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Iffy

2024-09-02T09:31:10+00:00September 2, 2024|Stories|

Iffy

In 2017, I had my first encounter with rowing when my high school joined the All Aboard Youth Rowing scheme.  This was the first time I’d heard of the sport and  the local club that I would spend huge amounts of my time at for the next 7 years.

On Monday mornings, myself and my other school peers would spend 2 hours learning the ropes of rowing out on the Mersey, it was this 2 hour time slot that I’d always look forward to. I had a reason to be excited for the beginning of the school week  I was never a student who hated school, I just lacked confidence in the classroom due to my ADHD—instead of asking questions and asking for help I’d keep to myself—but with the help of rowing I seemed to gain confidence and motivation. The All Aboard Youth Rowing scheme allowed me to grow as a person in both general and school life.

It’s because of the amazing Youth Rowing scheme and coaches that I am, ultimately, where I am now. Without All Aboard Youth Rowing I’d never know about the sport, I’d have never joined Warrington Rowing Club as a member, and I would not have been able to experience racing at Henley Women’s or Henley Royal Regatta. I would not hold a silver medal from Brit Champs and, I would especially not be on an Athletic Scholarship at The University of Tulsa, USA.

I row in the first Varsity 8 for Tulsa and this year we won gold at our conference in Tennessee, we also were also awarded boat of the year by the All-American Conference, I was also named to the All-American academic team.

These opportunities that I’ve been able to experience have been made possible because of my first initial encounter with rowing, and I’m grateful that All Aboard Youth Rowing were the first to take me under their wing. For this I thank them.

2018-2019

2024-07-30T09:52:59+00:00July 30, 2024|Uncategorized|

This year saw a number of changes. Our age range was reduced to year 8, for a number of reasons. Pressures of the Education System meant that there was a reluctance for schools to release pupils as they got nearer to their GCSE Exams. Other factors weighed in, mainly linked to logistics but it was generally agreed that year 8 would be the way forward.

We said goodbye to our head coach, Phil and welcomed Paul to the team. We also brought in more part time coaches to cover a busy timetable of sessions.

Our indoor competition was held at The Halliwell Jones Stadium, home of The Warrington Wolves. In theory this was a brilliant idea and although it worked well, it happened to fall on the coldest day of the year. Despite the chill, we hosted over 200 young athletes and selected another strong team to take to NJIRC, hosted this year at the Copper Box in the London Olympic Park.

One of our star rowers, Ellie Kadir managed to upgrade her bronze medal from 2018 to a Silver medal!

Once again the spring weather enabled us to get back on the river and the pupils went into training for the summer regatta.The 2019 regatta had a new trophy, presented in memory of Roger Chicken and it was to be awarded to the best school of the year. Our first winners were Birchwood High School. The regatta was a great success and again there were a large number of spectators watching their first rowing event.

Fundraising Officer Vacancy

2024-08-30T13:30:41+00:00July 29, 2024|News|

Fundraising Officer – All Aboard Youth Rowing (formerly Warrington Youth Rowing)

Hours: Full-time

Job Type: 2-year Fixed Term Contract with potential for extension

Salary: £32,500 – £35,000 pa

Are you a great fundraiser with an interest in helping a growing and successful charity based in North-West England? All Aboard Youth Rowing – formerly known as Warrington Youth Rowing – is a charity established to support disadvantaged children achieve life skills using the sport of rowing.  An exciting opportunity has arisen for a creative fundraising professional to coordinate and achieve additional funding.

The Role

The Fundraising Officer will coordinate all fundraising activities in line with the Charity’s overall strategy and sustainability plans.  Working closely with the Chief Executive Officer, the Fundraising Officer will identify sources of income and build good working relationships with funders to achieve agreed funding targets.

The role is based in the North-West of England working from home and ideally, the Fundraising Officer will be in one of the following locations:

  • Cheshire
  • Merseyside
  • Greater Manchester

Key areas of responsibility for the Fundraising Officer include:

  • Contribute and assist with the development of a fundraising strategy for the Charity.
  • Achieve the agreed funding target of newly sourced funding within the specified and agreed timeframe.
  • Identify potential sources of funding and maximise opportunities to secure funding and grow and develop income.
  • Develop relationships with funders aiming to achieve and maintain long-term partnerships.
  • Maintain a database of funding sources, funders, and funding partners.
  • Apply for funding by letters of interest or application forms dependent on the funding organisation’s requirements.

