Veteran scullers and crews have already been waving the flag for Gloucester both home and abroad. At FISA Masters this year we put out a remarkably large number of crews from a relatively small party(8) from the club, so the only category we didn't enter was coxed fours or eights because all the coxes were at school, but there were singles, doubles, coxless fours, quads and pairs in men, women & mixed crews and in age categories Vet A to Vet F which is an age range of 27-65 or so. We didn't bring back any medals, but had a great time and in the quiet of the evening over supper, we were plotting next years trip out to Verase in Italy.

Back in the UK, as you would expect, many miles both on water and (so it is claimed) on the erg are being racked up. We've also competed at the Pairs Head (though not as Veterans) as well as at both Tideway Fours Head and Veteran Fours, where the women returned on the Sunday and re-rowed in pretty much the same time as the Saturday winning Vet B.

I'm not sure if the FISA World Masters regatta at the beginning of September is the end of one year or the beginning of the next. It certainly has an end of season feel about it because while some serious competition is to be had with Olympians from various eras represented, there is a wide spectrum of seriousness of those taking part. This year it was held in Duisburg, which though not everyone's idea of a holiday destination put on a great event backed up with wonderful weather.

Land training for the Novices has been moved to Thursday night as the women are now going to be switching over to using the ergs on a Wednesday as the nights draw in. The session will be 2 x 15 minutes pieces with a 5 minute break between. The stroke rate should be 20 spm and everyone should be aiming for a 3-5s improvement in 500m split times compared to a couple of weeks ago.
We shall also mix in a core and stretching session as time allows.

At last year's AGM, we agreed to establish a new charitable company limited by guarantee. This was for 2 reasons: a major building project will always involve some financial risk and as a members club we (as individuals) would not be protected from that risk if we were to undertake the boathouse development ourselves; and many companies and charities that might support our development will only give to charities, so being a charity makes a wider range of funds potentially available to us. The decision at the AGM agreed to set up the charitable company as a fund raising vehicle but deferred a formal decision on transfering responsibility for the development to the company.