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For those who are Firefox browser fans, check out the new ‘personas’ which allow you to personalize your browser tool bar with color and themes.
 
If you search for the term ‘rowing,’ you’ll find several of these themes. We searched under rowing, rower, sculling, and crew. Found several under rowing and one under crew.
 
These personas add a little rowing flavour to your web browsing experience. Yeah, sure there are other personas, like male models, gay, and lesbian but we focused on the rowing themes.
glrfcentral
GLRF was one of five vendors at the inaugural launch of the USRowing Collegiate Championship Regatta 22 – 23 May 2010 on Lake Mercer in West Windsor, New Jersey. The location, just 7 miles from Princeton University, is the site of the US National Team training headquarters. The 2500 acre Mercer County Park surrounds the lake and makes for a beautiful setting for the races. The seven-lane buoyed 2000m. course has hand held starts and a dedicated Finish Tower.
 
The event allowed open entry, without affiliation, from any college or university for men and women, in regular and lightweight classes, and for 31 events in 7 boat classes: 1x, 2x, 2-, 4-, 4x, 4+, and 8+. As a result, there were unaffiliated entries from various small schools, as well as entries from larger rowing programmes like the University of Tulsa, University of Massachusetts, Villanova University, Loyola University, Duke University, Fordham University, Lehigh University, Colgate University, and Craftsbury Sculling Center, all told 89 entries from 18 clubs. One rower who rowed for Hamilton College will be competing at the Under23’s for Angola, where his parents live and where he learned to scull.
 
The weather was sunny and East Coast humid/hot on Saturday but then turned overcast and chilly on Sunday. Ex-Olympic gold medalist Pete Cipillone acted as the announcer for the final races on Sunday morning and his insightful and humorous commentary combined with the new live video feed provided by USRowing gave many of the spectators a great feel for the race.
 
With an investment of $15,000 in video equipment, USRowing has launched live race feeds for all of its events and the races can be viewed on the US Olympic Committee website which hosts the video feeds. The quality of the video is first rate with a camera crew in one of the chase boats as well as a camera at the finish line.
 
Gusty winds on Sunday morning made the video technicians nervous about setting up the 46” HD television monitor to showcase the race feeds but a perfect solution appeared when GLRF volunteered the hatchback of our rental car as the display case, parked inside an open tent. Naturally, all the spectators had to congregate right next to the adjoining GLRF booth to watch the feeds …
 
Medals were awarded in what some call the ‘British style,’ meaning that the boats came alongside the dock after finishing the race and the medals were draped around the necks of the rowers still in their seats. USRowing officials explained that the awarding of medals had to be run in this manner to accommodate the large number of rowers competing two and three times during the day. Race times were bigger than usual due to a sizable head wind blowing down the course.
 
USRowing has said they are committed to supporting the race event going forward, even with the light number of entries in this first year. Many of the collegiate programs said they just did not have the budget dollars to allocate to an additional event in the current year but they do plan to enter their crews in the next year.
glrfcentral
The GLRF membership began its final march towards the millennia mark with the 900th membership registration by a Toronto, Canada rower yesterday. New member sign ups have seen a definite surge since the beginning of the year, averaging 12 – 15 new members a month. If the current registration rate continues, GLRF will see its membership expanding into the triple digits around October or November of 2010.
 
The top three countries by membership are now the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The biggest draw in the membership expansion has been the existence of regional groups on Network Now!, the internal social network that serves to connect the GLRF membership.
 
With the upcoming launch of the GLRF online image gallery, Gotcha! Gallery, members should find even more reasons for logging in and interacting since the gallery features include shoutboxes, comment sections, and FavBoxes for saving favorite images into personal albums.
 
To better serve the GLRF membership, the All Oars forum has been upgraded with new features including multiple member blogs, a chat board, and more robust highlights of comments and interactions.
glrfcentral
We missed the mention in the April issue of Rowing News and a quick look at the USRowing website doesn't give any indication of the event but the 2010 USRowing Collegiate Championship Regatta is the most important new regatta event to emerge in a long time.
 
2010 will be the first year for this regatta but USRowing is committed to supporting this event moving forward.
 
The 2,000 metre event will be held at Mercer Lake near Princeton 22 - 23 May 2010. What makes this event so important is the wide variety of boat classes that are available for competition, and the open entry classification. We had to use the old index finger word counting out loud trick to make sure we got it all: 11 men's events and 10 women's events. Yes, there are events for singles, doubles, coxless fours (NICE!), pairs, quads, lightweights of all manner, and yeah, eights... Beyond the attraction of the huge number of boat classes is the fact that any university rower with any program, varsity, club, or even unaffiliated, can compete. That's unprecedented, and it also, finally, puts the United States on the same competitive field with Europe.
 
