I am sure daylight saving has a lot going for it but for most rowers it makes for a very early start these mornings. We have all of March to go before the sun decides to get up an hour later so that we can see. In the meantime, we must carry a light.

As yet the Waterways Authority has not decided on a specific light, so continue to use what you now have and please supply your own. The Club has lost too many lights and is unable to provide this service. Bike shops have a good supply.

The other matter that I will mention is the Corporate Regatta for this year. This is the Club's major fund raising exercise and we hope to continue the success of the past. Due to Easter school holidays, Mother's Day and the Masters Regatta, we have decided to hold our Corporate Regatta for 2001 in September. We will get in before the sun decides to change back and get up an hour later again.

Please think about colleagues, friends, etc. who would like to learn to row over a four week period and have a fun regatta at the end of this experience. We need at least 4 corporate crews for the event.

David Cay
President

Please put 5 May aside for the launch of the inaugural North Shore Rowing Club Vintage. This evening will take the format of a wine tasting to be followed by an Italian dinner. Wine orders will be taken on the night, and as well, single bottle purchases will be available. Any serious suggestions for a North Shore Rowing Club label can be submitted to Andrew Boyce or Justin Peters at the Clubhouse in the next few weeks.

Sue Walter
Social Committee

John Brabant

Racing season has well and truly begun for the Roseville crews and the season was started with two very successful rowing camps. Senior camp took place in the Hunter Valley. Hosted by Endeavour Rowing Club & Hunter Valley Grammar School, the Roseville crews spent a week rowing on the Hunter River at Morpeth. Staying at the Tocal Agricultural College, the girls had two sessions per day and showed considerable improvement throughout the camp. Junior camp was held at NSRC over a three day period and saw the girls also rowing two sessions between 6 am and 11.30 am.

Racing has begun well with the school already showing considerable promise. Our strongest crew is our first Year 10 quad who has already won at IGSSA and PLC Sydney regattas. They also had a strong performance placing third at the state championship regatta after only being together for a week. This crew, along with two members of our VIII will compete at the Nationals at Lake Wivenhoe, Brisbane in early April.

Roseville has also added one further boat to the fleet with the Race 1 quad. It is a minimum weight boat designed for school girls. This boat represents a further investment in rowing by the parents of Roseville Rowing. We hope that we continue to improve in the lead up to the Head of the River to be held on 1 April at SIRC.

Mike Curtin
Rowing Master

One of our newest members is a young man in his early 20s who came to us a few months ago through Kel Smith of the Moorong Spinal Unit at Royal Ryde Rehabilitation Centre. Shawn Taylor was on a rehabilitation course at Moorong, following an accident playing rugby which left him with a broken neck. Originally it was feared that he would be left as a quadraplaegic.

However, Moorong's program had brought a slight improvement and Kel felt rowing might speed up the program and produce a more complete recovery. A regular weekly rowing session was set up at the end of Burns Bay because it offered shelter and calmer water and a ramp which would give Shawn wheelchair access to the water.

Rowing started with Shawn using one of the Club's Sykes twin-hulled boats with a coach standing behind him, a foot on each hull to support, guide and instruct him. The initiative worked so well that Shawn, who had done some surf-boat rowing before his accident, took to it like a duck to water and within three weeks, he was rowing the Sykes solo, with Kel and the coach following in a coaching boat. Another 2 weeks and Shawn was rowing out as far as the Lane Cove River and looking really confident - so confident, that he was moved up into the Ted Hale single scull, without its outriggers fitted.

After a few more weeks, Shawn was discharged from Moorong but he had developed such a taste for rowing that he joined North Shore as a full member. He now drives down from his home at Narrabeen once or twice a week, walks down the steps and rough path and goes for a row, mostly in the Hale boat. But he has already had a successful outing in a conventional single scull. And on one occasion he made up the crew in a conventional quad scull when a regular member of the crew failed to turn up.

He is now looking for a crew which would consider taking him as a regular member and will willingly make up the numbers if a crew is one short - quad, four or eight.

Shawn is not the first "customer" NSRC has had from Moorong. Three years ago a young man named Tim came for a few weeks, then returned to his home in the Northern Rivers Region and is continuing his rowing at Lismore RC. Soon after Tim left us, we had a young woman from Moorong rowing for a few weeks and now Kel Smith has asked us to start a program for another young patient from the spinal unit.

Steve Blatchford
Disrow Co-ordinator

Training Tip

Editor: Linda Ormerod

Fax. 9416-6753

Email: lindfield@alpha.net.au