Dear Members,

Back to the rowing. A busy time recently, with some proper racing at last. The highlight was the women's 1st VIII's great result in the Women's Head of The River Race, finishing 11th out of 300, which puts us right up there in UK women's club rowing. Praise must go not only to the crew of Hannah Leadbetter (cox), Becks Sadler, Lucinda Gooderham, Vicky Myers, Naomi Hoogesteder, Lizzie Hodges, Emma Windham, Anna Van Leemputten and Naomi Ashcroft but also to their coach Alex Cavell, and to Ali Gill who has also brought a lot to the party behind the scenes.

All in all this was a great result for the club, and a very encouraging platform for the summer. It was good to see two other crews competing hard as well, with the Vets especially deserving of a mention (thank you Jo Wilby, crew Captain). They came in 68th, showing many "less experienced" crews the way home.

This is exactly what we want. UTRC crews in the First Division of club rowing, getting noticed. Very well done to all. The club has taken pride in your results.

On Saturday week the men will have their turn on the Tideway at the Eights Head - good luck to them. They have trained hard and will be looking to improve on last year's 51st place. The 2nd VIII is also looking for a decent finish. The following day the veterans are entered in the Veterans Head; they finished in a very impressive 6th place overall last year and looked good in training last weekend against the 1st VIII.

The club has had plenty of other wins as well from senior to junior, having raced at Molesey, Gloucester, Boston and here on our home stretch. Additionally we have fielded trialists for the National team, and Lucinda, Emma, Toby and James are all due particular praise for this. (James was 15 seconds behind the world record holder over 2000m in his single; very fast).

But what's this? An exclusive invitation-only sculling race at the end of February? Can this be true? Is it fair, or even legal? The winner on handicap was our highly rated J15 Sam Mottram, who received a solid silver dollar which was generously donated by a dear member in homage to the competitive ethos of winner-takes-all; how disgusting. I gather it was just a bit of fun; we've all heard that before. Next they'll be telling us it was just a case of "high spirits" and we can't tolerate that. Quick, move on or we'll be up before the equal opportunities commission in the morning.

Turning to a substantial number of housekeeping matters this month, I'd like to flag up the imminent Annual Club Dinner ticket release, featuring Guest Speaker Jurgen Groebler. I think I'm right in saying that Jurgen has been a gold medal coach at every Olympics since Montreal in 1976 (except LA in '84 when GDR didn't go), which sounds implausible to say the least. He is clearly the greatest coach in rowing, and probably Olympic, history and we are privileged to be able to call him a friend. It's surely disgraceful that he hasn't received a Knighthood by now; something must be done.

Much praise is due to Katie Pollard and Social Secretary Ian Ringer for their hard work in organising the event. I think you'll agree the ticket price of £42 represents excellent value. This is not a profit making venture; it is something we put on because we should, and it will be great fun.

Members may be interested to know that UTRC is prominently featured in a current exhibition in the River and Rowing Museum. Paul Mainds, a long-serving member of the club and the CEO / Great Leader of the museum itself, has suggested that members may be interested in having a wander down to the museum to have a closer look. The exhibition is called "Our Sporting Life", and features local sports clubs as part of the build up to the London Olympics. I spent a very worthwhile hour there yesterday, and can highly recommend it. Quite apart from the current exhibition the museum is full of rowing treasures and artifacts which will appeal to both adults and children in equal measure. The RRM is sometimes overlooked by us locals due to its very proximity. Many thanks to Naomi Ashcroft for putting in the time to source the exhibits; great job.

I notice that the car park is full even during the evenings now. Please let's keep the four row principle going, which means parking with enough room for 2 rows in the middle (tight though it is). No sideways parking in the middle please.

I'd like to kindly ask members to leave the various heating and lighting switches alone, and to keep out of the cupboards. Last month one of the devices was left on constantly which resulted in a massive leap in our heating costs for the month. We are still getting used to our new facilities and every month we find ways to improve our efficiency. Although we continue to work with the contractors in order to fix teething problems, we realise that soon these will become simply problems rather than "teething" problems. There has been some justifiable concern about energy wastage which we are endeavouring to fix, but this will be easier to do without people taking it upon themselves to change thermostats and settings etc - so please resist the temptation.

There have been sharply raised eyebrows about the state of the kitchen, which at weekends has sometimes been very poor, with porridge blocking the sink and bowls just left for someone else to wash up. I'm sure it will improve over time, once we all acknowledge the problem - which I think we just did.