Now a set of twins studying at Occidental College in Pasadena and rowing out of Marina Del Rey can compete at a University Championship and then go on to compete in Europe. It means a 12-year old US sculler can continue his focus through high school and at university, and then be competitive with the powerful Slovakians at the World Championships and the Olympics. It means Europeans studying in the United States have a chance at continuing their training in boat classes that are otherwise ignored at most if not all US collegiate rowing programs before they return to their native countries to prepare for elite training.
 
We're looking at hosting a booth at the event for the simple reason that the regatta will attract rowers from so many rowing programs, and because we like the underlying meaning of the regatta: it's inclusive. That and USRowing sent us an email and said we'd like you to be there! :)
glrfcentral
The Florida Rowing Center sent out an email reminding those of us on the mailing list that they still have some sculling sessions available through 02 May 2010. Once the season ends, you can pick up a great shell at incredible prices as the Rowing Center jettison’s their season demo boats.
 
Find the list of boats for sale here.
 
The Center is located in West Palm Beach on a lake that has no other boat traffic. Take a look at the GLRF visit to the Florida Rowing Center in 2006:
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aworldwidecommunity/sets/72157594322713235/
glrfcentral
For the seventh year running, GLRF hosted a vendors booth at the San Diego Crew Classic, 27 – 28 March 2010 on Mission Bay in San Diego. The eights-only event draws collegiate crews, masters teams, juniors, and open entries from Mexico, the United States, and Canada. This year’s event featured 338 entries from 120 clubs.
 
Without a hint of the usual San Diego fog or the rainy Southern California spring, the sunny weekend weather created a spectacular backdrop for the races. Last year had seen some high wind conditions on the race course which resulted in two boats ejecting rowers who caught crabs. High afternoon winds typically favor the inside lane but this year the calm conditions meant all the races were evenly matched.
 
Powerhouse Stanford which had dominated the race medals in the past several years gave way to some of the usual competitive standards, University of California at Berkeley, UCLA Women, Marin Rowing Association, Long Beach Rowing Association, Palm Beach Rowing Club and Kent Mitchell Rowing Club. Some of the surprise winners included: Trinity College, University of Virginia, Temple University and Washington State University. Crews compete for a variety of race perpetual cups and trophies, 32 in all.
 
The GLRF booth was one of 24 vendors at the event this year. It was great to see fellow vendor alums and GLRF friends Erin and Amy from Pocock Racing Shells, Tom Gallagher from Sykes North America, Loralynn from Sew Sporty , GLRF member @susan143 from Resolute Racing Boats, and sexy sultry chick Margaret Christopher from Whirling Girl Jewelry. Our booth neighbors were the super nice guys from Sports Graphics on one side and the Sharp Cushman Wellness Center on the other. Sharpe was offering free bodyfat measurements so a lot of the guys were ‘getting measured’ right next door (somehow they thought it helped if they were stripped to the waist) and then compared their numbers with their friends. Let’s face it, guys like to compare themselves with each other…and it usually involves numbers!
 
Stopping by the booth to say hello were GLRF members from San Diego, Boston, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Austin, and Seattle. A big shout out to GLRF Member @sandiegosue3554 for her willingness to spell those of us dying from drinking too much water … As usual, a lot of the collegiate women stopped in to check things out and several men looked over with multiple glances or ventured inside the booth in the company of a group. We had two unusual booth visitors, first among them was a group of rowers from the Delfines de la Bahia Rowing Club, San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. They were glad to have some of the GLRF ‘Love2Row’ stickers and they came back several times to see the display of t-shirts. The second visitor of note was the Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, Right Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr., who was impressed to see our booth at an event like the Crew Classic. He congratulated us on our presence and wished us well.
 
The event also was the first time many rowers had a chance to see the new GLRF Come Out and Row Henley shirt up close. The soft feel and the blue on grey colors made the shirt an instant favorite among booth visitors.
glrfcentral
GLRF United Kingdom membership surpassed 10 percent of the GLRF worldwide membership in mid-January.
 
GLRF United Kingdom membership, although focused mostly in London (58 members), has members in 7 other administrative areas: Southeast (11), East (7), West Midlands (4), East Midlands (4), North East (3), North West (2), and Yorkshire and the Humbert (2).
 
Since GLRF encourages active as well as inactive rowers to join, the All Oars Groups provide a wonderful way to connect those who are interested in meeting other rowers. With so much interest in rowing in England, it is only a matter of time before other groups develop, either for athlete communities, such as juniors or university, or for other regionally-focused areas such as Manchester, Birmingham, or Leeds. A small women’s group has formed in London, known as none other than London Women.
 
