Sunday 9th July 2023, 1pm at Putney Town Rowing Club
Download a PDF copy of the minutes here:
Minutes prepared by Olivia Moore, Club Communications, Putney Town RC, on behalf of Jennie Amin, Secretary, Putney Town RC
Attendance
Membership: 70 eligible members attended to vote, including the Chair.
No “non-eligible” members attended.
Attended from 2021-22 Committee:
President: Geoff Adams
Chairman: Geoff Adams
Treasurer: Bill Desmond
Membership Secretary: Polly Fraley
Vice-Captain (men): Rudi Tilko
Vice-Captain (development): Amber In der Rieden
Social Secretary: Chiara Pieretti
Bar Steward: John Hickling
General Member: Mary Mortimer
General Member: David Oswell
Communications officer: Olivia Moore
Trustees: James Davey and Ninian Eadie
Notable apologies from the 2021-22 Committee:
Secretary: Jennie Amin
Vice-Captain (women): Ele Culley
Please note: there was no acting Captain for this year in situ.
Agenda
Introduction and welcome
Record of agreement of minutes from 2022 AGM
Election to General Committee for 2023/24
Voting- happening
No chairman going forwards for it. Geoff will update all later
Confirmation of trustees
Chairman's report
Captain's report
Treasurer's report
AoB
Appendices
Treasurer’s Report 2021/22
Introduction and welcome
Record of agreement of minutes from 2022 AGM
The Secretary confirmed that the minutes were issued after the 2022 AGM, and re-circulated with the Notice to the 2023 AGM, and that no comments had been received. The meeting voted in favour of accepting the minutes as a full record of the meeting.
Election to General Committee for 2023/24
Election to Committee 2022/23
The Chair asked if any other members, not already nominated, wished to stand for election. No members chose to do so, and so the ballot was finalised.
The Chair confirmed that registration for voting had now closed.
The results of the election were confirmed later in the meeting:
President: Geoff Adams
Chairman: 2 votes for Amber (thinking about it)
Captain: Jim Allan
Treasurer: Bill Desmond
Secretary: Kirsten Clayton
Membership Secretary: Joy Bartoli
Vice-Captain (men): James Freeman
Vice-Captain (women): Emma Fadlon
Vice-Captain (development): Brian Day
Bar Steward: John Hickling
Social Secretary: Rebekah Griffiths
Communications Officer: Olivia Moore
General Member: Mary Mortimer
General Member: Katie Moore
Confirmation of Trustees
The Chair explained the purpose of the Trustees, and proposed that James Davey and Ninian Eadie remain as trustees.
The meeting voted in favour.
Chairman’s Report
The Chairman’s report was presented (ask Geoff for a copy and copy and paste it across - same with the Captains’ reports!):
Notes-Geoff not elected to chair.
2022- centenary year with centenary events throughout the year- Henley row past, centenary dinner & BBQ.
Refurbish changing rooms & toilets- thanks to Sarah R.
10 years of fundraising & permissions- embarked on balcony developments.18 weeks of work to go.
No questions or comments were raised.
Captain’s Report
The Captain’s Report was presented (No Captain was nominated for this year).
Women’s Vice-captain’s Report:
Over the last few years as women’s captain I have been really proud of the progress of the squads and progression and development of our female athletes at Putney Town. I’m going to run through a brief update if what we have achieved this year - please clap and cheer for all of the good stuff we have done!
We kicked off post committee last year with a plethora of pot hunting and some regatta fun across all squads. Medalling in Henley T&V regatta for our senior women 4- and a number of successes in Staines.
September flipped back to head races with 9 athletes across senior and masters squads competing across the tideway course. The sun was so warm that a quick swim at the milepost on the way home wasn’t too much of a shock! This was closely followed by Pairs head where we saw a number of pairs and doubles compete wrapping up the small boat competitions before the winter.
The Masters Women headed to Boston fielding two eights, with a special guest from Austin - Julia, for Head of the Charles, a 3.2 mile course. The racing was exciting with excellent coding from our two local coxes. Thanks goes to Mary for all of the coordination and Liz for organising a fabulous celebratory dinner.
