New Boathouse

      Progress Report January 2011

Since Falcon Rowing & Canoeing Club won planning permission for the proposed replacement boathouse at the end of the summer of 2010, the club's boathouse working party have worked hard on the project.  They have concentrated on finalising the list of distinguished patrons.  Patrons lend their names to projects like the boathouse as a token of their support, giving the fundraisers credibility and contacts; both vital in projects of this size.

The Patrons are:

   Tim Stevenson OBE, Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire

   The Lord Major of Oxford

   Rt Hon Andrew Smith MP

   Professor Janet Beer, Vice Chancellor Oxford Brookes University

   Ed McKeever, Kayak World Champion 2010

The working party and club committee thank the patrons for their invaluable support.

We are also pleased to welcome Oxford Brookes University, the most aggressively successful rowing university in the UK, as a partner in the project.  Students from Brookes' will, from next summer 2011, be invited to join in coaching as part of Falcons' outreach programme and in the fullness of time to increase their involvement as coaches from our new building.  FBC will act as talent spotters for Brookes, directing local young people to Brookes, informing them of the support the university can and wants to offer them.

The boathouse working party is presently involved in writing the bids for grants and has completed and submitted a first bid, two more are progressing, other funding sources are being identified.  (Members of Falcon are reminded that should they want to do some freelance fund-finding, that they first clear their activity with the boathouse fundraisers so we keep our ducks in a line!)

In addition, to bids, business and sports development plans are being compiled.  Both involve detailed close work, and a great deal of time.  However, they are shaping up well and will be finished by the end of January 2011.

Currently negotiations are in hand on extending our site lease from 21 to 99 years, a prerequisite for the big funders.

We continue to have a very pleasing measure of local support from our neighbours in East Oxford and from the officers and councillors of Oxford City Council.

Note to local members: As part of the FBC contact with local groups we are requested to suggest a nature trail suitable for following in open canoes, this for local schools, school children and their parents, should anyone in the club want to write it?  Just tell someone on the committee.

Peter Travis

President FBC