Community Rowing, Inc. Newsletter

WeeklyJanuary 17, 2012
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Support Row Boston's Annual Erg-a-Thon!!
Prudential Center, Boston, January 21st
Row Boston Erg Shot
Come Support Row Boston in Their Annual Erg-a-thon!!! 

 

Each year, G-Row and Boys Row Boston hold their annual Erg-a-thon at the Prudential Center and this year is no exception! 

 

Please join us this Saturday, January 21st, between 10am and 3pm!  

 

Girls and Boys Row Boston provides freerowing and academic leadership for students in the Boston Public Schools. We will be in the food court of Boston's Prudential Center to spread awareness about the team as we erg to meet our fundraising goal of $15,000. 

 

All proceeds go directly to our team for their winter ski trip, regatta fees, food and uniforms.  Your support is so important, any amount given will be greatly appreciated.

  

How can YOU help?!

  • *Donate directlythrough our online site by clicking on http://www.razoo.com/team/Rowbostonteam and selecting a student athlete. 
  • Or you can donate by check, we accept both in person and by mail 
  • *SHOW UP! Help cheer us on, create buzz and encourage support from the crowd
  • *Volunteer!! We are looking for volunteer coaches and tutors for the Spring 2012.

  

Please contact our coaches for more information:

Program Coordinator/ Girls' Head Coach -  Kaitlin Coulter 

[email protected]

 

Boys' Head Coach -  Sam Goldman 

[email protected] 

 
     
BLOOD DRIVE January 26th 
Please...
Sign up at the Front Desk
 
CRI is having a Blood Drive for the Mount Auburn Hospital
Thursday, January 26th
10:00am to 2:00pm
Meeting Room

How to Sign Up
Please sign up in person at CRI's Front Desk.  
Time Slots begin on Thursday, January 26th 
at 10:00am and occur every 20 minutes until 2:00pm.

For any questions you may have, please email 
 
Barbara Moss at: [email protected] 
or 
call Barbara at 617-417-2058
       
            The January Virtual Team Challenge
How Far Have We Erged? 

A week ago - January 10 - we had 209 members of our team who had logged 6,505,354 meters.  We were in 4th place overall and 1st among on-the-water clubs;  Riverside was 2 million meters behind us and the Croatians 200,000 behind them.  In the past week, 122 more people have joined the team and we've logged 7,096,006 meters!!   That's a million meters a day!  We're in 3rd place overall and 1st among on the water clubs with a total of 331 members and 13,601,361 meters.  We're the largest team competing in the challenge.  The Croatians are 5.2 million meters behind us and Riverside is 400,000 behind them.  During the week we took a power 10 and rowed through the third place virtual team, the Luna-Tics (with 114 members), and are now 1 million meters ahead of them.  We're gaining steadily on the Free Spirits, with 174 members, who are 250,000 meters ahead of us - they were 1 million ahead a week ago. I can tell that they know we're moving on them and are working hard.  We just have to keep up our steady pace and get the meters we're rowing into the log book, and we'll pass them this week.  I expect a dog fight with them until January 31.

 

How far is 13.6 million meters?  If we headed south from the boathouse we'd be in Antarctica, and will arrive at the South Pole tomorrow.  If we headed north over the north pole, we'd be in Viet Nam, at about the same latitude as Bangkok.  If we headed west, we've passed American Samoa in the Pacific and are 3 days away from Canberra, the capital of Australia.  Or if we headed east, we have rowed diagonally over the Atlantic and Africa and be on the Tropic of Capricorn in Madagascar, headed for the west coast of Australia.

 

A couple of reminders: 

1)      While the deadline has passed for joining the team, you can still help out by logging your meters on the clipboards in the community room.  We've set up some CRI logbooks and we'll put your meters there.  Or just email them to us.

2)      All meters rowed from January 1 to January 31 count - they just have to be logged.

3)      Sunday afternoon 1 pm to 4 pm is movie afternoon - come join us for as much time as you can spare.  The feature film is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, with Part 2 to come on January 29.

 

Go CRI!!

Be Healthy Boston Flyer
 
CRI Featured at Be Healthy Boston! 
January 28-29 at the Westin Boston Waterfront

Ellen Minzner, Outreach Director at Community Rowing, will lead a Be Healthy Boston panel discussion on Saturday, January 28 at 9:15am. The panel topic is titled -  A Family Affair: Getting Your Children to Live a Healthy Lifestyle.  
 
Fellow oarswomen on the panel include Dr. Kate Ackerman of Children's Hospital and Whitney Post, President of the Eating for Life Alliance, along with author Sally Sampson of Chop Chop magazine and Jane Hirschi, founder of CitySprouts.  

