CLUB NEWS

The Christmas festivities have been in full swing this month with a number of celebrations at the club. The Christmas Party kicked off the festive fun on the 13th December and was enjoyed by all. Thank you to both the organising team and the bar team for getting everyone in the Christmas spirit.

Not to be outdone, MARS had their  Christmas party 16th December which included a festive fun gym class followed by a Christmas Buffet. Thank you to Nicky Wild for organising.

Diane Lancaster decorated the bar with the help of Julie Smith, Sue Thompson and Chris Hughes and the tree was kindly donated by Claire Dartnell.

Di also organised a wreath making workshop with the assistance on the day of Sarah Flint. The workshop was attended by 16 festive crafters who skillfully turned an array of foliage into beautiful wreaths and table centrepieces.

After costs the workshop raised a fantastic £188.48 for RRC funds. Well done Dianne and team for encouraging creativity and raising funds for the club.

In addition to this, the anniversary decorations sold at the bar have raised £111. Thanks primarily to Claire Dartnell and the willing bar staff who assisted in sales. This will be donated to the church as it was part of the Christmas Tree Festival.

The Christmas Spud Head took place on Saturday 20th December. With the river unrowable for much of the week, it luckily played ball on the day and the weather was perfect. 5 crews took on a fast flowing river to get to the start at Backney and were rewarded with bacon rolls back at the club afterwards.

Thank you to the Captains, Bron and Graham and Director of rowing, Dave for organising such a fun club event. Thanks also to Poppy for the fantastic pictures and Torsten for the bacon rolls.

Message from the Socials Team –

We hope you have enjoyed the socials over the last few months,with the Xmas Party now over that’s it for us for 2025. Don’t worry though, we will be back with more socials and quizzes in 2026!

We’d like to thank everyone who has attended and made these such fun events.

Thank you also to everyone who put their time and effort into organising and running these events. I’m sure you will agree the food that Buffy has produced has been incredible. Jan, Dave and the bar team and the socials team of Greg, Georgie, George and Poppy who organise, design and decorate. We are truly grateful to you all for the social events of 2025.

The Socials Team hope to see you all at more events next year, and as always, if you have any ideas for 2026 please let them know.

Junior Fours Head

Congratulations to Ross Junior Faith Thorpe-Williams rowing for Hartpury and her first time rowing the Tideway, steered a WJ18 4x in the Junior Fours Head. They came 15th of 56 crews with a fantastic time. Well done Faith and the Hartpury crew on this fantastic achievement.

Jessie Punn has gone from strength to strength in her coxing at Manchester University and now she has been selected for the British Rowing Coxswain Development Program, commencing January 2026 run by WOX and BR. Well done Jessie! This is testament to your hard work and dedication to coxing and we look forward to seeing whats next for you. Plus having you share your experience with us at RRC during uni breaks.

BR Volunteer Of The Year Award

Our very own Boathouse Fairy was recognised last month at the awards evening with the Devotion to Duty Award and his hard work and commitment has now been further recognised  –

I am delighted to announce the Tim Ball has been awarded Volunteer of the year for West Midlands.

This honour is so thoroughly deserved. Tim’s commitment, hard work, and willingness to give his time so generously have made an enormous difference, and anyone who knows him will agree that this recognition could not have gone to a more deserving person. Congratulations Tim!

Donation made to Cure Leukaemia, in memory of Philip ‘Plum’ Palmer

On a very wet and windy Friday earlier this month, Mike and Nicky finally got to deliver a big cheque of £800.61 to the Cure Leukaemia charity on behalf of Ross Rowing Club.

They were invited to meet at the Centre for Clinical Haematology in Birmingham on the site of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

They were met by a representative from the charity which was founded in 2003 and funds the Trials Acceleration Programme Network. The network enables the rapid setup, recruitment to and delivery of blood cancer clinical trials. This gives a huge number of patients access to potentially lifesaving treatments not currently available through standard care.

Over 500 children are diagnosed with blood cancer in the UK, every single year.

Blood cancer is the most common cancer in children and teenagers.

Find out more here: http://www.cureleukaemia.co.uk/about/

The amount raised was from our fundraising day all the way back in June on the Summer Solstice.

The amount is made up from

Cash donations on the day – £200.05

Donations via Zettle – £15 – £14.81 net (Zettle charges deducted)

Raffle tickets purchased via Zettle – £335.75 net

Donation from Ross Rowing Club – £250

The fundraising day was organised as Plum wished and proved to be a great success. It was great to see some old faces at the event. There were crews rowing from dawn to dusk. Some rowing more than once. The baton passed between boats taking part on the day was a toy hammer to celebrate his profession as a carpenter.

On top of this were the generous donations via our Just Giving page, which raised a further £850.

Thanks so much to everyone who got involved and contributed in anyway, shape or form to help us raise this amount.

Maybe next year we could do something similar for another charity close to someone’s heart?

Ross Rowing Club – Founded 1875

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