About You

The successful candidate will be highly motivated and have a background in fundraising.  They must be able to demonstrate a strong track record of securing funding from national funders, preferably for the youth or sport sector. They will have experience of monitoring the impact of community projects.  In addition, they will be adaptable and comfortable working on both their own initiative and as a team player.

About the Organisation

The Charity has a desire to grow and become more sustainable, the Fundraising Officer will play a key role in achieving this ambition.  The aim of the Charity is to enhance the life skills of disadvantaged youngsters using the sport of rowing.  The charity works closely with Henley Stewards Charitable Trust and British Rowing to help achieve this aim.

All Aboard Youth Rowing run programmes in Warrington, Merseyside, Northwich, Greater Manchester, Runcorn and North Staffordshire.

Further information

For further information, please see the job description.

Application

To apply, please send a CV and covering email to Elaine Nesbit elaine@warringtonyouthrowing.org.uk

Close Date: 9.00 am on Friday 3rd May 2024

History Update 2022 – 2023

2024-09-02T10:45:42+00:00August 3, 2023|News|

The new academic year that started in September 2022 was yet another step forward. Greater Manchester Youth Rowing, based at Agecroft Rowing Club sprang into life. Else where it was a case of sustaining and growing our current sites.

The schools in Warrington, some of them now seven years into the project, soon got to grips with things and most of them where active by early October. We lost two of the schools for various reasons and they took a year out but promised to return next year. We did, though, gain two new schools in the shape of Penketh High School and St Gregory’s Catholic High School.  The coaching team at WYR is now well versed in the way we do things. They continue to impress with their dedication and willingness to adapt and improvise. The coaching team at WYR was bolstered by the addition of a British Rowing Grow Coach in the shape of Quin Dunne.

Action on The West Float Dock continued at a pace with plenty of action on the water. North Liverpool Academy increased their sessions to three per week and three other schools increased their sessions to twice weekly. We were delighted to be able to introduce two new schools to the Mersey programme. South Wirral High School and Dixons Broadgreen both joined the fold during the spring term. Our student based coaching team at Mersey are performing well and are always up for a challenge, especially as they work on a commercial dock. I’m sure we will all miss the navy ship, that has now moved and was an interesting feature on the skyline.

The river Weaver saw plenty of activity with local schools continuing to participate and utilise the modern facilities at Northwich Rowing Club. The enthusiasm of the schools in Northwich is always rewarding to see and unsurprisingly they did very well at the Youth Rowing Regatta in July. Winsford High School capped their year by winning the Roger Chicken Trophy as the best performing school over the year. The number of schools increased as we lost one but gained Hartford and Rudheath. Kev Jump leads a well-established group of coaches at Northwich, and they have developed a very inclusive and caring style that works well with our youngsters.

Agecroft Rowing Club now play host to Greater Manchester Youth Rowing, and it is interesting to see the youngsters working alongside athletes that are on the GB pathway. Six schools eventually signed up with five of them coming from United Learning, a large trust with schools all over England. Our coaches at GMYR are by in large young adults and some of them are on the GB pathway. Its great to see these coaches passing on the skills that they have been learning, whilst being coached themselves by GB coaches!

The popularity and growth of Youth Rowing carries on and we have started planning for our next site to be based at Runcorn Rowing Club. Onward we march!

Rocking the Boat, the outreach conference that we help to organise with London Youth Rowing and Henley Stewards Charitable Trust took place in October and I’m delighted to say that we played a major part, organising several speakers. Scott Whitfield from LJMU was able to highlight his work and his study into our work and I’m pleased to say it was a big hit with the audience. Rocking the Boat 3 is in the planning stages.

We managed to hold our two Youth Rowing competitions this year, despite a teachers strike on our original regatta date. The indoor competition was held at Birchwood High School on 25th January. We had our biggest entry to date with 375 young rowers taking part. In July we eventually held our regatta with a slightly reduced entry due to a teachers strike on the original date. We were pleased to welcome along Siobhan Cassidy, Chair of The Boat Race Company as a guest and she was delighted to see so many youngsters taking part in a regatta for the first time.  It was a radically altered format and in general it worked well. Knutsford and Winsford were the winners on the day.

Based on the results of the indoor competition we were able to select a team to take part in the National Junior Rowing Championships at The Copper Box Arena in London. All four of our areas were represented and we sent the largest team to date, comprising 40 rowers and 35 adults.

Henley Stewards Charitable Trust continue to be our principal sponsor and we are very grateful to receive this cornerstone funding. They also give us valuable assistance at the time of Henley Royal Regatta, and this enables us to invite school leaders to attend the regatta and experience what is possible for their youngsters.