The ten percent milestone is important as GLRF strives to build an international membership that is not perceived as just a US community. GLRF United States membership has now shrunk to just 62% of the worldwide membership community as membership has grown in Canada, the Netherlands, France, and Germany. The end result is of course, a connected, worldwide community.
glrfcentral
The GLRF Regatta Advisory Group has been cut from the GLRF lineup. Originally conceived as a way to provide consolidated GLRF membership inputs to gay-organized and gay-friendly regattas, the Advisory Group was met with limited use and fell into a comatose state in the last few years. A new Regatta Advisory Forum has been created on the ALL OARS message board to allow all GLRF members a chance to participate in regatta discussions, and to create topics individually.
 
The impetus for forming the original Regatta Advisory Group was the incredible but daunting week-long 1998 Amsterdam Gay Games Regatta that featured a 2k race format with heats and finals. Competitors found themselves stuck at the Bosbaan for most of the week as races were spread out to give athletes adequate rest. It was felt that an Advisory Group could provide inputs on future regatta formats to ensure rowers' interests were represented.
 
The Advisory Group was active during the 2006 Montreal World Outgames and the 2006 Chicago Gay Games, where the Group's input played a major role in shifting the Chicago venue from the Chicago River to Crystal Lake, and in shaping the format of the Montreal Outgames Regatta. However, with the growing community character of GLRF, it was felt that a forum format would provide a more representative voice for all GLRF members.
 
Currently, there are plans for gay regattas at the 2011 North American Outgames in Vancouver, the 2013 World Outgames in Antwerp, and possibly at the 2011 Asia Pacific Outgames in Wellington. There are also some discussions of organizing a regatta for the 2010 Frankfurt X-Mas Tournament.
 
Any member is welcome to create a topic in the new Regatta Advisory Forum where all GLRF members can post their comments and thoughts.
glrfcentral
It’s official: Antwerp will host the 2013 World Outgames 03 – 11 Aug 2013. The Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association (GLISA), the international body that licenses the World Outgames, has announced Antwerp 2013 World Outgames agreement.pdf they have signed a definitive agreement with World Outgames Antwerpen to host the event. The organizers have said rowing will be one of the featured sports at the event.
 
The news follows months of speculation that the 2009 Copenhagen World Outgames might have been the last. Naysayers across world latched onto the small participant numbers at Copenhagen (~5500) and with barely disguised shadenfreude, unilaterally declared that the World Outgames had melted into a puddle. While it is true that the world economic crisis has made organizing and hosting any multi-sport event a challenge, the City of Copenhagen’s tourist arm, Wonderful Copenhagen, recently announced a positive financial result for the 2009 World Outgames.
 
GLRF is already in discussions with the sports organizers of the 2013 World Outgames on possible formats and locations for the rowing event. The initial proposal for the rowing event was on the Netekanaal, southeast of Wijnegim. The Royal Antwerp Rowing Club is located there and a regatta was hosted there in September 2009. The challenge for the location is the relative narrow width of the canal, and the small boat facilities. GLRF has proposed that the rowing event be held at Hazewinkel, a FISA certified world championship course 18km. south of Anvers (fr. Antwerp). With the expansive rowing facilities and a large water sports centre, managed by the Belgian Flemish Sports agency (Boso), the location would accommodate a large number of competitors for the 2013 World Outgames regatta
glrfcentral
Those erg-crazy Danes have announced the 2009/2010 Winter Team Relay League. Each year the folks behind Concept2 Denmark organize this worldwide competition that encourages teams of 8 and 4 to compete in relay format on one Concept 2 Indoor Rower.
 
Get all the details at their website, 8GP .
 
What’s so great about this competition is that it allows inter-club squads to form, as in gay crews, or if those straight folk don’t mind being on "your team," they can join too. The essence of this fun competition is it only involves one erg, and can take place anywhere so you can combine some social fun at a gym, rowing club, or even your garage, den, dungeon, meatrack, whatever ….! (Do women have dungeons?)
 
Here are the quick and go details:
 
There are two separate events for teams of 8 and teams of 4 rowers. The tournament can take place anywhere. There is no need for teams to travel to a central location to compete, instead the teams simply race in their own clubs, gyms etc. and submit their results via this website.
 
The tournament consists of 5 rounds which take place each month from October to February. Each round has a different race format. A team doesn’t need to consist of exactly the same rowers in all rounds.
 
Enties for the Winter Team Relay League are free, and you can join at any point. All you need to do is register your team , a simple two minute process.
 
This kind of competition is perfect to bring the GLRF community together, and also to include other rowing club members in the fun. So log on and register your team and start putting some time on that erg because we can all be assured the Argo’s, the Strokes, Chicago Rowing Union, and … those hotties from Minneapolis Rowing Club will be in on the action. (If only Dima was on our [my] team ….)

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