Meanwhile, the senior women started their season strongly with a gold win for their coxed four and silver win for their four minus at Upper Thames autumn head. Fours head and vets head saw some great racing across the senior and masters squads. Back to the tideway for fours head and vets head before finishing up the season at Wallingford head. Fours head saw our three senior women’s fours compete with our fastest boat finishing 5th and 2 fours and a quad competed at vets fours head to finish off masters racing before Christmas. The seniors women had their last race at Wallingford and managed to boat a coxed four before the rest of the race was cancelled due to bad weather.
We kick started 2023 with a senior camp at Ely based at the Cambridge university boat club for a blustery set of outings which provided a great base for the season ahead. Our first head race was Quintin which was a great start to the racing of 2024.
The first grand finale of the winter season saw 5 women’s boats in Women’s head of the river race. For our development women’s squad it was some athletes first experience of both WeHorr and head racing. Our senior women placed 53rd and 186th overall and our masters women came in 4th and 8th in the Masters entries.
The next finales of the winter season was Vets Head with our dev women’s eight, masters D eight and masters c quad. All squads were pleased with their results ahead of the summer. April was camp time for the senior and masters women’s squads. The Senior women held a mini camp on the tideway to start their regatta prep. For the masters, their 5th time in Cerla, Spain provided much of the promised sunshine and mirror like water. This has been the largest camp yet with 21 masters women supported by James and our guest coach Jules who were joined by 20 masters men and Matt. There was plenty of regatta practice, refinement of tech skills and seat racing to prep for the summer! Massive thank you to all of the organisers and the drivers, without whom we wouldn’t have been able to have such as successful camp. Wallingford was the first regatta of the season, with the SW taking 3 coxed fours to bank some side by side regatta experience. Our super sculler, Kate represented Putney Town at Borne Regatta and raced a strong race despite her opponent having a cheeky 10 seconds head start.
Next stop was Nottingham city where the four minus and coxed four finished fourth place in the A finals and the eight finished second place in their final to round of a great day of racing. Then on to Twickenham with the Senior Women racing an eight and four minus, confidently steered by a Caroline in her first steers race. Our masters Women raced a quad narrowly missing out to Tideway scullers and Kate had a strong race in her single. The development women finished the day with their first ‘away’ race, an exciting semi final progressed through to a final against Kingston where they narrowly missed out on the win.
Closer to home we had a win at Barnes and Mortlake by Amy in her single whilst the masters competed in Masters Champs at Nottingham with a notable win from Mary in her non-champ G-K single and some close races for the other masters women’s sweep and sculling crews including some exciting finals.
To finish the season we hit the Henley’s. Henley Women’s qualifiers saw our senior women’s eight miss out on qualifiers by 0.7 of a second and the coxless four steered the course impeccably. We fielded a Henley royal senior women eight.
I’m hoping you are all still awake, if you could nudge the person each side of you that would be
much appreciated. Lastly but no means least, the thank yous. Please can we stand up for the
final round of applause. I would like to say a massive thank you to:
Firstly, the vice captain group that has helped with all the coordination, cover the captains role and be the main point of contact for questions throughout the year.
The coaches for their relentless organisation and patience throughout the year.
The coxes and super subs whom without we would not race or train.
And to everyone that has volunteered throughout the year to ensure Putney Town remains a community and the friendliest club on the tideway.
Development Captain’s Report:
As Dev Captain it is only appropriate for to start with our L2R programme. The ink on the ballot
papers had barely dried, and I was set to work to deliver the L2R course; email the hundreds of
applicants, organise the open days, do presentations, get people on ergs and assist coaches
John and Ele with the selection of our ultimate group of L2R groups. Once that was done it was
time to press the magic PTRC volunteer help button.
And volunteering you did! It is without a doubt one of the very best things about our club, and
L2R truly embodies our club spirit. We love our sport and we love introducing new people to the
sport. L2R is an integral and essential part of our club as it contributes to growing our club into
the vibrant and welcoming place that it is today. Not only that, delivering these courses to the
community is part of our lease agreement with the council, and directly impacts our rent. Your
contribution to L2R is invaluable, and you contributed in so many ways. Driving launches,
coaching, coxing, rowing, helping on the open days, and so much more. Thank you.