The Boat Race Company have also provided funding and we even got a mention on the BBC with their live coverage of the Boat Race.

Our old girls Iffy and Elle continue to do us proud with their rowing scholarships in the USA. Iffy at Tulsa University and Elle about to start at Washington State.

Indoor Rowing Championships 2023

2024-08-30T13:47:19+00:00February 7, 2023|News|

The fifth Indoor Rowing event took place at Birchwood Leisure and Tennis Complex on Wednesday 25th January 2023.

Participants from all four rowing programmes – Warrington, Northwich, Mersey and Greater Manchester – took part. For Greater Manchester, this was their first experience of the event. There was a total of 372 youngsters representing 23 schools. They raced as individuals in a timed race of either 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 minutes depending on age group and also took part in a 4-person relay team competing over a distance of 2,000 metres. The event was a huge success and everyone had lots of fun as can be seen in the photos.

Big thanks go to the volunteers, coaches and Trustees who supported the event and ensured it went without a hitch.

Video – Indoor Rowing Competition 2022

2024-08-30T13:47:33+00:00February 12, 2022|News|

Held at Birchwood High School, nineteen schools participated in the WYR Indoor Championships. There were participants from schools in Warrington, Merseyside and Cheshire.

Indoor Rowing Competition 2022

2024-08-28T12:07:29+00:00February 12, 2022|News|

The fourth Indoor Rowing event took place at Birchwood Leisure and Tennis Complex on Thursday 12th February. It was the first such event since before the pandemic and the first to bring all three youth rowing programmes – Warrington, Mersey and Northwich – together to participate in the same event on the same day at the same venue.

A total of 280 pupils from 20 schools attended. The races included Year 8 Boys and Girls, Year 9 Boys and Girls and Year 10 Boys racing each other on rowing machines (Ergos). There was also an event for pupils from our SEND schools. School staff, Youth Rowing coaches and volunteers encouraged and cheered on their charges who, though fiercely competitive, had great fun. The biggest cheer of the day was for the adults’ race between school leads, coaches and Trustees.

The event concluded with a series of relay races, which allowed the students to show off the skills they’d acquired throughout the winter whilst training in the Gym. As ever the results of the relays came down to the Formula 1 style change over; these pit stops require students to demonstrate a high level of team work and cooperation.

The event could not have happened without the support of our wonderful team of Trustees and coaches. There were also a large team of volunteers who gave up their time to make the day the great success it was.

Special thanks to Dan Hethering of British Rowing, Birchwood High School for the use of the school Sport’s Hall, LiveWire for the use of the facilities at Birchwood Leisure and Tennis Complex and St James Wealth Management for their financial assistance.

Our next event is Warrington Youth Rowing Regatta on Wednesday 6th July 2pm to 6pm.

2022-2023

2024-08-12T08:01:50+00:00January 1, 2022|Uncategorized|

A great year for Warrington Youth Rowing!

 

Greater Manchester Youth Rowing, based at Agecroft Rowing Club, sprang into life. Elsewhere it was a case of sustaining and growing our current sites.

 

Although we lost a couple of schools for various reasons we gained 2 schools in Warrington, 2 schools in Merseyside and 6 schools in Greater Manchester. Our coaching team, now highly experienced, continued to impress us with their dedication and willingness to adapt and improvise.

 

Over on the West Float, our Merseyside schools worked hard. North Liverpool Academy increased to 3 sessions per week and 3 other schools increased to 2 sessions per week.

 

In Northwich the river Weaver saw plenty of activity with local schools continuing to participate and utilise the modern facilities at Northwich Rowing Club. The enthusiasm of the schools in Northwich showed at the end of year regatta where Winsford High School won our Roger Chicken Trophy as the best performing school over the year.

 

With Greater Manchester Youth Rowing well underway at Agecroft Rowing Club, host to GB Pathway athletes, some of whom are coaching for us! It’s great to see these coaches passing on their skills.

 

Both our Youth Rowing competitions went ahead this year despite a teachers strike on our original regatta date. The indoor competition was held at Birchwood High school with our biggest entry to date. 375 pupils! In July we held our regatta with a slightly reduced entry. We were pleased to welcome Siobhan Cassidy, chair of The Boat Race Company as a guest and she was delighted to see so many enthusiastic young athletes taking part in their first regatta. The format of the regatta was radically altered and proved much better!

 

Based on the results of the indoor competition we were able to select a team to take part in the National Junior Rowing Championships at The Copper Box Arena in London. All four of our areas were represented and we sent the largest team to date, comprising 40 rowers and 35 adults.

