Update – October 2016

This year at Queen’s Rowing we have two new PR Officers, Bilal Korimbocus and Laura Potts. We would just like to take a moment to introduce ourselves. Bilal is a second year Medical student at Queen’s University Belfast. Last year, he was the novice cox for the men’s cub. This year he has chosen not to participate competitively, but instead has taken up the roles of public relations manager and fundraising manager for the club. Laura is a Mechanical Engineering student, who began rowing as a novice last year, and is continuing her rowing career as an inter. We are hoping to publish a monthly update on recent news on what is happening at the club and try to strengthen the relations between present and past rowers as well as updates on key events.

This year, recruitment has been a huge success with rowers from both clubs representing rowing at the fresher’s fair on Thursday the 29th September. Additionally, Chris Rice, was walked up to the Lanyon Building, serving well to catch the eyes of unsuspecting potential recruits. This was a great opportunity to show off our new equipment and pay honour to the late Chris Rice. By the end of fresher’s week, the men’s and women’s clubs had over 600 email addresses of interested students in total. The following week these students were invited down to the boathouse, on either the Wednesday afternoon or Saturday morning, to have a chance at being in a boat and learning the skill. These days were a huge success with six boats on the water and over 48 novice’s trying out rowing for the men’s squad on day one, and seven boats for the ladies. Circuits and ergs at the PEC have started and there has been an overwhelmingly positive response by the novices in participating and bonding as a crew. Upcoming events for the novices includes the micro head on 5th November and BANN head on the 12th November and the Trinity sprints.

Meanwhile the intermediates have been training since the beginning of September. There are currently 14 inter men, and the main aim of training at the moment has been focused on producing a competitive eight and four. The women’s intermediate squad currently stands strong at 20 members who are currently training in small boats. Both clubs are also enriching their training with core, ergs, cardio, and weight sessions twice a day, 6 days a week. Upcoming events for the intermediates include BANN head, BUCS indoors on the 27th November. 

We are also excited to announce that the following student took part in high performance trials in Cork over the weekend of 08/10/16: Chris Beck, Phil Doyle, Sam McKeown, Gavin O’Dwyre, Ewan Murray, Miles Taylor and Jordan Wilson. The results of the weekend included the single sculls where Chris Beck made the A final and placed 6th overall and Sam McKeown making the B final and placing 2nd (8th overall) for the men. Gavin O’Dwyre, Ewan Murray and Jordan Wilson also competed and won their respective finals while Miles Taylor managed to come an impressive 3rd place in his final. Also, we sent two male quads and managed to secure both 2nd and 5th place. Meanwhile for the women’s club Olivia Blundell, Roisin Maguire, and Siofra Corr with recent graduate Bekki Davison, all competed as well. Olivia won the A final of the women’s quad, and placed an impressive 5th overall in the single scull. Roisin qualified for and won the C final in her single, and Siofra and Bekki placed 6th overall in the A final for their pair. It was a hugely successful weekend for the club with exceptional performances, and we are exceptionally proud of all students that have competed.

In the next newsletter. We hope to update you on the novice boats and how the club fared at Bann Head on the 12th of November, and also the mini-head on the 5th. If you have any questions or would like to know more, please feel free to contact either of us and we will be happy to answer any queries.

Yours in rowing,

Bilal

– PR and Fundraising Manager (bkorimbocus01@qub.ac.uk)

Laura

– PR Manager (lpotts03@qub.ac.uk)