Latest News

​Return to Rowing!
After a very long break we are finally able to return to rowing. Please see the COVID 19 page for rules, guidance and FAQs

​AGM will be in the WEST CHURCH HALL
on WEDNESDAY 29th JANUARY 
AT 7PM

​Included on the agenda will be:
Election of committee
Discussion of regatta procedures
AOB

Note that there will be some merchandise for sale at the AGM
so bring your pennies!




NEW ROWERS!
ANYONE INTERESTED IN HAVING A GO 
CONTACT US AND WE WILL TRY AND ORGANISE A TRY OUT SESSION FOR YOU



PLEASE TAKE SOME TIME TO READ THE HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICY AND INFORMATION WHICH HAS BEEN UPDATED RECENTLY!


The following is from our latest newsletter , all members should receive newsletters and correspondance  by newschimp email, let us know if you haven't received and we'll add you. And if you don't want to receive them let us know and we'll take you off the list!


Junior
Firstly we are excited to welcome a new  junior member to the club! 
Young Hamish Hogg was born earlier this month and we'd like to say massive congratulations to his lovely parents, Heather and Iain, and a huge welcome to little Hamish from all of  us.

Goodie Prize

Last year we were kindly gifted a sum of money from the family of the late William "Goodie" Shepherd. The club decided that they would like to have a special award to give annually, voted for by members of the club, to the person or persons they feel have given over and above to the club in whatever capacity. Johnny Kerfoot has made a beautiful trophy for us. It is our intention to present this award at our regatta this year. News of how to vote will be announced this month.

Summer solstice 24 hour skiff challenge

What else do the most skifficious people on the planet do on summer solstice?
A great event for the whole club. Solstice is Friday 21st June with sunrise at 4:15 and sunset at 22.20. Thie idea is to keep one boat in the water for an entire 24 hour period, on either side of the solstice, with a party bbq at the end! 

We have about 18 hours of day light! So we are looking for 5 people (1 cox and 4 rowers but by all means have a 6th person in the skiff at the back) for each hour starting Thurs 20th June 8pm and finishing Fri 21st June 8pm.
On 1st June a form will go down to the Slaugherhouse for you to  add your name (and your friends but ask them first) next to the time slot that you wish to row/cox.
At least one member of CCRC has to be in the skiff but you can include family and friends in your slot who aren't club members.
We have automatically added the people who usually row on the Friday because they have agreed to be part of this 24 hour challenge.
People can add their names to more than one slot. The will be lights on the skiff for the 3 hours of darkness. Coastguard and so forth are aware of  the plans, and we are taking advice from them. 
There will be raffle for the 4:00-5:00 slot. The lucky winners will pick the full crew to row at sunrise (we’ll have the two boats for this so two winners) . Raffle tickets
will be available from the Slaughterhouse) This is weather permitting if it's blowing up a hoolie we'll cancel.

Youth Rowing
We have been so lucky since the start of the club to have had the guidance and steering of Wanda Mackay to the youth team, assisted by Fraser Thomson. Due to Hi Life  H and S policies, Wanda will be stepping back from the Youth for the time being, and we are  looking for commitee and general members to step up to help out , because the Youth are the future of the club and they are very important to us all. Natalie will still be helping out but we need to timetable a rota of adults. So if you would like to help, particularly coxes, please contact Matt Grist. You will need to have a  PVG check, which Wanda will arrange.

Scotmid

You might all have seen the news that Wanda has secured a £7500 grant from the Scotmid initiative. The money will go towards our new boat shed,  and we are currently looking for the perfect place to site it. 

Thanks so much to Wanda for her sterling efforts to drum up votes for the club and her fantastic presentation and thanks too to Fraser Thomson and Denis Torley for helping her. 

Concrete blocks  

You'll have seen the concrete blocks on the beach! Hopefully this has made things easier for you to get the boat up the beach, and our thanks go to Keith Greenfield on our engineering committee, and John Gordon of Rose Farm and Stuart Hill for doing all the hard work with the tractor putting them in place  - that was a lot of concrete!

Regattas 

Regatta season is underway and we're going well, with overall wins at Golspie and now Ullapool and 6th overall at Broughty Ferry. Most importantly though all of the regattas have been greatly enjoyable community events and new friendships have been forged with other clubs.

Open Rowing Sundays
Open rows will start up again on Sundays between 3 and 4, and again if you are a capable cox and would like to volunteer to help out please contact Alison Vandyke.

The summer rowing calendar is up and running. If you would like a slot for your crew or  you would like to slot into one contact Iain Hogg directly.

