Last year, with a generous grant of £12,000 from The Stewards’ Charitable Trust, rowing was introduced as a new sport at the Longridge Activity centre in Marlow. The idea being to make rowing accessible and affordable as a sport for all young people to participate in and the demand proved to be overwhelming, far exceeding Longridge’s expectations. The demand for the after-school courses led to the Longridge Rowing Club being created, the club gained British Rowing accreditation this month and is running the first club session on March 21st.
As it is hugely exciting to be launching a new rowing club for young people in the area, Olympic gold medallist Zac Purchese has agreed to coach this first session as Zac says “I am passionate about all young people having the same access to rowing and the sports opportunities that I had, I will be watching the club develop with great interest and fully expect to see future champions emerging from the Longridge Rowing Club”. Zac will be joined at this first session by another Olympic Gold medallist and President of Longridge Rowing Club, Greg Searle OBE. Greg was approached to be President as since the charity took over the centre he has been hugely supportive of Longridge and proactively encouraged the team in the development of rowing as a new sport. With such a winning team at the helm of the club – it will surely inspire many future generations of young people to enjoy the river and rowing.
Club sessions will run weekly both after school at over the weekends throughout the year.
The club is recruiting for committee members, in particular fundraising expertise and Longridge Rowing Club chairman, Richard Nissen says “we are all delighted by the demand for rowing in the area and just hope that we can raise the money for more boats and equipment to cope with the demand for rowing from young people; we are particularly keen to raise the money to purchase some indoor rowing machines so that we can run the club effectively throughout the year”
Details of the club and after-school courses can be found under rowing on this site
