Who are we?
We are an inclusive, friendly Cornish pilot gig rowing club who were established in the aftermath of the 2005 floods as part of the rebuilding of our community. We encourage people of all ages and backgrounds from a wide local area to try out rowing with us. Many people who take part in our 'learn to row' sessions go on to join us.
Our club offers its members the chance to row socially or competitively in regattas, and they also benefit from the many social opportunities the club offers them. We have teams who compete in the annual World Pilot Gig championships in the Scillies. We provide all of our members with regular opportunities to row and improve their fitness and technique through our team sessions.
Our current focus in on developing our Junior squad, the Boscastle Barracudas, who have not been together for very long. They are now growing from strength to strength and are an inspiration to all of us. They have experienced some wonderful successes this season in regattas.
Following Covid, we had a lot of interest from people in our community wanting to try out gig rowing which resulted in a a huge increase in our membership.
As it is such an enjoyable, accessible sport, many of our newer members quickly discover that gig rowing can quickly become a passion. It provides opportunities for young, old and everyone in between to get fit and healthy in some of the most beautiful natural environments.
Rowing provides opportunities to develop strength and fitness without putting undue stress on our joints, so it can help us stay fit and active for longer. We have a many rowers in their 50s and over with our oldest members rowing into their 70s. Over 60% of our members are women.
Why are we crowdfunding?
The growth of our membership coincided with the deterioration of our existing training fleet. Consequently, we now urgently need a new training boat so that we can continue to offer regular rowing opportunities for all of our existing members, while being able to take on new members.
Gig rowing is a community sport and we deliberately keep our membership fees affordable to encourage and widen participation in our club rowing. These barely cover our running costs, so we have to raise additional funds to replace our existing equipment.
How we’ll spend the money raised
We need to raise £10,000 to buy a new training boat. We have a conditional offer of £5,000 from Sports England, through their Movement Fund, which will be available to us if we are able to raise a further £5,000 through this campaign. Our fundraising committee is working hard to raise this amount through a range of activities including a fundraising dinner, quiz night and through our winter league regattas at Roadford Lake, but we need more help.
Community impact
We have been growing our club since opening up after Covid and want to continue to be able to offer places for anyone in our community who wants to join us. Our locality includes some isolated rural communities in this part of Cornwall so we cast our net wide for people to join us. Our club offers our members the opportunity to connect with others to develop their fitness and skills as part of a supportive, socially active group.
We have had a lot of success in recruiting older members. So many new members comment that they were not very sporty or physically active before joining.
We are especially keen on developing opportunities for our younger rowers and would like to encourage more youngsters from 12 upwards to join us. They are our future: we hope they will stay with us and eventually join our adult crews. We want to make sure we have the equipment in place that they need to be able to row regularly.
How you can play your part
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!