Friday evening 13 May saw great celebrations at Stratford upon Avon Boat Club as the new training room and refurbished Club Room were opened by James Roe MBE and Nadhim Zahawi MP
Said Stephen Haighton, Chairman of Stratford Boat Club, “We have been extraordinarily lucky here at the Boat Club that we got together the right team, with the right vision, ambition, skills, talent and commitment, ably lead by Glyn Hawkins for whom this has been virtually a full time job and who we recognised with honorary life membership last week. We were also very fortunate to have the right people advising us included some great partners such as MRT Architects and Iris Construction and invaluable help from Alan Meegan at British Rowing”
Other guests included chief executives and senior executives from Sport England, British Rowing and Stratford Town Trust who provided just under £200k between them to fund the project
Commented Paul Stanton, President, “The key objectives and main reasons for building are to provide all-weather year round training facility, to improve access for disabled athletes and to increased participation in sport and rowing. There have been a number of very generous individual donations including my predecessor Felix Badcock whose estate provided £12,500 for the development. He was a very passionate advocate of building the extension and we know that the finished result is a fitting memorial to him”
“We will be continuing with our fund raising activities with the aim of paying the bank loan off early,” stated Glyn Hawkins, lead committee member for the refurbishment. “We are very keen to attract more sponsors and we hope that progressive local businesses will see that the Boat Club is a thriving Stratford community asset and want to be associated with us”
On Sunday, Stratford upon Avon Boat Club Masters squad were back on the water commencing their regatta season with a tough baptism at Nottingham Masters’ Regatta. This high standard event which attracts some of the best crews in the country was held in good weather conditions which contributed to some high quality racing
First up for Stratford was Chris Straw and Joe Moore in Masters’ F double sculls who put in a brave performance finishing third in their event. Chris and Joe followed this up with Mike Atkins and Simon Moore in Masters’ F quad sculls
In an excellent race against Peterborough, Stratford lead out to the 600 metre mark only to be pipped by Peterborough by four seconds in a time of 4.02 minutes
Final race of the day saw Gary Clay, Tom Doherty, Richard Nelson and Simon Beard competing in Masters’ E coxless fours. After a shipwreck on the start which cost Stratford two lengths on the rest of the field, the crew settled into a good race pace and by 500 metres had overhauled the entire field to lead at the halfway mark, a position they held until 800 metres when they were just overhauled to finish third 2.5 seconds behind the race winners Express from Cambridge in a time of three minutes and 40 seconds
Said Tom Doherty, “Whilst our own race result was disappointing, it was pleasing to see three masters crews from Stratford all competing so competitively at a high quality regatta this early in the season and bodes well for the rest of the regatta season”
For more media coverage, see Stratford herald p2 and p19 and The Stratford Observer p39