Get Rowing Going on Newry Canal

Newry Rowing Club is a voluntary, community sports organisation affiliated to Rowing Ireland. It was founded in 1873 and is based at the Albert Basin on Newry Canal.

The club provides a range of sports opportunities in both a competitive, social and recreational way. Rowing is becoming a popular sport in Newry and in the past 3 years membership has tripled. 

Our club offers Rowing for Juniors from 13 years old + and we welcome all ages to come down to Newry Canal and give rowing a go. Our membership ranges in age from 13 - 61 with both our oldest and youngest members joining the club on our last beginners programme.

The Challenge

Like many sports clubs we have experienced two years of restrictions on our training and races because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Throughout lockdown and when restrictions easing we have had a huge interest in more people looking to give rowing a go at both a competitive and recreational level. 

This leaves us with a challenge from both an equipment and coaching level. With more people looking to get on the water we require more equipment and more coaches. Which is why we have launched our project, "Get Rowing Going".

The Project - Get Rowing Going

We at Newry Rowing Club want to showcase what rowing is all about and we want to provide the opportunity for anyone who wants to to get involved in this great sport!

We are hoping to raise £10,000 to Get Rowing Going on Newry Canal. We are raising money to:

• Purchase New Equipment

We are raising funds to purchase essential equipment that will help us to facilitate getting more people involved in rowing and for use in future beginner rowing programmes. The equipment we hope to purchase includes:

• 2 Sweep Oars £320 each
• Pair of riggers for a junior double £250
• Four pair of riggers to refurbish a women's quad £250 per pair
• 2 Mega Phones for Coaches £74 each
• Cox Box for coaching - £500
• Microphone for coaching £84
• Rate Watch £138
• Coxless Quad £1,000
  
  

Develop our Club

At Newry Rowing Club we aim to provide:

• Rowing Beginner Programmes in June & July costing approx £600
• Junior Coaching - one day per week April - June costing approx £500
• Trophies and medals for Head of the River costing approx £200
• Junior Development Programme £400 see below
• Launch Safety Development £500 see below

• Coach Development

Junior Development Programme

We are so thankful for all of the young volunteers that we have in the club and we want to develop them even further. We want to develop our young coaches providing them with skills that they can use both on and off the water. 

We want to provide a junior development programme for are rowers aged 13 -18. As a club we rely on our volunteers and we want to develop our young rowers to be our future coaches. 

Our development programme will provide young rowers a foundation qualification in rowing. We will then provide them with opportunities to gain experience in coaching at the club and acting as mentors encouraging other children to join the sport.

Our Junior Development Programme will cost around £400. We aim to put five junior rowers through the introduction rowing Ireland coaching qualification at £80 per person.

• Coach Development

Launch Safety Drivers

We also aim to put two of our members through the RYA Level 2 Powerboat course. As the club grows we will require more safety launch drivers and we want to complete this course to help with club growth enabling us to get more people out on the water. This will cost £500 in total.

Overall, we want to provide an opportunity so that anyone who wishes to give rowing a go can!

Thanks for reading!

Newry Rowing Club