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!