Newsletter Easter 2010 Ready for Mays 2010 W1 - Up 4 in Lents 2010. Photo: E. Tennant-Brown Dear Friends, Welcome to the second edition of our We’re hoping to include more and heavily revamped newsletter! Once more content from our members in again, Robyn has done a stunning job forthcoming issues, so if you’ve got any in bringing it all together, and I’m sure pictures, reminiscences or other articles it involves far more work than she lets you’d like to submit then please don’t be on, so a big vote of thanks is certainly shy in sending them to Robyn. due. I hope you enjoy catching up with Finally, I hope to see many of you at the latest from MBC, and also hope that this year’s Mays marquee next week: the distribution of this newsletter is more you’ll find a reminder on page 7. straightforward than last time (which in- volved Richard Hamersley having to dig my car out of the snow so we could make Chris Laws it to the sorting office on time!) FoMBC Coordinator Friends of Magdalene Boat Club From the Captain ow time does kit order arrived. If anyone has made it to the river Hfly when you’re recently, you’ll have undoubtedly seen us stashed having fun! I can’t out in the tops and caps all with the BNY Mellon believe that we’re logos, marking their ample support this year, both already more than at the boat house and at the first of we hope many two thirds of the way graduate opportunities meetings with them. through the year, where Training with our six boats in Lent term flew has it all gone? past with races nearly every week, on and off the In Michaelmas Cam. M2 in particular did us proud by winning term we undertook their category in both Newnham Short Course the annual daunting and Cambridge Head to Head. Before we knew challenge of teaching it Lent Bumps were upon us and work was put 30+ novices how to to one side whilst we spent the week on the river, row. Lead by our expert team of enthusiastic be it rowing, coxing, coaching, umpiring or Lower Boats Captains, they soon became familiar simply yelling support. not only with the technique of rowing, but the By the time you read this, we’ll have completed twists and turns of the Cam and all of MBC’s our second, larger and more exciting training quirky traditions. Meanwhile the first boat senior camp at Henley on Thames, supported generously, rowers were training hard all term in IVs, entering as every year, by the Friends. In inspiring them not only in Uni IVs but in Fairbairns too. surroundings, we’ll prepare for May term which To accommodate this, in Michaelmas term we will bring with it trips to Peterborough and Henley, enlarged our fleet with the addition of a new bow as well as our main focus of the term, May Bumps. loader IV+, George Mallory. In its very first race, Next term will probably go as quickly as the last our new boat saw success by finishing in third two, and I can only hope that it is as successful! place with W1 in Fairbairns. To get us back into the swing of things after the Christmas break, Lent term began with a small training camp in Cambridge, to which the Deborah Smith majority of the boat club attended. Soon after, our Captain of Boats 09-10 Brief Encounter here can surely be very few of us who were we that we failed to notice the gathering Thave not enjoyed this wonderful movie celebrities, until “Dolly Messiter” intervened and with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in their ushered us into the new exhibition. chance meeting in the station café at Ketchworth As we eventually departed, driving past Henley Station to the background of Rachmaninov’s station, the “Ketchworth train” was setting off. second Piano Concerto. In days gone by it used to be steam. I pointed it The Café in the River and Rowing Museum by out to “my friend”. It was at this point that she the Thames at Henley has its own nuance. She told me that she was partially sighted and that she was blond; she was beautiful, she was young and only saw objects in black and white for no more vivacious and over several café latte – served than a few yards in front of her. She had inherited by a Tunisian waitress from Casablanca no less cone dystrophy since a child and had learned to – we discussed the world of rowing and even live with it ever since - now she was rowing as a photography. She excelled at both. So engrossed paralympian for Great Britain! 2 www.magdaleneboatclub.com I drove her to the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing squeeze past some Olympians on the stairs. Lake at Caversham where she was due for a Here size matters, but Lightweight rowing is an training session. With her coach’s consent, she Olympic class too. And GB excels. showed me the Clubhouse and rowing lake. All this may be beyond public gaze, but The brainchild of David Sherriff, who owned Lottery money makes a huge contribution to this neighbouring Thames and Kennet Marina, he Olympic rowing effort. Every man and woman had, over 25 years bought up plot after plot of this has contributed to this cause. Book your tickets gravel-rich valley bottom until he had enough for for Dorney Lake because this Olympic Regatta in a 2000m rowing lake. It is now the home of the 2012 will be like no other in your lifetime. GB Olympic squad. As for my friend, she rows in the paralympian From the photographs on the walls, you could mixed LTA (legs, trunk, arms) IV+. The woman be in no doubt that the focus was on medals and at bow has suffered a leg amputation due to cancer shaving fractions of seconds off finish times. The and the two men in front of her are disabled too. ergo room, equipped to perfection, was humming Only the cox is able-bodied. This, my friend with exertion. When we opened the boathouse said, was a great relief to her because the rules door, the colour of bright Empacher yellow was require her to wear blacked out goggles for the overwhelming – wall to wall; floor to ceiling – 1000m race, no doubt a traumatic experience for with racks of white GB blades. an already partially sighted person. But they won Outside, on the boathouse hard, the benevolent Bronze at Beijing and more recently a Gold at boatman was brushing away the last leaves of Varese in Italy. No disability will hold them back. winter, quietly purring over his fleet. The most So to those in Magdalene Boat Club, whether exclusive boat trestles were dressed in bright blue you are large or cox-sized, male or female, able- with a Union flag in the centre – unfortunately bodied or disabled, consider the rowing option. too large to fit in my pocket! You could sell Consider rowing for your country. Join the millions of these. Leander Club rowing scheme after you graduate There wasn’t a sound. Even nature knew that or during a gap year and learn to row with the elite, this was a very special “reserve”. Out on the whether you are a heavyweight or lightweight. course a lone sculler made his way down the Move onwards and upwards. course. With the World Championships down in Yes, your country needs you. It’s Rio in 2016 New Zealand this August, was this a case of “the and it’s your turn to perform. Campbells are coming”? By now the smell of bacon was everywhere, for it was lunchtime. Bacon is protein. Protein Richard Hamersley is muscle. Muscle is strength. I could only just President, MBC The GB LTA IV+ in training. Photo: P. Cole, Getty Images. www.magdaleneboatclub.com 3 BNY Mellon Wishes Magdalene Boat Club every success in the May Bumps The focus of specialist boutiques backed by the strength of a global leader BNY Mellon Asset Management International Limited, 160 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4LA. Registered in England No. 1118580. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. BNY Mellon Asset Management International Limited is ultimately owned by The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. 18557 03-10 4 www.magdaleneboatclub.com Lents 2010 ent Bumps of course always starts with the On the men’s side, M2 kept climbing onwards Lexcitement of Getting On. Magdalene only and upwards. Due to an above-average number had three boats with permanent positions in Lents of senior men this year, our mens’ boats have which meant that M3, W2 and W3 all had to depth in experience and M2 had proved itself compete in the Getting on Race. For the second faster than the all of the surrounding boats in year in a row, W2 were successful in their efforts the races before bumps. As they continued their which gave them an advantage in the start order, climb upwards, “blades” began to be mentioned, and another step towards a permanent place. W3 but alas! The determination of Churchill to not had a gutsy row but unfortunately didn’t make the get their spoons on the final day must have been cut, whilst M3 had the most heartbreaking result huge because they held our M2 off by a canvas as as the fastest non-qualifiers. they all crossed the finishing line.