Henley Stewards Charitable Trust continues to be our principal sponsor and we are very grateful to receive this cornerstone funding. They also give us valuable assistance at the time of Henley Royal Regatta, and this enables us to invite school leaders to attend the regatta and experience what is possible for their youngsters.

The Boat Race Company have also provided funding and we even got a mention on the BBC with their live coverage of the Boat Race.
Our old girls Iffy and Elle continue to do us proud with their rowing scholarships in the USA. Iffy at Tulsa University and Elle about to start at Washington State.

View from the Launch November 2021

2024-08-28T12:47:28+00:00December 3, 2021|News|

It’s been a while since my last newsletter, things have been very busy at WYR with lots going on. I will outline our plans for the future below, which I hope you will find as exciting as I do.
I can begin by saying that the whole Team have had a couple of get togethers. Our first one being a training session for all the Trustees, Volunteers and Coaches. It was a valuable session and one of the few chances we all have to get together; as well as undergoing training, many tales were swapped and experiences shared. Our most recent event happened in mid-November and was our annual fund-raising dinner at Mere Court Hotel. A great time was had by all and the support from the wider rowing community was very much appreciated. Steve O’Connor was our main speaker and he enlightened a spell bound room with tales of the great work that Fulham are doing with the prison service amongst their other activities.
Sadly, Covid saw off our competitions this calendar year, but we have plans in place to make sure they return in 2022. Our indoor competition will once again be at Birchwood High School on Thursday 27th of January. Schools, please make a note of this date and start booking transport and making all other arrangements. A very early guess at timings would suggest 9.30am till 2.30pm. The main aim of the Event will be to pick our year 8 teams to go to London for the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships on Friday March 4th. We will select three teams for this trip, one from WYR, MYR and NYR. We may also send a SEN team, if we can make the finance and logistics work. As well as the year 8 competition on the 27th of January, we will also run races for other year groups, so please feel free to bring them along. This will be a big event for the youngsters, we hope to have up to 30 schools and 450 students taking part.
We will be ending our school year with a regatta on Wednesday 6th July, on the River Mersey at Warrington Rowing Club. This is for all of our schools and should be a great occasion, the rowers can invite friends and families to come and watch their newly found skills. It will start at 3pm and finish at 6ish depending on the race schedule.
I am delighted to report that our new home for Mersey Youth Rowing is working very well, we now have ten sessions a week from a mix of Liverpool and Wirral Schools. We are hosted by Liverpool Victoria Rowing Club and they have been most helpful allowing us the run of their club during the day. Interestingly, all of our coaches at MYR are students and this was a bit of a leap of faith, but I am very impressed with the way they conduct themselves and impart their knowledge to the young rowers.
Northwich Youth Rowing got going with schools from all over Cheshire joining Knutsford, who were able to make a start last year. We are still talking with a number of other schools from the area and it is hoped more will join us soon. Northwich Rowing Club have embraced this project and are the perfect hosts. Their coaching gang are all veteran rowers and as with the students at Liverpool Vics they delight in creating bonds with the youngsters that enable them to make the sessions enjoyable. In the last couple of weeks NYR have just taken on a group of teenage Afghan Refugees; it takes great skill to get through to them but the smiles and fist pumps make it all worthwhile.
Our expansion plans are ongoing with our new base. In September 2022 we will be establishing Greater Manchester Youth Rowing which will be based at Agecroft Rowing Club. This is a good fit for our growth plans, Agecroft are a club that we know well and their base in Salford is well positioned to serve local schools. We are in the process of establishing a coaching team for GMYR, we are still a few short so please let me know if there is anybody interested.
Warrington goes from strength to strength and benefits from having a bit more history than the new sites. Getting going at the start of the academic year is much easier as they know what is involved to make the most of the project.
Warrington Rowing Club have benefited from having a steady flow of new junior members transfer from WYR. One of the girls from the 2nd year of the project has just finished 5th in GB Junior Sculling Trials and looks set for a fruitful 2022 season. Her colleague, also from WYR has just signed a Scholarship to study in the USA. More promising athletes are following in their footsteps.
During the summer of 2021 we tried to run a summer camp, with varying degrees of success. Next year we are going to modify the camps and pick 10 youngsters from all the schools at each site. They will be selected for the camp with the expectation that they will be interested in joining the host club’s junior section at the end of the course.
We also continued with our ongoing programme of Coach Education during the summer of 2021. Another batch of new teachers are now qualified as BR level 2 Session Coaches and some of them went onto complete their RYA Powerboat Course as well.
Our much-trumpeted study with Liverpool John Moores University has at last started. Some of the coaches and school leads will by now have had an email from the academics running the study and indeed, the first interviews should be taking place this week. Fingers crossed we should have some valuable data in a couple of years.
Ben and I have been heavily involved, with London Youth Rowing and Henley Stewards Charitable Trust in a project called Rocking the Boat. This was a video-style conference event that was intended to highlight the outreach work going on in the country and encourage more people to get involved. Feedback indicates that it was well received and we are involved in plans for next year. As part of this process Ben and I have been involved with other schemes around the country, lending a hand with our experience and knowledge of the last few years.
I will close by reminding you about ‘Easy fundraising’, if you don’t already support any other cause, please list Warrington Youth Rowing. It will cost you nothing but will be a great help to us.
Richard
07970796917 richard@warringtonyouthrowing.org.uk