After some exciting end of L2R races we had a celebration in the bar with los of food and
laughter. It was very rewarding to see the participants had had a good experience and that so
many of them had decided to join the club and move into the Dev Squads. In the DW they were
coached by Brian Day, with coxing support from Simon Maxwell and the DM were coached by
Nicki McMillan on the water and by Paul Debois on the ergs. Thank you to all of those involved
for your efforts and support. It is great to see the athletes grow and develop, tackle their first
races and see their desire to compete and improve increase over the year.
The other Captains addressed the rowing, races and more. I would like to briefly address our
club and community spirit. Over the last few years we have received an increasing number of
requests from members to set up a coached recreational squad. The idea that has been
discussed with the GC is to create a squad that offers a place for members who enjoy training,
who wish to develop and be coached on the water, who enjoy being in a squad, but who do not
necessarily want to race, do not want to attend each week or be committed to a race squad
training programme. It would be a mixed squad, open to rowers and scullers. We are working
on the details and will communicate these to the membership in due course.
It has been a challenging, but good year for the VC’s. Having to add on top of our Vice Captain
workload, the Captain’s role. For me personally that meant dealing with much of the Head Race
visitor correspondence & organisation, club admin and seemingly endless emails and generally
finding ways to make everything work. Needless to say, like rowing itself, this is a skill that
takes time to develop and grow.
We all know that the more hands on a boat when lifting it, the lighter it feels. And the same
applies to our club.. It takes many hands to run this ever changing club.
Our GC members occupy rather visible volunteering roles. There also other support roles,
independent of the GC, like the Safety Officer (Paul Debois) and the Welfare Officer (introduce
Chiara Pieretti). And we mustn’t forget our cleaner Reyna who attends every Monday and
Friday. But there are many, many more of you who make the club tick along, quietly working
away in the background. Thank you for all you do.
Finally, this club is ambitious, robust and positive, and from the moment I joined in 2018 it was
immediately obvious that the members truly make things happen. From tasks as small as
finding the correct wing nut or heel restraint, to huge projects, like building the new steps
outside the club, maintenance projects, the new balcony etc.
I am very excited to be part of it and am curious what the future holds for our club. I would like
to thank all the members of the General Committee for their contributions this year, and in
particular a special thank you to Ele and Rudi for being fantastic VC’s.
Amber In der Rieden
VC Development 2022-2023
No questions or comments were raised.
7. Treasurer’s Report
Treasurer’s Report
Year End Report to April 23
The Treasurer's report was presented to the meeting with key points as follows:
Strong year - donations carried on to 2023
Strong membership numbers - new development rowers from L2R
Two new 8+s which the club is now paying off
PLA Grant received for new electric outboard motor
Increased revenue on bar & internal events; the centenary celebration helped with income
New changing rooms cost £24K
Completion of the development project and associated costs
Regattas, events, L2R, membership all add to Income
Coaching, events, depreciation and refurb has meant the need to spend money
Changes this year:
Higher electricity & gas
Richmond council costs
PLA costs
Insurance costs increased
Mitigating circumstances:
Boatmen - much more ‘in-club’ fixing of boats son reducing third party costs
Events
Development project - balcony is being installed now-ish
Middle of August - club should be back back to using the boat house (below)
○inal phase is the fitting out underneath it
Can’t put the lift in this time around because we don’t have funds but the foundations are there for when we can raise the money
The 100 Club- £4000 raised to buy things to fit out new spaces after work has been done
Larger spaces for members - eg the outdoor balcony space
Lots more events planned
Space for storage & bar bits
No questions or comments were raised. The Chair proposed that the accounts were accepted by the membership.
The meeting voted in favour of the motion.
8. AoB
Athlete development plan update
Brian Day raised the issue of the athlete development plan and raised the question of reviewing it for next season.
No further items of business were raised, and the Chair closed the meeting.
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