Rowing for Girton
Whether you have never set foot into a boat before or whether you are more familiar with the ergo screen than you are with your own family, Girton College Boat Club welcomes rowers of all abilities! Most years we tend to have at least four senior and two novice crews – you will be joining a large, family-like society that engages in a beautiful outdoor sport, competes against other colleges in a number of races, and regularly comes together for a variety of social events. Scroll down or click the following links for information about Novices, Coxes, and Seniors.
Novices – How to Contact Us
If you have never rowed before but would like to have a go at this quintessentially Oxbridge sport, there is a number of ways you can get in touch with us:
Each year we have a stall at the Societies Fair, held in college during Freshers’ Week, where you’ll be able to try your hand in rowing on an ergometer or approach us with any questions you may have. There will be prizes for the fastest sprint on the ergometer! Even if you are dead set on joining, feel free to swing by anyway, sign up for the mailing list, and get to know our Lower Boat Captains (members of the club responsible for the onboarding and training of the novices). We hold a Taster Session on the weekend at the beginning of each term – it is a fun event with a BBQ and social afterwards. The session starts in our college, where we’ll teach you how to execute a proper rowing stoke on the rowing machines, and then we cycle together to our boathouse, where you’ll get to row on the river for the first time!
If you can’t make it to either event but still would like to join a novice crew, feel free to send your Lower Boat Captains an email at lower.boat.captains@girtoncollegeboatclub.com, message our Facebook page, or DM us on Instagram.
Novices – The First Term
Don’t worry about attending the first sessions just to ‘shop around’. First three rowing outings are free of charge, to give you time to figure out if this is a sport for you. After that you’ll be asked to pay the termly membership fee, which gives you unlimited access to the ergo room in college and includes as many outings as you manage to sign yourself up for!
The novice term (your first term of rowing) will consist of one to three rowing outings a week (depending on your declared level of commitment) and weekly sessions in the ergo room. You will quickly grasp the basics, and before long you will be racing against other novice crews! Our biggest novice intake is in Michaelmas, and this is also the term when most novice races happen, so it is particularly worth joining at the beginning of the academic year. Don’t worry though if you’d rather take this time to find your feet in Cambridge – we hold taster sessions in Lents and Easter as well, so you can always start later.
After concluding your first term of rowing, you become a ‘senior’, and join a senior crew for the next term, which usually means more rowing outings, more races, and, since by that time you’ll develop some rowing friendships, more social events!
Coxing
Want to get involved but have more brain than brawn? As rowers, we can be fairly dumb. We can’t even see where we’re going most the time. We need to be constantly told what to do, whether it’s putting more power down or focusing on particular bits of technique. That’s why we need you to help cox us! Coxing is primarily about steering, and that can be tricky round the tight bends of the river Cam. But it’s also important to have someone in the boat who can be a good coach, who can lead the team, and who can inspire.
Prospective coxes are invited to join the rowing taster session (see Novicing), otherwise feel free to send your Lower Boat Captains an email lower.boat.captains@girtoncollegeboatclub.com, message our Facebook page, or DM us on Instagram.
Seniors – How to Contact Us
If you have some experience under your belt and want to start rowing as soon as the term starts, do come and introduce yourself at the Societies Fair in college! We can then discuss your prior experience and gauge the level of commitment you’d like to put in rowing for Girton. Alternatively, you can contact directly our senior men’s and women’s captains at mens.captain@girtoncollegeboatclub.com and womenscaptain@girtoncollegeboatclub.com, or message our Facebook or Instagram page.
If you have been rowing on a competitive level for a number of years it might also be a good idea for you to get in touch with the Cambridge University Boat club, CUBC. As you might also have a chance of joining the university crew and represent us against Oxford and other national-level clubs!