Merchandise
 
An order is going in early this week for all the latest orders. If you want to add anything please let Lindy know lindycc@gmail.com . It might be worth checking in that she has your latest order. We don't carry much stock now so please order if you think you want something. 

We have performance t shirts now as modelled here!  This is unisex we also have a ladies vest in same material, they are small in size so order next size up than normal if you are worried, they have a printed badge and can have Cromba or Cromarty printed dependent on preference.  We also have some caps and some lovely knitted red or red and white bobble hats



GOLSPIE REGATTA
Cromarty Rowers had a grand day out on Saturday in the lovely town of Golspie, it was a fantastic regatta, we met some lovely people and we even returned home with a few medals, a beautiful quaich for the youngest crew, and a wonderful trophy named in memory of a stalwart of  Golspie Rowing Club :  The Campbell Port Trophy for overall winners. It's fair to say we came home with a few smiles on our faces! Thanks so much to Golspie for hosting such a fantastic regatta.   

HOORAY FOR WANDA WOMAN AGAIN!
Wanda, received a 7500 cheque last week to take home to the club from the Scotmid Communities Campaign. Thanks to her for her determination, to Denis and Fraser for their support, and thanks to all of you who voted for the club! 

RENEWAL DETAILS NOW ON THE MEMBERSHIP PAGE 

RNLI WORKSHOP 
Great workshop this weekend from Michael MacDonald and Emma Maclelland of Invergordon RNLI. Many thanks to them for coming along. Many thanks to the Royal Hotel for letting us be there. He talked about the boat they have currently and gave us an idea of the one that it is going to be replaced with shortly. They serve an area covering the Cromarty Firth, going up to Helmsdale in the Moray Firth and over to Burghead and down to Fortrose, beyond that and in to the Beauly Firth, they share with the Kessock coastguard , who have a rib type boat, each boat attending incidents according to the situation. 


Some points he made follow and please add any more on facebook page, or message here,  as I am likely to have forgotten a lot because my note taking phone ran out of battery!

LIFEJACKETS
Should be checked every year (ours have been) and we should have a session each year where we inflate one just so everyone can be sure of what to expect. They are happy to send someone along for a check next time. He said that in one check 80% of jackets were deemed to be faulty or beyond use. 

RADIO
Familiarise yourselves with the procedure and how to use the radio. (This should be worn by the cox , with preferably one hanging on the peg in the boat also).   
For example 
MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY  for an emergency like person overboard or capsize or boat taking in water.  Give an estimate of where you are by using the things around you, it is helpful therefore to learn the name of the rigs that are berthed in the firth for example. 
PANPAN x 3  is for a state of urgency but is not yet emergency.


Each boat should take time at the start to make sure everyone knows how to use and talk to the radios.


Channel 16 is the coastguard
Channel 11 is the port radio channel


It is recommended that all leisure users of the firth, including skiffs, alert the Coastguard on channel 11 at Invergorden when we are taking a skiff out in the morning. So first row radio in and let them know we are out. This for each boat. 
And the final row of the day contacts them to tell them we are home and putting the boats away. 


This is really helpful because they can then tell all shipping in the firth to be aware of us and crucially to be aware of their wash affecting us adversly. 


Make sure when you go out someone at home knows that you are going out ( this is perhaps less of an issue for us as we have five in a boat, someone is bound to miss one of us!) 


WHISTLES
Helpful to have your own whistle , plastic (I’ve been looking to see if there are any recyclable plastic ones let us know if you find one) for preference as metal will rust in the sea air. 
(NB: DID YOU KNOW Any CCRC club member gets a wee discount at Gael Force?) 


WIND AND TIDE
Know these before you row. Check the app there are a few - he uses My tide times this has Cromarty and Invergordon on it. Check conditions if you are dubious , then just don’t row. 


They are very happy to come along and give talks any time. We cannot be too careful or have too much information about Health and Safety. Four lives were lost in the UK in the year 2016 alone in rowing incidents , but with many more,  thankfully , successful rescue operations.  If in doubt call them out, they’d rather go out to a concerning false alarm than miss a bone fide rescue opportunity for whatever reason. 

NOTE THAT OUR SAFETY PROCEDURES ARE IN THIS WEBSITE PLEASE LOOK AT THEM.



FROM THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
It's important! 

