that the paint doesn't stay on very well and it's already scraping off, just being transported. No bueno!! So....we may leave them plain like this to see how bad the paint chips off. If it's not too bad, I'll apply the wave. If it's really bad right away, I'll have to come up with another option. Whodathunk oars would be such a pain?!

Regatta Progress

So now our New Bedford Popes Island Regatta is officially posted on both row2k and on regattacentral! There will be more information coming, but the big points are as follows:

Date: Saturday Oct 9th

Distance: 5k (with 2 bridges, and a BIG turn similar to the Charles course - good practice, Starboards!)

Entries: 1x, 2x, 4x/+, 8+ --> all events will have Master, Open, and Junior events, but the fours and eights will also have Novice, and Junior Novice entries.

Deadlines: Friday October 1st for entries and payments (which can be made out to Community Rowing Inc.)

Check our website for more details as they get posted!!

Session III kicks off!

We're being joined by a few new coaches this session, and so far things have gone pretty well. Briana and Mohammed should be familiar to some of you, but now we have Ken Clark, and Bridgid Myers. Well.....at least for a couple weeks. Unfortunately for us, Bridgid will be moving to the DC area to pursue her career. We wish her the best, but are excited to have her with us even for just a short time.

Yet again, there may be a change of locations, so if that happens we'll be sure to post on here where and when we'll move to. I love excitement!!

Stay tuned! Oh, and if you read this blog - become a follower!!

REGATTA!!

Our post has officially gone up on www.row2k.com for our October 9th 5K Regatta!! New Bedford Popes Island Regatta is officially in the works, people! It will post on Regatta Central next. Check out www.newbedfordcommunityrowing.org for more details - they'll be up soon!

The City of New Bedford is fantastic

Today we had a great meeting with several people from the City of New Bedford, Jessica from the HDC, Chris from Apex, and Bruce and Ryan with Community Rowing Inc. We're working on getting permits for a temporary set up where the new boathouse will be, and then to evolve into a permanent set up. Things went really well and everyone at the meeting had a great attitude about moving forward. We all were on the same page about New Bedford Community Rowing being a positive thing for our community and now it's just a matter of getting things approved through the proper channels, rather than resistance from any group. I love it when everyone wants the same thing!!

Then, Bruce, Ryan and myself headed over to the Seaport Inn to drop off more equipment!! Yes, the Little Bay four has returned (thanks, Seth and AJ!) and along with it came an erg!! Finally [sigh] we have our very own erg which will be instrumental in demonstrating our stroke to new rowers. We can also use it for drills and one-on-one instruction.

As if that's not enough.....guess what else we got. Waiiiitttttt foooorrrrr iiiittttttt....... YES! We got a DOUBLE!!!!! Many of you have been anxiously awaiting a sculling boat of any kind and we got one much sooner than I ever dreamed! We have a well-loved but great filippi mid-weight double and 2 sets of sculling oars!! Not only will this boat allow us to work with odd numbers in classes, but we can teach a whole different kind of rowing.

Then, I sat down with Mike Galvin from Cork. We nailed down some more details for our September 9th party. We'll have food from Cork, plus one or two items from Rose Alley, and Pizano's pizza. We'll have some pinot grigio and a summer red wine, and Brian Roussell with Narragansett Beer will provide a few cases of beer. It's going to be a fun and tasty party!!

This morning was a busy one, but it was a great one. Why can't all mornings be like this!?

Painting Oars & Scheduling Coaches

Okay, so sanding oars is NOT what it's cracked up to be. Sanding all the way down to get the old paint off was taking FOREVER. So we decided to just sand them to an even touch. Great. Went a lot faster. However...when we primed them, the paint beneath began to peel up. So we tried to sand again and re-prime. No bueno. We tried spray painting the oars that looked good with the primer and I'm thinking that spray paint ain't the way to go. It looks too much like spray painted oars and not high quality. So we're going to try sanding all the way down again, and then using brush paint. WISH US LUCK!! Thank Gawd for Will Mahoney, his power sanders, and his great attitude.

Then, we had a great coaches meeting and figured out who will coach what programs for the August sessions. It's looking like we could really have a great coaching staff of not only good coaches, but fun ones at that. Bridget may have a job offer in the DC area which would be great for her but sad for us, but she'll be with us for a few weeks. While I wish her the best in her career aspirations, I kinda hope she doesn't take the job in DC and finds a job here instead. Either way, we're shaping up well for coaching staff!

Coaches...they're great!

Okay, so maybe that didn't sound like Tony the Tiger but I have just as much enthusiasm. I met today with another possible coach (Bridgid Meyers) and she's very well qualified so it's more down to availability. Here's hoping that her schedule works well with ours!

Tomorrow I'll meet with all of the potential coaches and we'll figure out the August schedule and start to lay out the plan for September, with the hope of continuity from one month to the next. When the competitive teams start, things are gonna get crazy!! But in a good way. I hope. :)

With an enormous amount of help from Will Mahoney, the oars are well on their way to having a new facelift. Since we can sand or paint, or do anything to the oars at the Seaport Inn, he's taken them to his house to finish the sanding. [Living in an apartment building has it's drawbacks...] We'll team up and hopefully get them all primed tomorrow, and then it's just a good coat of paint and the CRI wave! Of course there will be photos to document our progress.

Planning planning and more planning

So we're gearing up for a BUNCH of stuff happening in the near future. Nothing too exciting to report, just that things are moving along really well. The party plans for our September 9th event are going well, and we're all getting excited for it. The regatta on October 9th is slowly taking shape and is sure to be a great day. Volunteers welcome to help!!

