Rowing club growth plan to improve training facilities

HENLEY Rowing Club has announced plans to expand its facilities as part of a “huge” refurbishment.

The club, which is based in Wargrave Road, wants to increase its training space by 50 per cent and improve accessibility to the site.

It hopes the changes will increase revenue so it can provide better quality training for its 300 members, which includes more than 100 junior rowers and about 100 masters’ squad rowers.

The club, which has leased the site for more than 40 years, is set to submit a pre-planning application to Wokingham Borough Council, the planning authority.

Chairwoman Helen Turnell told a meeting of the finance strategy and management committee that the club had been planning the refurbishment for years.

Mrs Turnell said: “It’s something that has been on our strategic plans for many years. We’re getting some outline sketches and pictures of what our dreams might be, if we get to that stage.

“We’ve got some basic premises things that we need to look at. From a welfare perspective, we need to look at changing the facilities for our adults and juniors.

“From an access point of view as well, it would be very difficult for anyone with limited mobility to get into our building. We’ve got lots of steps everywhere and we’ve got no ramps, we’ve got no lifts and those things are really important.

“The building now is looking quite tired in places so we need to look at that. Also, we’re at a point where we need to be a little bit more financially stable as well so refurbishing our premises will help us to do that in being able to raise our own funds.”

Mrs Turnell added that the plan would include extending the clubhouse to create a “flexible” space to train and hold events.

Councillor Stefan Gawrysiak suggested that she apply for a grant from South Oxfordshire District Council to help fund the project.

Members of the club’s committee are excited about the prospect of improved facilities.

Head junior rowing coach Leon Redman, 28, said the expansion would enable the club to open up to more squads and provide a better training space.

Mr Redman, who has been a member since he was 16, said: “The club has been growing hugely over recent years and we’re trying to grow our junior programmes more and more.

“As we have the charity status as well, we try and pair with the schools in the area, particularly The Henley College to provide opportunities for young athletes who are not necessarily from Henley but perhaps from other areas who want to come here and row in an elite squad if they are on their own.

“This would allow us to open up more and more to that so we’re not limited on numbers. We also do a lot of development programmes as well so that’s for those who perhaps don’t want to do elite rowing.

“We’re trying to allow us to have facilities to open up the sport to more people with different backgrounds and different intensity levels. If we have more facilities, we can open up to more and more squads and fit everyone in. At the moment, it’s jam-packed with everyone training on top of each other.”

Mr Redman said the extra training space would be able to accommodate more equipment including bench presses, ergo rowing machines, squat racks and static bikes.

“It will improve massively,” he said. “At the moment, we have to make it work so you’ve got a lot of cohesiveness going on between squads and rooms which are maxed out, with some people using one corner for one thing and people using another corner for another.

“If we have more training space and more social space for between sessions, we can provide better food for the athletes in between their training.

“The final thing will be if we can improve the facilities, we can host more social events, birthdays, weddings and then that will help us generate more funding and it will lead on to more membership.”

Nick Mead, one of the trustees, from Nettlebed said: “This is a hugely exciting step and it is frankly long overdue in our evolution of the club. The scale of the challenge that is laid before us is large but it is exciting to be taking the first baby steps in that process.

“It’s absolutely crucial for our ambitions to grow the club but also grow the performances that the club puts out at all levels. One of the key things for us is that we support a large junior section but coaching resources are always tight. The result of having limited space in order to coach is that you’ve got to spread the coaching along a number of sessions.

“It’s a huge commitment for our coaches so to have more space and to be able to accommodate more people in one session will help to support what we’re trying to do.

“We are going to have to fundraise on a local level through our membership. We will absolutely hope to identify sources of corporate funding and corporate sponsorship and we’ll need to reach out to grant funding on a local and national level to try and find the money.”