Rowing Ireland Board Bulletin

Rowing Ireland Board Bulletin

April 2015

This Bulletin summarises the items discussed at the Rowing Ireland Board Meeting on the 28th March 2015.

The following directors were present at the meeting:C Cronin (President), F Coghlan (Secretary), S Dunlea (Treasurer), K Kerr (Munster), L O’Callaghan (Munster), L Gibson (Leinster), G Farrell (Leinster), B Ewing (Ulster), E Colcough (Connacht). H Adams (CEO) in attendance.

The following were the main items arising from the meeting:

1Scott Walker of the IRFU presented a detailed summary of the IRFU’s thinking on club development. He reflected that “retention” was a big issue for the IRFU and presented data to show that this is also the case in other major sports in Ireland. The IRFU approach to developing sustainable clubs was based on encouraging clubs to build strengths in the areas of finance, volunteers, facilities and participation (eg school/club linkages). He outlined the IRFU “Welcoming Clubs” programme. This encourages clubs to be “business savvy” by viewing development challenges though business eyes and applying basic business principles to the management of their affairs .

2M Espersen (HPD) presented a summary of HP activity which contained the following information:

Para Rowing. It is likely that a M1X will be entered for the World Championships.
Juniors. 15 athletes will be trialling at the Easter Camp for the Coupe de la Jeunesse
U23. A LM4- is likely to be formed. A M2x or M4X may also be formed.
Senior Women. It is likely that four boats (1X, 2X, 2-, LW2X) will be competing at international level in 2015.
Senior Men. 20 athletes arein training under J Mangan.
Regional HP Units. A network of HP regional units is planned as the next step in developing a sustainable HP programme. A number of clubs have shown an interest in participating. These will need to work closely with their local University.
Competition Restructure. The domestic events programme, the Irish Rowing Championships and the HP trialling and competitive programme could be better integrated to compliment and strengthen each other. Ireland is behind other European countries in achieving this.

3There was a 20% return from the equality questionnaires circulated in February vs a targeted 75% return.

4Registered athletes in 2014 were down by 9% in spite of the new competition structure which had athlete retention as a primary objective. It is intended to investigate what is behind these numbers.

5A Rowing Ireland application to the 2015 Sports Capital Grant is being prepared for the erection of steel sheds for boat storage.

6Dermot Keogh was appointedas chair of the Para Rowing subcommittee

7A review ofBranch Terms of Reference is being undertaken

8The Waterways Ireland sponsorship for the J14 and J15 leagues has been increased to €4,000. €250 will be donated to each of the six regatta committees involved.

9The Touring subcommittee has been integrated with the Recreational Rowing subcommitteechaired by G Farrell.

10Phases 2 and 3 of the Tracker development are now rolled out and are working well. It was decided to go ahead with Phase 4 at an estimated cost of €12,000. Thiswill include support of the Master’s categories and registration of recreational members.

11It was recognised that the Audit committee had worked extremely hard to get the 2014 accounts out on a very tight timescale.

12Voting procedures at the annual Fixtures Meeting will be reviewed.

13The application of Corrib Rowing and Yacht Club for affiliation was accepted. The Club was founded in 1864 and was affiliated from shortly after their founding until 1976.

14The two rule change proposals which had not been accepted at the EGM will be represented to the 2015 AGM, with changes which take on board issues raised at the EGM.

15In relation to the rule on points deductions for adult rowers, it was agreed that a floor of 300 pointsshould be retained and negative points for losses incurred when at or below 300 points would not apply.

16K Kerr and L O’Callaghan were complimented for their work in running umpires exam as were SDunlea, TJ Ryan, S Scully, P Lyons, E Colcough, S Heaney, I James, R Walker who ran the new umpires training courses.

17The next Board meeting is scheduled for Saturday 18th April 2015.

F Coghlan

Secretary

Rowing Ireland