  

Listen in on the panel, or stop by the CRI booth any time during the weekend at the Community Corner of the Be Healthy Boston Expo.

  

For more information, or to volunteer at the CRI booth, please contact Ellen Minzner at: 
 
  
Please see the Be Healthy Boston flyer below....
Team Titan Rows to Benefit CRI Veterans' Program
Bryan Fuller Reflects On His Challenge



It's has been almost 4 months since I received that initial email from
Woodvale, the organization that manages the transatlantic rowing race.  I 
had thought about doing an ocean row in a couple of years, but it was more 
of a fantasy than a reality.  I would say to myself, in five years when the 
stars are aligned and when I was a better rower, when I had some money 
saved up, then I would go for it.  I rowed with Pam Wayne a few times and 
she said that it was a fantastic idea, which made it seem more possible. 
Still, ask me 6 months ago if I would have a one-way ticket in hand today 
to fly to Gran Canaria and I would have been the first to laugh. 

 As  it  happened,  this  last  June, I had contacted Woodvale about a 
seminar  they  had held on some of the difficulties of ocean rowing.  I had 
requested  that they upload the video so curious minds like me could better 
appreciate  the  process.  Then, as luck would have it, they reached out to 
me.   It turns out the list of people willing to subject themselves to this 
sort  of race is smaller than I realized.  They said that a boat, captained 
crew  for an attempt at the record this February.  The crew would be rowing by Simon Chalk, the world's most accomplished ocean rower, was outfitting a  in  the most advanced ocean rowing boat ever built, the Titan. How could I say no? 
   
My  first  painful  conversation  was  with my fianc�e, Van.  She was 
surprisingly  supportive.   Still,  I  though it best if I tried to ask her 
while  she  was  watching the Kardashians.  Even though she was distracted, she was lucid enough to understand the gravity of the situation. She asked some smart questions, things I had not thought about, such as safety, food, duration,  and cost.  I, of course, gave her vague answers. Still, she was supportive  and  I  moved  on to the next painful question, asking for time off.   My employer, Sun Life Financial, located in Wellesley Hills, gave me their  answer  scarcely 20 days after my first contact with Woodvale.  They were  completely  supportive  and even donated $1,500 to the program.  Now, the wheel was fully set in motion.  I pulled out the calendar and marked it from  day  1  on February 14, 2012 back to October 10, 2011, day 127 when I got  the  okay  from  work.  127 days seemed like a really long time, maybe even long enough to get in shape. 
     
I knew this could be a high profile event, so my next step was to ask 
Bruce,  Chris,  and Ellen if I could represent them and the veteran program 
in  general.   I  could tell Bruce had his reservations, though he was very 
encouraging.  I am sure he was thinking of much more complex issues such as liability  or  what  I  would need from CRI by means of support.  Chris and Ellen  were  all  to  willing to put me on a plane right then and there.  I 
essentially laid out a plan to Bruce and Ellen in a subsequent meeting that 
I  would  attempt  to be part of the record and that any opportunity that I 
had  for  press  would  afford  me  the  chance to talk about CRI and their 
amazing  veteran  program.   Sadly, the press appears to want to hear about what  I did, rather than what I am going to do so.  In some ways my efforts to get the word out has been a bust. 
     
Either  way, I had the green light from everyone; I had to figure out 
how  to  pay for such an endeavor.  The ticket alone to get on the boat was 
�15,000  (~$25,000).   I  figured my friends and family would be willing to 
help, if only to get me out of the house for a month.  If I really intended 
on  paying  for  this,  I  would need a significant fund raising effort.  I 
settled  on  a  gala  silent  auction.   I had hoped that this sort of fund 
raiser  would  do a couple of things; first, it would help pay for my trip, 
though  I  expected  to  raise  only  a couple of thousand dollars at best; 
second, it would bring new faces down to the boat house, who had never been there  before.   And,  lastly,  it  would  illuminate  the terrific veteran 
program,  which  I  wanted  to grow anyway.  In short, the event was even a 
bigger success than I imagined.  I have always said, you can never know how great  your  friends are until you need them.  Friends I knew and friends I had  just met proved their support in more ways than I could have imagined. 
     
