2019 SEQ School State Rowing Championships

Firstly google have forgotten about customers
https://www.publicalbum.org/blog/embedding-google-photos-image

I am at the South East Queensland Schools Championships.
Kenmore and Brigidine row with centenary Rowing Club.
We only have 4 girls from Brigidine - Caitlin, Jessie, Anabelle &Jemma.
There are about double this from Kenmore.

This year, in my opinion, Rowing Queensland (RQ) have hanged the rules to favour the large private schools.  The traditional rowing schools.  They have done two things I disagree with.  Firstly they have decided to engage directly with the schools and secondly they have required each school to pay a $330 affiliation fee.

So a school with 1 rower has to pay $330 for that rower to row and a school with 100 rowers effective pays $3.30 per rower.  And the schools with lareg programs are guess what the big established private schools.

Now consider the "engage with Rowing Queensland" side of it.RQ wish to "engage" directly with the schools.  BUT they forget that many of the schools simply don't want to "engage".  State schools for example are hardly likely to want to "engage" with anyone.  A private school might but they have to first see that there is a benefit to the school and their students.  At the practical level where I am the effect is that because I am not "THE rowing coordinator" they wont send me any of the paperwork that they send to the school.  The school does not have a paid Coordinator so the paperwork just moves along.  maybe.

I have heard several stories of schools who feel that the whole thing si just too hard. 

For us at Centenary it's made for a ton of extra work.  Once upon a time, all we had to do was get the principal to sign a piece of paper stating that the kids could represnet the school.  Now we have to do that except RQ sends the paper to the school and does not tell us.  So no one knows to advocate for it to be signed.  Then RQ sends the invoice to the school.  Where it can languish because the school does not know what it is for and we don't know it was sent.  Then the school pays it and invoices us the rowing club.  Then we pay the school.  Then we do what we used to do in the past.  Divide it by the number of kids and add a towing, boat maintenance and insurance fee and then issue invoices to the kids participating.

I wonder if any other peak bodies make it so dam hard.

The weather was near perfect.
Warm.  Very little wind.

Jemma and Caitlin on their way out.  They got a bronze medal for the GR10 double.

Jemma won her GR9 single heat by a very ling way.  Here her friend Caitlyn smiles for the camera.