There are some things, though, which we really must stop doing, and I ask for your support on these four particular issues. I hereby unveil my short list of UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOURS, which are:

• Taking bits out of one boat to put in another boat, especially seats (Ask me instead).
• Leaving litter in the club room.
• Leaving the boathouse and clubhouse unlocked at night.
• Neglecting cox-boxes and lifejackets after use (plug them in, put them back after use).

Of course there are 101 other things, but these four are by far the most important. I will be policing these crimes with maximum zeal, so please be warned, as they leave me wild eyed and foaming mad.

Incidently, if anyone else finds particular things annoying about our marvellous club they can email them to me directly here in the bunker. I'm thinking of including the best of these as anonymous post -scripts, so please feel free to rant at length free from accountability. Remember it's irritating things, not members, to which I'm looking to draw attention; if we can't provide a decent soap-box for our pedants then something's terribly wrong, I hope you'll agree. Maybe we can even effect improvements...

One last housekeeping matter which crosses my mind most days involves sponsorship. As you know, we have many wonderfully generous members amongst us, some of whom have asked me how they can contribute best to supporting the club.

Well, I've been emailing that nice-but terminally-ill barrister in Nigeria who keeps wanting to give me $15,000,000 USD before he dies (which sounds like it could be imminent), but I haven't got around to sending him my bank account details yet. Once my commission comes through I'll happily chip in myself, but until then it's unlikely I can do anything significant.

If there are members who do feel able to contribute, however, please would they drop me a line, as we have a newly acquired second-hand eight (policy in action) that needs a name, and other branding and marketing opportunities which I'd be pleased (eager, in fact) to discuss, including logos on kit, boats and club premises at HRR etc.

We can also run corporate days, team-building excercises and hospitality packages, all backed up with local marketing and, of course, ample parking. We're very much open for business.

OK, moving on.

The main purpose of this letter is to keep you up to date about current events (even if you can be forgiven for wondering what the heck I was on about last month). I hope to inform and involve members in equal measure, so that you are updated and feel as though you can contribute ideas.

Of course it also creates a channel for feedback, and astonishingly we even had a complaint once. We've since taken measures to ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

So in this vein, I have recently been reviewing some of the obligations we have taken on as a result of receiving funding for the new building. One of these is to increase our active membership over time. I think it's a sign of our success that we've already increased numbers from 205 in 2007 to 365 in September 2009, an impressive 80% improvement in 2 years.

As you know, I am concerned that during peak periods we cannot physically cram much more activity into the club as a whole, although I think there is scope for opening up some off-peak capacity, such as weekend afternoons and before 4pm during the week. We are still grappling with these issues and I will report back later, but again, any thoughts you may have are welcome.

Following on from this, a couple of months ago I wrote about the ways in which we are different from our illustrious neighbours at Leander Club. I would also say that we are very different from our equally illustrious neighbours on the other side of the river, Phyllis Court, and whilst we applaud their efforts in developing their rowing section over there, we are proud to offer a different type of experience at UTRC.

Although we share many members with PCC, at UTRC we provide an environment for all ages and abilities, and aspire to win those big races to which I have referred before. Without being too prescriptive, I'd like to think that we are nearer achieving this than they are at PCRC, even if they continue visibly to improve their rowing offering with every passing year.

Don't get me wrong, if it's superior clubhouse facilities you're after, complete with top-end espresso machines, deep carpets and fine fabrics, I can think of no better place than PCC. In my humble opinion, it's possible they even trump Leander on this. It pains me to admit that they're also ahead of us on the croquet, and yes, I suspect their bowls team could give us a bloody nose too; but I remain respectfully bullish about our prospects on the river for the time being, and to my way of thinking that is what counts.

What we provide is unique.

We have pretty much made it through the winter now, and we can look forward to some strong competitive performances this summer. The clocks go forward soon which marks the end of winter and the start of evening rowing. This is why I am keen to raise the subject of locking up in the evenings now, before it becomes a bigger issue. The good times are just around the corner, and this year we will be looking for some really good results from all quarters.

I'm working on a plan to get as many supporters over to Wallingford Regatta as possible on the afternoon of Sunday 2nd May, in a sort of mass club away-day. All the squads will be there, and they need our physical presence for the first proper event of the racing season to get them off to a good start - details to follow.

In the meantime there's a good buzz about the place, and I feel we're going from strength to strength with every passing month.

With very best wishes,

Justin

PS. I look forward to receiving any comments you may have which can be shared anonymously with 365 other people, or just level-headed suggestions which aren't.