In  the  chaos  that  was  that  night  and  all  that  went into the 
preparation  for  it,  I didn't have the chance to properly thank those who 
made  it  a success.  I want to first thank Leigh Terry who helped me every 
single  day prepare for it.  She handled everything from the liquor license 
to  sticking  fliers  on  the  windows.   I also want to thank the staff of 
Bruce,  Rob,  Ellen,  Chris,  and  Jean for their support leading up to and 
including  the  day  of  the  event.   I could never have put this together 
without  them.  I want to thank Jane Morse for inviting Chuck Pieper, and I 
especially want to than Chuck for agreeing to come.  Chuck not only won the most  expensive  item  on  the  auction,  a  week  in Steamboat Springs, he convinced  my  dear friends Jack and Jeanette Finney who donated their home to donate it again and yet again to Catherine Sheehan and Tom Darling the 2nd  and  3rd  place  bidders.  Without, Jack and Chuck, I probably couldn't have  done  this race.  I also wanted to thank my uncle David Morse and his lovely wife Susan, who drove seven hours up from their home in Philadelphia to  host  the  event.   I  felt it was reasonable to assume that 200 guests wouldn't  come  out to see me, but I knew 200 guests would come out to meet him.   Though,  they  likely  won't  see  this, I wanted to thank the band, English  Tom  in  the Bookstore and Chris Khang for providing the music and the  food for the night.  I have a feeling we may see English Tom again.  I also wanted to thank Tom Mailhot, who showed his amazing film, Row Hard, No Excuses  that  probably  answered a  lot of questions for the guests while simultaneously  scared the hell out of them.  Lastly, I wanted to thank all of  the  volunteers, guests, and donors that made it all come together.  In the  end,  the  event was hugely successful and I raised almost $5,000 more than  I needed.  All of the additional proceeds are to be donated on behalf of Jack and Jeanette to the Veteran and Adaptive Rowing Programs. 
     
Now  as the days tick down into the teens, the reality of the row has 
become apparent.  Sometimes at night I stare at the ceiling and wonder what I  have  gotten  myself  into.  I have checked and rechecked everything and have  begun  to  pack.  On Thursday last week, I purchased, with Jeanette's help  of  course,  my one way ticket to Gran Carania.  I never bought a one way  ticket anywhere, not knowing when I will return.  It seems ominous.  I think  I  know  what to expect, but I probably don't.  I give myself an 80% chance  of  finishing  the  race  and a 20% chance of actually breaking the record,  pretty good odds for someone who never thought he would be in this position.  Either way, I am grateful to everyone for the chance.
  
Bryan Fuller 
Veteran & Ocean Rower 
 
Volunteer Alert

CRI's 2012 G-Row Boston Marathon Team 

Needs Your Help for their upcoming 12 mile Training Run!

 

WHAT 

Water-Stop Volunteers 

 

WHEN

Saturday, January 14th - 7:45am to 10:00am

 

THE PLAN

7:45am---Volunteers will meet up with the G-Row Marathon Team in Ashland at the Ashland Middle School.  There Volunteers will collect Gatorade/Water and Snacks and put them in their cars.

 

8:00am---Each Volunteer drives out to their first assigned water stop and waits for runners.  Once all the runners have come by, the volunteers will then drive to their next assigned water stop along the route.  And they will continue to do this for a total of 2 - 4 water stops.

 

COURSE MAP & WATER STOPS

Volunteer #1 will go to Water Stop #1, #3, #4, and possibly #6

Volunteer #2 will go to Water Stop #2, #5

 

CLICK LINK

Meet out front of Ashland Middle School parking lot on Route 135 / West Union Street in Ashland (GPS:  87 West Union Street, Ashland, MA).  Here is a map of the location of where to meet and the route.  Course Map

  

TO VOLUNTEER EMAIL: leigh.communityrowing@gmail.com

  
Join CRI's G-Row Boston Marathon Team! 
G-Row Boston is an official charity of the 2012 Boston Marathon.
Boston Marathon Header 
               Marathon-Button-2012

If you are interested in fundraising and running for

CRI's G-Row Boston Outreach Program please apply online today

by clicking the link below, or the image above. 

 

APPLICATION LINK 

 

G-Row Boston Link

 

For more information please e-mail:-mail:
 


Applications are accepted until the team is filled.

(The G-Row Boston Marathon Team has 15 marathon numbers total.)

 

VO2 Max Testing/CRI Discount  
Spaulding Cambridge Rehabilitation Center

ExPD's  Dr. Andy Taylor and Glen Picard (through Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital) are offering their newly developed VO2 Max Protocol for the Rowing Ergometer for $165 ($90 discount) to members of the CRI community. 
 
There are a LIMITED number of discount tests.  First come, first serve.  If interested please contact Judith Vogel at:
[email protected]    
Private Events
No Weekend Private Events
Have a great weekend! 
In This Issue
Row Boston Erg-a-Thon January 21 10am-3pm Prudential Center, Boston
Blood Drive at CRI - Please Sign Up Today!
January Team Challenge, Just How Far Have We Rowed?
CRI Featured at Be Healthy Boston Expo
Bryan Fuller Set For Transatlantic Row
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!!
Join CRI's G-Row Marathon Team!!
VO2 Max Testing/CRI Discount
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