ACT Minister of Tourism, Sport and Recreation Andrew Barr yesterday announced that Rowing ACT had been successful with its grant applications for funding assistance from the ACT government for the coming year.
The most significant of these grants is for the purchase of three Modular Connect-a-Dock Pontoons for use on Lake Burley Griffin. These Association pontoons have been ordered specifically for the 2013 Rowing Australia Masters Championship Regatta as part of an upgrade of facilities at Weston Park. This regatta is potentially the biggest ever hosted in Canberra and the pontoons will facilitate boating at the venue. Following on from the NCA lowering the lake on December 1, 2011 we have temporarily assigned these pontoons to clubs that have suffered major inconvenience: two of them to be located on Yarralumla Bay, and one at Capital Lakes RC. We understand that the pontoons will be arriving within a month, and should help alleviate the worst of the problems that clubs are continuing to have with the lake being low. The Association will match the ACT grant dollar for dollar, and will retain ownership of the pontoons so that they will be available for the 2013 Masters Championship regatta, and/or after the lake level resumes its normal depth, when clubs will revert to boating without the pontoons.
The association also successfully applied for a much smaller development grant for a website upgrade, and continued to receive triennial funding for our sport, which pays our administrative officer’s salary.
Rowing ACT thanks Minister Barr and the ACT’s Sport and Recreation Services of the Economic Development Directorate of the ACT Government for their extensive support over recent years. These projects will continue to help our sport grow.
David Bagnall