News & Press archive for ‘News’

Pendragon School Year 8’s completed the Paralympic Virtual League Challenge for their Flexible Learning Week session. These students were very keen to try something a bit different in their lessons.

The Young Year 8’s all did VERY well to complete the challenge & one particular student stood out from the crowd as he rowed the fastest 1k and had the biggest shout as coxswain, with almost football like chanting. Well done James!

The picture shows students completing a fun relay race after their challenge, well done to team table tennis who won the relay

As you may or not know, but London Youth Rowing has been chosen of one of the Lord Mayors Appeal chosen charities.

They have a film which outlines the work of the appeal in 2012.

Its really great and one of our girls is in the clip 0 go and see!

http://www.lordmayorsappeal.org/Page/Appeal-Film

With Party lights and music, students from St Pauls Academy in Greenwich completed the Paralympic Visually Impaired Athlete Virtual League Challenge. Coxswains clapped, shouted and gave instructions to their partners rowing 1000m on the rowing machines.

Students enjoyed the evening and where very keen to try to get top spot and the best time.

John Roan (Greenwich) Completing the Virtual League. This terms challenge is a Paralympic Challenge. Students are visual impaired (Monitor taken away and students blindfolded if they wish) and row over the Paralympic distance of 1000m as fast as they can. Another student will be the coxswain delivering instructions & motivation to their friend rowing. To complete the virtual league challenge e-mail sware@londonyouthrowing.com

Woolwich Polytechnic Inter School competition (Greenwich). Over 400 students from the school competed over the competition distances to try to gain a place on the borough competition team, Greenwich borough competition is going to be held on the 24^th January 2012 at Eltham Foundation School.

London Youth Rowing (LYR) is the main charity supported by the Boat Race. This year LYR was also delighted to be chosen as one of the charities to benefit from the2012 Lord Mayor’s Appeal, entitled Fit for the Future.  A special perk attached to this honour was that we were able to take part in a flotilla down the Thames on the morning of the Lord Mayor’s Show on Saturday 12 November.

The highlight of the event was when Tower Bridge was raised to mark the moment when the colourful assortment of over 30 different rowing  craft, led by the two boats crewed by LYR, passed underneath.

The new Lord Mayor, David Wootton, was a keen rower himself, and so decided to reinstate this long-forgotten tradition. As well as the two LYR “invasion boats” (which were used in the film of Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe), the flotilla included many traditional cutters, crewed by Liverymen dressed in an array of fine costumes. The boats set off from Westminster Boat Basin through the mild and misty light of the early morning. We escorted the Lord Mayor down to the HMS President naval base just beyond Tower Bridge, where he was greeted ashore with a brass band and a ceremonial tot of rum.

All the rowers from the flotilla had enjoyed a taste of historic pageantry as well as a unique, and highly enjoyable, experience.

London Youth Rowing started running sessions from its newest base on the 2^nd November, with a Sportivate Learn to Row course running out of the University of London Boathouse in Chiswick.

8 excited young participants and 5 enthusiastic volunteers from Latymer School arrived for the session, which turned out to be a great success. With the course now in it’s second week, the participants all took to the water for the first time and came of the water all having learned something new.

Hopefully the positive start for LYR at the UL boathouse is a sign of things to come.

‘Camp’ing in Devon

“October 2011 saw London Youth Rowing taking its annual half-term camp to a new location this year; Lake Wimbleball.

Set in the picturesque Devon countryside and about 5 hours’ drive from London, 44 keen and excited rowers arrived on the Saturday afternoon ready for an intensive week of training.

Despite a slightly rainy start to the camp, the trip was an excellent opportunity to develop both our rowing skills and friendships across the four clubs participating. Training 2-3 sessions a day, rowers of similar abilities from the different clubs were able to pair up and thus work with each other to continually make progress.

The water was pristine too (you could actually see through it!) and very flat, proving a nice change away from the tidal Thames.

Overall, October camp was a huge success and allowed both the experienced and novice rowers on the camp to immensely improve their technique and racing skills. With the large lake almost entirely at our disposal, we were even able to hold some GB-trials-style timed pieces, which will certainly come in handy for those considering trialling this season or next.

I should also add that the number of participants on the camp made 2011’s October camp by far the largest held by LYR to date; a lot of hard work and organisation from Paddy (Head Coach at LYR)!

A big thank you from all the rowers at Thames, Lea, Mossbourne and Globe rowing clubs. We can only look forward to having an even bigger and more successful camp next year”

Maciek Kozlowski  - Boys captain Thames RC

Last Saturday saw the revival of the Danson Dashes after a 12 year absence. This race that had for so many years been an integral part of the racing calendar in the South East had spent too long on the shelf.

In partnership with Erith Rowing Club and the London Borough of Bexley, London Youth Rowing was keen to breathe new life into the event and stage a Novice Regatta for all of those members of affiliated clubs that had only recently learned to row.

Raced over a 250 metre course on the shallow and protected waters in Bexley, ‘Royal Danson’ has been the event where many a young rower cut their competitive teeth down the years. In previous years the course had been raced over 500 metres but considering that most young people competing this year have only been rowing for a couple of months, it was decided that a shorter sprint was just what was required to keep the racing fair and close.

Erith Rowing Club President, Fred Smith was relieved the race distance wasn’t much further. After spending all of Friday laying the marker buoys for a dead-straight course, he spent most of Saturday trying to keep the rowers on it.

“I’m not sure why I laid a course in the first place”, he smiled, “they all seemed to completely ignore it!”

But it didn’t matter, everyone enjoyed themselves and those that managed to keep their boats straight were rewarded with success.

In all 42 junior members from Erith, Lea, Globe and Thames Rowing Clubs came to Danson with parents, grandparents, siblings and friends in tow. The weather was bright and sunny with a small cross-wind which made for a great day of fair and enjoyable racing.

Each competitor was divided into either the ‘Novice’ or ‘Learn 2 Row’ category dependent on their experience and ability and raced against others of the same standard irrespective of age or gender. For the most part the racing was pretty close showing that in the early stages of development that technique is the most important thing to make your boat go fast. Everyone raced in a time trial first and then, depending on their category and time, were entered into Novice singles, Learn 2 Row singles or a mixed ability doubles competition. From there on it was a straight knockout in each category to the final.

Congratulations go to Jasper Cook of Globe RC for winning the Novice singles; to George Prior of the Regatta Centre Learn 2 Row for winning Learn 2 Row singles; and to Chloe Taylor of the Lea and Matthew Davis from Globe RC who teamed up to win a thrilling doubles final.

A big thank you goes to Erith Rowing Club, the management of the Danson Watersports Centre, the London Borough of Bexley and to all competitors and supporters for making helping make the day such a success.

Next year we will be back – bigger, better and hopefully…straighter.

LYR at the science museum

We at LYR are not the type to say no to day out of the office so when GB rowing invited us to be part in an event at the science museum we jumped at the chance.

The ‘Antenna Live: Champion Rowers’ exhibition ran over half term to look at how science helps the GB rowing team reach new and exciting Olympic heights. We were there to give the public a chance to see how hard rowing is for themselves!

On Wednesday we were joined by Mohamed Sbihi and Heather Stanning- two world championship silver medallists that boast impressive careers as part of the GB rowing team.

The addition of two superstar athletes only added to the demand to take our ’1 minute Sci-Fi challenge’ and the queue was non-stop for the whole three days we were there.

Together GB rowing and the Science museum had massive successes in breaking down the barriers between sport and science.

We at LYR had a fantastic time and it was great to give members of the public the chance to try our sport and discover how science helps build champion rowers.