On the good news side of things, we're getting a double and an erg!!!! Yes, it's true! When the Little Bay returns after it's much needed repairs (thank you, Seth!) it will be accompanied by a double, some sculling oars, and an erg! Things are looking good....

Registrations!

Yep - it's that time again. Session III will begin in on week, and while we've got a lot of returning rowers, we are losing a few. Plus, we're very lean on newbie rowers!! We need to get more kids out there so we're ready to rock when we form racing teams in September. Spread the word and let's fill some seats!!

Sandman...

These are the "before" pictures of the oars. MAN does sanding these suckers take a LONG time!! We only got through 5 of them today. They weren't primed the first time they were painted, so we're sanding down to the fiberglass...not ideal. But we'll prime them before we paint them. Coach Will was a savior bringing power sanders. I can't imagine how long it would take with just plain sandpaper and elbow grease! Sunday we'll be back at it again, hopefully finishing the set. Wish us luck! OR...better yet, JOIN US!!

Oars

Yup, thanks to the good work of Bruce Smith we now have 2 1/2 sets of oars purchased from Simmons College! They're in great shape and will be getting a new look today. I'll take some before and after photos so you can see the difference. They'll be blue with the CRI black and white wave pattern (thank goodness for stickers!). Right now they're blue with a yellow diagonal stripe.

Got Beer?

Narragansett Beer has just agreed to donate several cases of beer for our event. Things are going really well getting the party plans together. I'm so excited for this event and hope that all of you come! The location (Coalition for Buzzards Bay on Hamilton St. in downtown New Bedford) has a gorgeous space and Cork will be doing the food (so far, the menu sounds amazing). We'll have some great speakers like Mayor Scott Lang, Matthew Morrissey, Bruce Smith, and Tom Weil. You'll probably also have to listen to me, but hey - you can't win 'em all, can you. Just to make it up to you, we may have a couple of the kids speak as well!

Great Meetings today!

Today I had several great meetings for various projects going on. First, I went with Joyce Goodman and Angela Johnston from the EDC to meet with Lynn at the Coalition for Buzzards Bay and see their new office space. It's gorgeous! Hopefully we'll be having our September 9th Kickoff party there.

Then I met with Mike Galvin of Cork Restaurant (just a few doors down from the Coalition) and he was very positive about the support Cork and Rose Alley can give to our event. If things go as we discussed, the party will have lots of delicious bites!

Lastly I got to meet with Ken Clark, a local lawyer and rower. Looks like we've found ourselves a coach for the Adult Skills class and possibly into the Fall competitive season! We're always looking for more coaches and volunteers so if you're interested in getting involved, let us know!!

Coast Guard turns 220

Happy Birthday, Coast Guard!! Thanks for keeping our waters safe.

Also, thoughts and prayers go out to those that have lost their lives during those 220 years. In particular, I would like to recognize the 3 men that died in the helicopter crash last month. The chopper crashed near James Island, off the Washington coast.

Lt. Lance D. Leone, 29 of Ventura, CA was the sole survivor of the crew of 4. Lt. Sean Krueger, 33 of Seymour, CT was a dear friend of a close friend of mine and is survived by hs wife and 3 young children. Adam C. Hoke, 40 from Great Falls, MT and Brett M. Banks, 33 from Rock Springs, WY - both air crewman also perished.

Make-Up Classes Today

Well, since the weather wasn't so kind to us during a few of the classes, we're having a couple of make-up classes today. 3-5 youth, and 5:30-7:30 for youth and adults skills classes. If you're interested, we usually need to fill extra seats, so come on down and see if there's one available!

Coach Will is back from his 3 week trip to sea and the two of us will be working on boat repairs this afternoon. Anyone that's handy is more than welcome to join us. A few extra hands always makes the work easier and go faster.

The rest of the week will be focused on getting registrations for our upcoming August class (we start the week of the 16th) and planning our Kickoff Event on September 9th, as well as our first home regatta on October 9th! Stay tuned for details as the projects evolve, or you can check our website: www.newbedfordcommunityrowing.org

City Hall

Bruce Smith and I waiting for our very productive meeting at the Mayor's Office today. Unfortunately the Mayor wasn't actually there, although Bill Burns (as close to the Mayor as you can get) was present, along with Matt Morrissey, Angela Johnston, and Derek Santos from the Economic Development Council. We missed the Harbor Master, Kristin Decas today as well.

The meeting went very well and we covered a lot of important details. We have our September Event moving along nicely and there is talk of having it at the Coalition for Buzzard's Bay in downtown New Bedford. Details are still being worked on, but you can rest assured that we will put on a spectacular event.

Also on the agenda for our meeting was the New Bedford Popes Island Regatta slated for October 9th, just 2 weeks before the historic Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston. Our race will incorporate a very tough turn, perfect for a practice run for the Charles course. We may not have 5 bridges to pass through, but will 2 suffice?

So far we're keeping very busy planning some exciting things for the next several months. You definitely will want to be a part of them!! If you want to get involved with any of our events, just let us know! You can call 508.717.4013 or email me at carolyn@communityrowing.org.

WE'RE STAYING PUT!

That's right folks, we are no longer moving locations. We will remain at the Seaport Inn & Marina through the fall. Lots of logistics and other details but all you need to worry about is how to find us. Right where you've been finding us!! 110 Middle Street in Fairhaven, MA 02719.