Inverness Rowing Club is named as the club of the year at the Scottish Rowing Awards
INVERNESS Rowing Club have been recognised for breaking down barriers in the sport and making it accessible to a wider group of people than ever before.
For the first time in its history, it has been named as the club of the year at the Scottish Rowing Awards.
It was named as the winner primarily for its work in creating outreach projects in the area and introducing the sport to people who have had no previous experience of rowing.
Now it is aiming to continue their success of growing the number of people taking up rowing and prove that the sport is accessible to all.
The club have been working at introducing rowing with schools, youth groups, young carers and young people who have been in care.
They are planning to shortly launch outreach projects working with young offenders and those at risk of offending.
In addition, they are looking at projects working with young self reliant asylum seekers within the Highland area.
The club opened up its new £300,000 boathouse at Torvean last year and club president Robert Gordon says one of their main objectives was to let the public know that rowing is accessible to everyone.
He said: “We received public money from the Inverness Common Good Fund and Sport Scotland to do the boathouse development.
“Part of the development strategy for the club was that we would be committed to growing the sport of rowing in the Highlands.
“Once we had finished the boathouse development and created better facilities, it was about reaching out to the community.
“That started with learn to row programmes and bringing in people who have never learned to row before.
“In March, we started an outreach project and feasibility study connecting with High Life Highland and SportScotland. We visited schools within 20 miles of Inverness with active school coordinators to find out interest in expanding rowing.
“That pushed us to get funding and get a funded position to get someone to work with the club and get the connections we have already made.
“We were supported by Henley Royal Stewards and they supported us with a three-year project of funding to allow us to have a full-time person at the club.
“She is visiting schools and setting up indoor rowing clubs and bringing people down to the club.
“We are working with Highland young carers and with young people in the care sector to introduce them to learn to row programmes and there is more interest in people rowing.
“We are looking to work with young offenders through Police Scotland and Highland Council.
“We are also looking to work with asylum seekers who are under-18’s and give them an opportunity to get involved with the sport.”
Gordon says it has been very successful in efforts to show rowing is not elitist with its attempts to introduce the sport to a new audience.
They are also proud of its success with getting women involved with the sport, with females outnumbering males not just at Inverness Rowing Club, but across Scotland too.
He says: “Rowing does have a perception as something that happens at the Olympics or the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and maybe people at private schools. That is not how we see it at Inverness and we are trying to change that perception.
“There are more women in Scottish rowing than men with 53 per cent of rowers in Scotland female.
“Inverness Rowing Club replicates those figures as we have more female members than male members. We are proud of that figure as it indicates that it is a safe environment for people to enjoy the sport.
“Currently there are around 175 members at the club and of those 47 are juniors which is amazing.
“After Covid we only had two active juniors, so to have 47 is fantastic. We have a really healthy junior section and there is a regular interest of people want to enjoy rowing for the first time.”
Inverness will be hosting a major rowing event in November when around 1000 people are expected to take part with between 650 to 700 boats on the Caledonian Canal.
Being named Scottish club of the year, Gordon hopes it will prove to be a major boost to get more people involved in rowing.
He said: “It hopefully gives more recognition for rowing in the Inverness area and reach out to people to let them know what we are trying to do. It gives us confidence in what we are doing and the continued support going forward.
“There have been a lot of people in helping taking this forward.”