Dear Rowers,
Cromba is currently out of the water for her winter TLC after which Tess will be going back to the shed for some tweaks. The technical subcommittee are looking for your views on anything which could be altered, on either boat, to improve your rowing experience. We really want to hear as many views as possible, we have views on seat position, pin position and footrest fixings and angles, please add to these .so that we can give the builders a really clear, prioritised, steer on what the rowers want. 
Alongside this, we're really keen to have your views on launching and retrieving the boats. We're aware that some of you can find this challenging, and we want to make sure that everyone has equal opportunities to row. We'd particularly like to hear from you what you find difficult, how you feel about the new launching trolley, which is having a pulley and wider roller added, and of course if you have any practical solutions to these problems, we'd love to hear those too. 
All views expressed will be treated in confidence, the technical committee will distil the responses into a series of actionable projects and return to the club for prioritisation. The technical committee will then discuss with the builders the best way to deliver your suggestions, in the order set out by the main committee. 
To ensure we can get both boats attended to and back into the water by mid March, we need to move relatively quickly, so can we please ask that you email your suggestions to: tech@cromartyrowing.org.uk
by Wednesday the 20th of Feb 

 

BRIEF SUMMARY OF AGM 

We had a well attended meeting and Corrie opened proceedings with a report reflecting what a great year we had last year, with so many people joining our club and getting out rowing , us hosting our own regatta, and, amongst other things, finally launching Tess at the end of the year.

Voting took place for the new committee, as detailed on our web page here under ABOUT US . 

MEMBERSHIP
A new fee structure was ratified, there will no longer be a family membership category , only individual memberships . Individual memberships for over 18 remains at  20 pounds per annum. All under 18s are free. You will shortly get an email if we have your address and we'll also post links and publicise the new on-line membership system if we don't , you will then see how to go about renewing on line - someone from the committee will help you out if you are stuck with how to do it. You will still also be able to renew with paper if you prefer,  and pay cash if you don't like on line banking. We want to keep the fees low as we can so that the club is accessible for all. If you feel you can afford more we won't turn a wee extra donation down! 

We'll still have a try out time for new rowers of three rows then join. Could we also ask that perhaps one-off guest rowers make a small donation to the club.

EVENTS AND REGATTAS 
Other news from the AGM is that for competitive rowers we have entered some regattas, detail again on the web site under Calendars > events and regattas , for all the club we intend to have some social events and rows eg: picnic to Nigg or somewhere when the sun comes back and a start of season social.  We are also hosting a regatta ourselves again, this time  in August , this will be for the North East region as SCRA are keen to encourage inter-regional regattas and also with the worlds people are scaling down the regatta programme this year.  We are also doing some research into  whether we should be putting a bid in to host the Worlds on the Black Isle in 2022. 

FUNDRAISING 
Marion Graham is organising the fundraising lunches at the community market on 9th March, she will put a call out for help nearer the time. 

TRAINING & PROCEDURES
Some coxes' training over in Fortrose on the first two Saturdays in early March, see Corrie if you are are interested. We are interested ourselves in sourcing more training in the club for those who missed out on the last.  

Procedure wise, in the boat  it's the cox's responsibility to tell the next row if you are not going out.

We also discussed the fact it's good to do warm ups before,  and stretches after rowing.

​We have the new trolley and soon hopefully there will be a video on how to use it on the facebook page (which you will see on the website linked to facebook).  Our engineering sub committee will also be continuing to investigate easier ways of getting the boat out of the water and up the beach.  

Cromba is up for repairs and will be back some time in February, anyone who has time to give a hand is welcome to go up to Newton and offer their services! 

Wanda is going to be doing some training with the youth on Friday afternoons again and she is looking for a team of volunteers to assist with this, and she would put anyone who is willing through disclosure procedures, see Wanda if you can help. 

If you haven't joined Scotmid yet, please see Wanda before the end of the month! We are bidding for funds for our new shed. 
 
Finally, as you know, we have received a very kind donation from the family of the late William (Goodie) Shepherd and the club have decided to have an honour in his name for the person or persons who have contributed most to the club in that year, a trophy has been commissioned and there will more detail soon but meantime get your thinking caps on about who you might like to nominate for this award. 



--------------------------------------------------------
JANUARY NEWS...
​Happy New Year Cromarty Rowers!

And what a great start to the year, with many of us in the hall having a fantastic time at the Hoggmanay fundraising night. Latest tally is that the event made a grand total of 1450 for the club. That money will be well spent on equipment or training or oars! Many thanks to all the folk who organised that -  Fi Grist, Helen Gunn, Alison McMenemy and DJ maestro Iain Hogg plus Marion Graham and everyone else who helped out on the night , Phoebe Fox for selling tickets for us at Calluna and everyone who supported the event. 