View from the kitchen

2024-08-28T12:46:55+00:00February 12, 2021|News|

Sitting in my kitchen writing this news letter is a sad indication of the situation that we find ourselves in. White stains on my fingers and the smell of fresh paint in my house is another sign that things are not normal: DIY is not listed as one of my super powers. We are all desperate to get back to our day jobs and get our youngsters active again. Goodness knows what effect this latest lockdown will have on them, but we are ready to help them get back on track. The information that we have at present is that pupils will start to return from Monday 8th March and we will be ready from this date. Will this return date include Year 8? Who knows? But when your rowers are back in school and are ready to go please give us as much notice as possible. Most of our coaches are self employed or students and may well have to move things around to accommodate rowing sessions.

We can though report on some activity from the end of last year. We managed to squeeze in our capsize drill during the last days of the Autumn Term. This was very much a last-minute thing and I was delighted with the way the schools adapted and made the most of the occasion. The swimming ability of our group is still on average very poor but it is better than a few years ago. Buoyancy aids will remain the order of the day whilst the youngsters are on the water. Many thanks to LiveWire for making this event happen, their team were very helpful and understanding.

Over the years we have worked with London Youth Rowing and behind the scenes they have been a great help to us. We have always tried to support the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships which is their flagship event. Sadly this event fell foul of Covid but they managed to replace it with a virtual indoor rowing league and every month there is a new challenge. All of our schools took part in the December Challenge and we were going to carry on with this excellent scheme through the winter but Covid had other ideas. The competition is open to anybody, anywhere and there were even a number of entries from Australia and New Zealand. We did though have some excellent performances. Our old girls Iffy Marinos (Boteler now Priestley) won the girls age 17. Elle Kadir (Culcheth now Priestley) won the girls age 16 and was the fastest of all the girls. Kimberley Bentun (Birchwood) was joint 3rd with Elina Bormane (Padgate) in age 13 behind two young ladies from New Zealand. Tamara Collar (Cardinal Newman) was 3rd in age 12. For the boys Michael Kadir (Culcheth) won the age 15 by a margin. Evan Wray (Birchwood) placed 2nd in the age 14 with Steven Davies (Padgate) a close 3rd. Lucas Tinkley (Cardinal Newman), Kam Finni (Knutsford Academy) and K Stone (Bridgewater) all shared the top spot in age 13. Lucas Tinkley and Ollie Stanton (Cardinal Newman) came 1st and 2nd respectively in age 12.  If any schools would like to present medals for these results please let me know and I am sure I can find some for you to hand out. For the full results go to the London Youth Rowing website on the online league page where you can find us in the December results.

Assuming that we do get back on the water at some stage in this academic year, we have our end of year regatta to look forward to. Initially we had it down as Monday 28th June but we have pushed this back to Wednesday 7th July starting at 3pm and finishing around 6pm. It will be on the banks of The River Mersey at Warrington Rowing Club and it will be a great opportunity for our young athletes to show off their skills in front of family and friends who will all be welcome. Please come along and support this inspiring event.

Can I remind all school heads that we would be delighted to see you during any of our training sessions and we might even take you for a ride in one of the coaching launches!

We have recently become members of The Sport and Recreation Alliance and we were featured in their Daily Update. To see the article, follow this link.

https://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/news/children%20and%20young%20people/alliance-shines-spotlight-on-warrington-youth

I will close by reminding you about ‘Easy fundraising’, if you don’t already support any other cause, please list Warrington Youth Rowing. It will cost you nothing but will be a great help to us.

Kind regards and let’s hope for better news soon.

Richard

07970796917    richard@warringtonyouthrowing.org.uk

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