Henley 2012 Qualifiers

MIRC put in 3 crews for Henley Qualification this year, with excellent results:

The junior quad travelled to the Henley Royal Regatta qualifiers on Friday aiming to grab a place in the Fawley Cup. In blustery conditions, the predominantly J16 crew (in a J18 event), performed admirably, battling through the strong headwind against crews quite literally twice their size. In the end, the boys just missed out on qualification but finished 4th out of the non-qualifiers, 7s off and a fantastic 12/25 crews overall. Given that 3 of the 4 boys have 2 years left, it looks increasingly promising that we will have a Junior Fawley quad competing at Henley in the next couple of years.

 The quad was from stroke, Jack Grace, Jake Harris, Pierre Flasse, Ross Porter.

The Wyfold 4 of Tim Grant, Morgan Hellen, Ryan Mitchell and David Porter, meanwhile, has had some mixed results over the past few weeks. After a rigger fell off in the first 100m of their race at Marlow, they somehow still managed to pre-qualify for HRR and were therefore not required to race on Friday. This has allowed them more time to prepare and they have been cruising up and down the Medway, picking up speed daily since. The draw for HRR has now been made and they will be up against Tyne RC for their first race on Wednesday.

Meanwhile our coxless pair of Matt Nicholls and Chris Mollison successfully negotiated qualifying for the The Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup in the dreadful stream and wind conditions.

Well done everyone, we look forward to seeing you at Henley!

Helen Taylor

Noticeboard

The old Noticeboard is now defunct and memberships have been closed.  The new Noticeboard is up, but not everyone has signed on yet.  Please endeavour to join as soon as possible, or you will MISS important club announcements.

Thanks

Marlow Regatta - 2012

MIRC crews were in action again over the Marlow weekend (17/18 June) with mixed results.

On Saturday, in difficult, windy conditions, Chris Mollison and Matt Nicholls continued their excellent Henley campaign with a win in the Senior 2-



Our other 2 Henley hopeful crews had a little less luck.  The 4- with Morgan Hellen, Tim Grant, David Porter and Ryan Mitchell had equipment failure and did not race.

The J16 4x having an early challenge for Henley came in 4th in their heat of 5 in the J18 4x competition with a strong time of 7.16. Good prospects for the future.

On Sunday, two Masters crews played.  Ray Philips dipped his toe in a very strong Masters E1x field and came last. 

The Masters D8+ (ably coxed by Sue Hamilton on loan from Minerva Bath) had a strong row (according to the bow four) and a rushed rating of 36 (according to the stern four). Their new improved start paid dividends and they kept with the leaders: Bewdley and Marlow, all the way to the finish. A positive sign was that our traditional MIRC Masters fade seems to have been eliminated - and they had the fastest second half than the other crews. These 3 crews finished within 2 seconds of each other. Unfinished business for Henley Masters perhaps?

Nottingham City, Metropolitan and Peterborough Regattas - 2012

The regatta season continues with more success for MIRC with Novice crews "popping their cherries"!

Nottingham City Regatta

The seniors gained two victories at Nottingham.  Chris Mollison and Matt Nicholls continued preparation for the henley campaign with a win in the IM1 2-, and the Novice Quad won convincingly with a fast time of 7.02 over the 2000m quad (pictures and names of the latter from someone would be good).

Metropolitan Regatta

No wins this time, but a couple of encouraging 2nd places at this top regatta.  Our Henley IM1 4- were beaten into second place by a dominant Isle of Ely/Rob Roy four, and Mollison and Nicholls came 2nd in the Senior 2-.  good preparation for Henley.

Peterborough Regatta

The Masters C crew of Jez Massey, Darren Prentice, Bob Barwick and Ali Machin - coxed by Dani James won their novice pot in the Open (Masters A) category.  A write up may be on its way...




Pictures stolen from people's facebooks.

Website Upgrade

The website upgrade is now pretty much complete.

A summary of the changes:

• A more colourful front page and new banner
• Other key MIRC sites can be accessed in the main menu at the top
• A search engine
• A translation engine (particularly useful if you speak Haitian Creole)
• A "Contact Us" form for those making inquiries. Very successful so far.  We have been flooded with queries.
• The old Noticeboard has been replaced with a new one embedded in the website (found as a tab on the top menu).  All members and parents of Juniors should really join asap to ensure you are kept up to date with club information.
• Information tabs at the top have been updated and are now pretty much current. 
• The competition page has a useful new calendar.  This will be regularly updated and you can use the link provided to incorporate it into your Outlook or web calendar.... no more wondering when the next race is!
• Our club crest has now replaced the horrible blogger icon in the address bar in your browser and in your bookmarks/favourites. If you can't see it, empty your browser cache, close the browser and restart.

Please do feel free to send in reports, and articles (not just rowing, but club social) and piccies. If you fancy doing more than the odd one, just ask and I can make you an author, so you can update the blog directly. Particularly welcome are reports from the Junior and Senior Sections.  We average about 40 unique visitors a day, and that number is growing, so people do use it.

Also, keep up to date with the latest news by becoming a follower (see the option at the
bottom of the sidebar) which will provide you with email alerts.

Cheers

Richard

The New Noticeboard

Dear all,

The old Yahoo Noticeboard as well as Lilac Ladies and Stones Rowers Noticeboards is now being retired to be replaced by one based on Google Groups.  It will work in very much the same way as the old Noticeboards, but will be much more user friendly, and better maintained.

It can be accessed from the main menu in the Rowing Club Blog (New Noticeboard).

It is really important that all members and parents of juniors to access it, so that you are kept up to date with latest announcements and information, as well as be able to get involved in group discussions, post messages, buy and sell - the usual.

To do so, you will need to follow the simple registration process:

When you first click on the "New Noticeboard" tab, you see this message:

Maidstone Invicta Rowing Club Forum

You must be signed in and a member of this group to view and participate in it.

Sign in to view this group

You will then be asked to "Apply for Membership".  Do so using ANY email address you like.  Remember to click the option: Email (Approximately 1 email per day) Send each message to me as it arrives.  This will ensure that you will get all messages posted to the forum via email as soon as they are posted.

If you are using a user name or email address which is not obvious who you are, please put your name in the box provided for additional information.  If you are a parent, please say so.

One useful tip is that you don't need to visit the Noticeboard to post a message.  Just email your message to:

maidstone-invicta-rowing-club-forum@googlegroups.com

and it will automatically post it for you.

The old Yahoo Noticeboards will be shutting down in the next few days, so please do not post any new messages there.  Use the new Noticeboard from now on.

Any questions/issues, please contact Richard Huggins on 07841 278489 or richardhuggins@hotmail.com