Over the holidays, with some kind winds we’ve managed to get a lot of rowing in.  It’s been great to have had both Cromba and Tess out on the water and there’s even been a couple of good going racing sessions! 

And we’ve just had the most fantastic weekend of coaching from Ailsa and Alex from Eastern Club down in Portobello. We can’t thank them enough for giving us their time and expertise. As Iain just commented:   The snap is dead - long live the squeeze!  We’re sure there will be many long conversations about what we’ve learned in the days and weeks to come, after a few hot baths to ease the aching stomach muscles!  

The new pulley wheels for the trolley are proving helpful, very many thanks to Nigel Shapcott for sourcing and providing those for us. We are grateful that club member Graeme Collard is going to do a Health and Safety appraisal for us. Health and Safety, social rowing expeditions, training coxes and training for crews in general, are a few of the things we’ll be addressing more of in the coming year. 

 If there is anything you’d like to bring up, or suggest,  please feel welcome to do that not just at the meeting but any time, you can either talk to a committee member, or ask for something to go on the agenda at meetings.  It’s your club after all. 

Finally, don’t be panicking that you haven’t got your membership renewals (!) news on that soon.  Existing members will soon be sent an email or form with all the instructions how to renew after the meeting,  and we would then ask that after that, you please don’t then row until you’ve renewed.

Happy rowing folks -  see you out on the Firth, if not before. 

---

OCTOBER NEWS...

WILLIAM SHEPHERD DONATION
We have received a very kind donation from the family of the late William (Goodie) Shepherd and we will be announcing soon what we will do with this generous gift which we hope will pay tribute to the memory of such a lovely, much loved Cromarty Man. 

REGATTA TEAM SELECTION 
We recently had a very well attended meeting about how we go about selecting teams for Regattas, the minutes of this are on the notes and minutes page  . This is a start, we are are young club and we are trying our best to get things right for everyone in the club. So if we try systems out and they are not working we'll change them! In these notes there is a comment that we need to be kind and appreciative of our coxes, this goes for ALL the club  -  we are a huge and growing family and it's obvious there are going to be some things we don't neccessarily agree with, in which case please just get in touch with a member of the committee and we'll see what we can do to help put it right. 

NEWS OF TESS'S LAUNCH COMING SOON! 
But keep the date : 24th November!
We also plan to have a start of season club get-together in January.  
More exciting news...
THE WINCH ON THE WALL IS COMING! 

HARBOUR USAGE
We now have a new policy on harbour use,
check it out on our  Rules page. 

SEPTEMBER NEWS...

LIFEJACKETS
Our kind friends from the Slaughterhouse (HQ!) have hugely generously paid for an entire set of new life jackets for Tess. Our enormous thanks goes out to them! #SlaughterHouseCafe

UPDATES
A few points of note from our recent committee meeting: 
1) COXING - could everyone try to get into the habit of rotating your cox where possible during each row, everybody could be trying to build up their coxing skills and confidence as we need many more coxes! More coxing training is planned. 
2) ISSUES If you ever have any issues with the boat or you notice anything wrong, can you please let Mike Hale or Robert Hogg know as soon as possible? You can message us here for contact details. 
3) EXPENSES Anyone who kindly takes our boat to a regatta or event on behalf of the club will have their petrol reimbursed.

---

About Tess (our new boat).
Iain and Rachel Robertson came to live in Cromarty in 1990 from Shetland, together with their three children and a boat called Tess, short for Poetess . Shetland had been their home for several years - Vaila, Keir and Owen were all born there, and over the years Iain had spent many happy hours sailing around the wee Shetland Isles in his beloved Tess.  
After moving here, Iain  enjoyed taking Tess out into the waters around the town and in the Inner Moray Firth -   he was happy here, he loved Cromarty and its people.  So when he, sadly, died earlier this year, Rachel, Vaila, Keir and Owen thought it would be a lovely thing to leave a legacy for Cromarty that represented his love of the sea,  and what better way to do that than in the shape of a boat-  a much needed second boat for our fast growing club -  Cromba can barely keep up with all the use she has been getting in her maiden year.
And so it is that  our fantastic , dedicated building team - Robert, Thomas, Mike and other helpers are already putting together our new boat up at Newton Farm,  again with the kind permission of Bill Campbell , and we hope she will be finished before the year’s out. 
And most fittingly she will be called Tess, at the request of the family, and what a lovely way to remember a Cromarty brother. 
We are truly grateful to the Robertson family for their generosity.