Putney Town Rowing Club

After the recent successful men’s Learn to Row course, we are pleased to announce a women’s beginners course is starting soon and there will be two open days held on the following dates: -

• September 4th 2011 at 5pm
• September 6th 2011 at 7.30pm.

The Open Days will give you a chance to have a look around the club, take part in the Ergo Challenge and meet previous graduates of the course.

More information on the Open Days and the women’s beginners rowing course is available on the learn to row page.

In glorious sunshine, the beginners from the recent Putney Town learn to row course graduated in style with not one, but two barn storming races.

After just six weeks the men where rowing in eights together and the finale for the course was to be a race, rowing all eight, from petrol pumps to Chiswick Bridge. Off a rolling start, the crews had a taste of side-by-side racing and the competitive coxswains beasted them to within an inch of their lives to get their boat into the lead. With the winning crew smug with their win, and both crews thinking their work had been done, James surprised them with another race, from the crossing point to Barnes Bridge. With the previous winning crew in the stream, sides were swapped and another race ensued. It was neck and neck to the bridge with coxes yelling, rowers puffing and fishes no doubt swimming furiously away from the oncoming flailing of blades! With a late push, the winners from the first race got a nose ahead and took a second win!

All the beginners remarked how much fun they had whilst enjoying beers and burgers at the post race barbecue. We look forward to seeing the beginners progress and racing again in a regatta soon.

Graduates from the Mens Learn to Row course, June 2011

UPDATE: Sorry this learn to row course for men is now full. A women’s learn to row course will be run in the Autumn.

The next Learn to Row course at Putney Town Rowing Club is starting soon and we are pleased to say that we will be holding open days on the following dates.

• Open Day: Sunday 8 May 2011. 13:00-15:00
• Open Evening: Tuesday 10 May 2011. 19:00-21:00

The Open Days will give you a chance to have a look around the club, take part in the Ergo Challenge and meet previous graduates of the course.

More details of the Open Days and the mens beginners rowing course are available on the learn to row page.

Putney Town has been running learn to row courses for over five years and is please to announce that we will be running another course for Men starting in May 2011.

We’re looking for men wishing to train and compete for the club for the course which will cost £100 and run for 6 weeks with both land and water sessions included. Once the course is finished, the group will join the novice mens racing squad.

An open day will be held early in May 2011, which gives interested guys and opportunity to come and see the club, try out the equipment and speak with recent graduates of past learn to row course.

If you are interested, you can find our more details on the learn to row page, or simply sign up and we’ll contact you with details of the open day. If you have any other questions, please contact Peter Rossi on learntorow@putneytownrc.co.uk.

Our most recent learn to row course for 32 men and women recently ended, and was a great success. However, as deep in the middle of winter is not the time to learn, we will not be running more beginner rowing courses until the warmer weather arrives. If you are interested in being contacted when we are planning our next course, please complete this short questionnaire. We will keep your details until then.

If you are someone who who might want to join the novice programmes, with all the graduates of our recent beginner course (or one of the other squads at the club), we are the club for you! The novice programme is not suitable for complete beginners, but if you are wanting to return to rowing after a break or have completed a learn to row course / 3 months rowing somewhere else, then you would fit in well. The seperate mens and womens novice squads have two coached outings a week on the water, and do land training during the week in the gym. The aim of both mens and womens groups is to race in the later head races and the summer regattas in 2011.

If you are interested, please contact

Ben Burston — menscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk

Elizabeth McLoughlin — womenscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk

or James Davey  — treasurer@putneytownrc.co.uk

and we can chat to you and work out which squad at the club would be best to join

UPDATE 2: Due to high demand, the learn to row open day will now be held on both the 5th and 12th September.

Please also remember to bring some training kit along for some light exercise on the rowing machine.

Another beginners rowing course will start in September for men and women. It will run concurrently on Saturday afternoons, as well as a tank session on either Tuesday or Wednesday evenings as well as circuits on Thursdays. The course lasts for six weeks and costs £100.

There will be an open day which will be held on Sunday 12th September at 1pm. Anyone who cannot make the open day on the 5th, but wants to be considered for the course should arrange to come down to the club in advance and speak to us.

In a recent article in The Times (”You need brass to go for gold“), Matthew Syed claims that sports such as rowing are not as competitive as other sports because you need to have a lot of financial backing to participate in them.

We like to kid ourselves that Sir Steve Redgrave is the greatest British sportsman in history so far, for winning five successive golds in rowing — a sport so elitist that it is virtually non-existent across much of the planet. I suspect that Redgrave would not have qualified for a single Olympic final, let alone won any, had rowing been accessible to, say, 1 per cent of the population of Africa — a continent that dominates running, for which the only equipment needed is decent shoes.

Member Peter Rossi, who learned to row on Putney Town’s beginners course wrote to The Times (”Success, not diversity“) to set the record straight. (continue reading…)

This weekend the women from our latest beginners rowing course completed their final session and despite the occasional washout from a Thames cruiser and a few new blisters, all are eager to continue on with rowing.

Women's Beginners Course 2009

(continue reading…)

Putney Town is running another beginners course, this time for women. This time of year must be the best time to learn to row, with the fine weather and numerous club events coming over the summer.

An open day is being held on Sunday 26th April at 1pm for interested women to look around the club. There will be a chance to to ask questions and have a go on a rowing machine - so do bring some suitable clothes along.

More information is available on the beginners rowing course page or you can contact Lucy Brennan on 07742 636 719 or email womenscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk.