No one was hurt in the killing of this carbon

WARNING: The following images may be disturbing to some viewers: 

The hull of the Big All

WARC is relieved to report no injuries were sustained in this horrific crash that has potentially killed the Big Al. The Alan Salisbury Empacher eight was being rowed by the WA Men's Youth 8 up near Maylands when the boat struck submerged piping.

The Club is now working with Rowing WA to sort this matter with the insurers of the boat, and we have asked Brock to investigate removal of the piping with the Department of Transport's Marine Safety division.

It is worth noting the line the eight was taking has long been considered safe. We have no idea how long the pipes have been submerged at this point, so we cannot tell you if the damage was caused as a result of new hazards or a low tide.

This is the map Rowing WA issued via Facebook warning of the hazard:

It is fair to say river conditions in the warmer months are not as predictable as the winter months and while we view this as an accident that was pretty much unavoidable, it is a reminder to give "foul ground" extra berth when training.

The good news is, with no daylight savings in WA there is sufficient light to see easily so scan the horizon, and report any new hazards to captain@warowingclub.org so we can prevent any more carbon damage.

Row safe.

Saga of the slips: Government ticks galore

We have our final planning approval for the reconstruction of WARC's deck.

The MRA was first cab off the rank, giving us planning approval back in June - they had our application for 50 days. 

The Swan River Trust (DPAW) had our application for six months - April until October. 

And the Department of Aboriginal Affairs had our Section 18 application from July 3 until November 30, when the Minister signed it. We received it on December 2... one day shy of five months.

Both the SRT/DPAW and DAA gave us explanations for the hold up - SRT was going through restructure following amalgamation with Parks and Wildlife, DAA couldn't get a quorum to approve the minutes of the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee in October. 

The compounded outcome of all these delays is that we are, sadly, behind on our idea of having the deck built by the end of 2015. We have requested an extension on our Heritage grant to match our new construction timeframe.

The next steps: design

Planning approvals mean we can get down to the final nitty-gritty of designing the deck, including colour, accessories, step-width, lights, etc. 

I (PBR) will be calling a meeting of stakeholders within the fortnight to go over this. If you feel you have a contribution to make on the final design, please ask for an invite to the meeting via president@warowingclub.org.

A couple of caveats:

• We cannot have a floating deck, so don't ask. We have investigated and exhausted this option - three companies were asked to quote for a floating deck, all said they could not figure out how to make it work.
• The deck cannot be insane colours or have advertising on it, as it must comply with the heritage look and feel of the club.
• If you can't make it to the meeting, contribute ideas here

Some of the things we'll be considering is how to best get speedboats up the ramp (looking at a central slope to allow a dinghy trolley), LED lighting on the edge, "lollypops" with capacity to light up, colour and materials. 

Keep an eye on the Facebook page for meeting details. This final design will then go to the City of Perth for building approval, Heritage for design approval, and the Swan River Trust for approval (with a Contruction Environmental Management Plan).

The next steps: construction

We have an ideal but also tentative timeframe of mid-March for construction. This, of course, depends on tides, funding and sub-contractor availability. I hope we might be ready to go by the time the raffle winds up - we could draw the raffle to mark the start of construction.

This timeframe has been made possible because of the time change from the Lord Mayor's Cup. Previously we would have been in the midst of our corporate regatta in mid-March. Happily this is not the case and I think demonstrates we moved to the Head of the Swan concept at exactly the right time.

I appreciate this was a bit of a dense read. I presume only those truly interested will get stuck into it.

The Slip Lane

To be honest, this is a bit what it has felt like, trying to sort out ongoing trailer access for WARC. If you really want to get into it, the timeline of our negotiations is here.

As members, here is what you need to know: WARC is working closely with the MRA, Leighton Broad, the City of Perth and the Department of Planning to keep the second exit off our service lane. This would mean we will never again have to negotiate Barrack Square with a boat trailer. This is the one we're talking about: 

In our view, this should have been built into the plans for Barrack Square right back at the start - which we first told the planning bodies back in 2012. In the view of the club, it is unreasonable to expect the upcoming Double Tree Hilton and Ritz developments to allow constant access for an oversize vehicle around Barrack Square.

However, we are just one small group and making such a call is well above our pay grade. Now we face a situation where our feedback was not heeded in construction so we can't get a trailer around Barrack Square, a second exit was put in without planning approval, the agreement between Leighton and the Council means it is due to be removed and now everyone is scrambling to figure out what to do next.

What I can say is there is no pressure for the second exit to be removed in the short term, so we are confident we will be able to get our boat trailers out for the forseeable future. We will work with the City of Perth to put in a retrospective planning application for that second exit, which will probably need to be approved by Department of Planning. Things will get hairy when it comes to funding the exit to be permanent, but rest assured we do not believe we should be liable and will fight tooth-and-nail to make sure we get the best outcome for members.

From our perspective, this has been an ongoing saga of more than four years which has now got to the point we are liaising with one body or another on a daily basis. Key background documents are stored here, if you want to get your nerd on and take a Captain Cook.

If there are any members who have experience in planning matters, please get in touch at president@warowingclub.org - that would be most helpful!

Return of the Raffle Tickets

For those of us who have sold raffle tickets, it is critically important to make sure you return your books in a responsible manner.

As an incorporated body, WARC has a responsibility to make sure all money owed to the club is accounted for and looked after. So, here's some advice:

PREFERRED: EFT transfer

Transfer $400 (the value of the entire book) into the following WARC bank account

• BSB 036 011  
• ACCOUNT: 202083

Use your name and the number of your first ticket as the reference.

Please either

1. PRINT the remittance confirmation and return with your completed raffle book stubs;
2. Or EMAIL confirmation of payment to lou@reneagle.com.au AND functions@warowingclub.org. 

We have to manually match up the incoming cash with the ticket stubs so we ask you make it as easy as possible and make sure you tell us what you've done.

Not as preferred but ok: CASH

Carefully count that you are handing in $400 to either: Janet Smith, Lou Sammut, Lauren Reeves or Carolyn Murdoch.

Hand in the cash with all your sold ticket stubs. Please make sure all ticket stubs are filled out and match the amount of cash being handed in.

TAKE THE EASY WAY:

If you have the ability, the easiest way to manage this is to buy the ticket book yourself outright and transfer the cash to WARC straight away, then keep the incoming cash from ticket sales. This reduces the risk to you of losing or miscounting cash by reducing the amount of times cash changes hands.

We're talking big amounts of money and a lot of work behind the scenes to add it all up, so we're asking everyone to take this responsibility seriously.

CREATIVE WAYS TO SELL TICKETS

For some, selling comes easily. For others, it feels a bit like pulling teeth, so here are some creative ideas:

1. Gen tells us all her mates are broke uni students, so she's taking her raffle book when she walks the dog and goes to boxing classes. Don't be afraid to hit up people not in your normal social circle.

2. Perfect your two-sentence pitch: "Hi, did you get your raffle ticket for our 10,000 holiday to wherever you want? The tickets are $20 but we're only selling a limited number of them, so the odds are good."

3. Try not to hit up people who have already bought a ticket. Ideally we'd be given out "visual markers" to people who have bought tickets already - I'll look to line up some stickers for the Open Day or something.

Here a couple of resources:

• http://www.fundraisingdirectory.com.au/fundraising-tip-tips-for-selling-raffle-tickets
• https://www.raffleticket.com/tips-holding-successful-raffle/

Good luck, and don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any concerns or queries.

Rowing Open Day

Sign up: Put your availabilities here: 

WARC is taking part in the Rowing WA Open Day to promote rowing across the community.

This is a pretty decent marketing push. WARC Is already heavily involved in marketing both the club and the sport. This year we have appeared on radio shows, in the newspaper, have had a stall at the Barrack Square market, and have a high level of engagement on our social media accounts.

Thus it is important for WARC to join this coordinated marketing effort to raise the profile of rowing. Find out about the city-wide Rowing Open Day here.

Newly-appointed Head Coach Joe Tamigi is playing point on the WARC effort and here are our intentions for the day:

Task 1: Requires one person, tape and a printer. 

Putting up signs around Barrack square to direct people our way, even just big red arrows will spark some curiosity.

Task 2: Requires two people in zoot suits. We have sufficient fliers from RWA.

Athletes down at Barrack Square walking around in zooties saying hello and handing out the open day flyers. 

Task 3: Requires six people to wrangling the tent and gear, and someone to build a Top Gear style erg and watt bike leaderboard. 

Setting up the tent, an erg and a watt bike in the loading bay. (Watt bike on loan from Trinity) 

We can have a competition for a 6 second max wattage test on the watt bike in exchange for a water bottle and their contact info. The State-wide erg test will be 200m so they can do this also. 

Task 4: Requires a tech head to wrangle video and get footage from Dean. 

Put Dean's oarsome 2015 video on loop on the TV's upstairs to really show what we are about. I have shown it at schools and people are blown away and really interested in rowing afterwards.

Task five: Requires six people: one person with skippers ticket, four people on boat launch assistance, one person on deck control.

Joe has organised to borrow two of the flat bottom hardened plastic sculls from Trinity/St Hilda's, they are super easy to balance and great for beginners. We could set up a buoy 50m from the shed and time people getting around it. (they need to sign a waiver first that says they can swim) and have the tinny on the water for safety. Doubt many will take up this option so probably don't need members manning this station all day, it could be on a case by case basis.

Task six: requires two people on standby to conduct club tours, bring a whiteboard downstairs, have club details to hand out.

We could run one every 20 mins, (but only 15 mins duration). Listing when the next one starts on the white board out the front, could spruik Sassys on the board as a good spot to grab a coffee while waiting. (note: we've not set times on previous club tours - just taken groups as they arrived - but depending on number of people, this may work in this instance.

Task 7: requires a trestle table and someone to man it, and speak to Janet about getting the poster.

Selling raffle tickets is a no-brainer, we have posters to promote it that have been used at the Barrack Square markets.

Thankyou.

Beautiful things

It is my great pleasure as President to reveal three bits of lovely news.

Firstly, I just received this from the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority. We're down one of three approvals - now on to the Swan River Trust and the City of Perth. The fact the MRA has given our deck redevelopment the tick is a big deal. They have advised that we may need a Section 18 approval from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and should raise this with the South West Aboriginal Land and Swan Council, so there are still hoops to jump through but it is another step done.

Secondly: Cam from Curtin has directed a big thanks in the direction of WARC for our support of the crew from Clontarf. He is doing an amazing job getting this program off the ground and it goes to show how important the "vibe" out at a regatta is. In other news, Curtin has launched a new website and you can check it out here. 

Finally, the Department of Heritage has asked permission to use a picture of WARC to put up in the State Heritage offices. So it looks like a nice pic of Dean's will be up for all time on the wall to remind the Heritage people that we're here. 

There is much rowing news, which will be put together in the next newsletter. An early highlight now though: Man of the match would have to go to Jono who stroked the winning B-8 in thunderous conditions in a borrowed zoot suit. Well played. 

Bit fun

One of the (very few) good things about not rowing at the moment is that I have the opportunity to truly enjoy being a spectator.

I hope this video of not-quite-all Saturday's races gives all those who raced something to smile about. 

Well done team.

El Presidente PBR.