Archive for month: May, 2015

Rowing ACT has awarded the Cliff Hill Trophy for 2014-5 to ACTAS Head Rowing Coach Andy Randell for his outstanding season. Cliff Hill was a former Boat Race official, and the trophy is awarded annually by the Association for outstanding efforts from any member or group within the rowing community. In the past the award has been presented to crews, officials, volunteers, whole clubs, and individual rowers.

Andrew Randell has been enormously successful in his first 12 months as Head Coach at ACTAS. His coaching of Cara Grzeskowiak pushed her through the rankings to Australia’s best under 23 sculler, despite Cara still being eligible for under 21. Her third place in the Inter-state single behind Olympians Crow and Hore put the ACT on the Inter-state podium for the first time since 2006.

The ACTAS squad under Andy also included Tom Perry who improved significantly to be at the forefront of lightweight senior scullers. Tom will stroke the Men’s Lightweight quad that will race at the World Rowing Championships at Aiguebelette in France in August.

Another sculler to benefit from Andy’s coaching is Luke Letcher, who won national Under 23 Championships in the single, double and quad to establish himself as a good chance at the World under 23 Championships in July in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where he will be racing in the double scull.

Apart from coaching these and other elite athletes, Andy has also set up and supervised new local programs including a University Pathway Program, and a Talent Transfer program to help athletes from other sports transition into rowing, he has fine tuned the talent search program, recruited former national coaches Nigel Harding and Pedro Albisser back into coaching, conducted coaching education seminars and multiple training camps, re-established connections with the club coaches, and had a Kings cup squad training together through winter, with the fifth place at that event a credible placing given the talent in the bigger states.

Andrew is unique among the various state Head coaches: he is in charge of both High Performance and Talent Development, and recently he has been appointed coach of the Senior A women’s eight to attempt to qualify that boat for Rio for Rowing Australia.

So Congratulations Andrew for lots of hard work and a resultant great season.

Interim By-Laws were published on 25 March to allow further consultation.    That consultation period has ended and the Board agreed, last night, to updated By-Laws.

Comments on the Interim By-laws were only received from one person and a minor change was made in respect of composite crews for school events (Section 18 refers.)    The Board noted that it will look again at the Regatta Sub-committee terms of reference following further consultation with its Chair.

The Board would like to thank all those who contributed to the development of the By-laws since consultations were initiated in January.  The Board noted that it would expect to continue to refine the By-laws over time in the light of feedback and changing circumstances.