Whilst for most the 2012 season and long winter training has started, Vicki joined former NRC member Monica Relph as part of the womens eight representing Great Britain at the European Championships in Bulgaria. This year was one of the highest standards that the championships had seen, with recently crowned World Champions competing. Against tough opposition the crew came 4th, beating Russia and Poland in the final.

Whilst Vicki now takes a well deserved break, the rest of the squad are training hard for the Nottingham Autumn Head mid October and the first GB assessmement on the 22 and 23rd October.

Oarsport have recently purchased a new rowing machine called a Swingulator which is an American design by the company Rowing Innovations.  It is as close to a boat as you are going to get on dry land.  It is based on sweep rowing and as yet a sculling version is not available.

Laura, Lindsay, Pippa and Catherine along with Dez joined the Oarsport team for the promotional filming of the Swingulator.  We feel this is a great invention and the only thing it lacked from a boat was the feel which made timing the crew much harder.  It was great fun rowing on this machine especially when we moved them to form 2 pairs.  This saw the competitiveness come out and the race was on...

We start the new season in our new boat bay now based on the river just down from the main clubhouses.  Whilst the squad were on their break lots of people have been involved in getting the facility up and running for our return.  It is a great facility but there is still a lot to sort and organise.  We would like to thank everyone involved in helping with this project.

The racks go in.

This season we will spend the winter training from our new bay on the river and will return to the lake for the summer.  For most of us the prospect of training on the river and using our new facility is an exciting one, although we are sad to be leaving the lake after all these years.

It's back to the grindstone for the next season and training started quite pleasanty with a nice technical session, second session was a 30 minute ergo - thanks Dez.  Well I suppose we may as well start as we mean to go on.  Train hard, Race hard!!!

Six Students from the Nottingham Rowing Club High performance programme represented their university  and Great Britain at the European University Rowing Championships in Moscow last week. Nicola Spencer topped the squad's rankings, with a silver in the Lightweight Women's Single scull. These athletes will take a small end of season break before returning to Trentside for their 2012 season in a few weeks time.

Nikki Spencer (Nottingham Trent University) - Silver medal, LW1x

Richard Watton and Stuart Sykes (Nottingham University) - 4th Place, LM2x

Edward Mace (Nottingham University) - 5th Place, LM1x

Rebecca Gill and Emma Corless (Nottingham Trent University) - 7th Place, W2x

The High Performance programme at Nottingham Rowing Club has a total of 9 students for the 2011 season. In 2011 all students were able to compete for their university at the BUCS competitions as well as being part of the NRC HP group. The NRC HP group provides a  GB endorsed programme aiming athletes towards selection for the GB rowing team, and/or success at the Henley Women's Regatta, Henley Royal Regatta and the British Rowing Championships.