Squads

OARC has an adult-only membership across three squads: men, women, and development (mixed). Through squad rowing, the club offers a flexible schedule and coached outings which enables both recreational rowing and high-level racing. The squads often compete together as a club at races, and at our annual training camp in Spain.

Men’s Squad

The Men’s Squad is going strong and currently numbers just over 30. There’s a mix of people, from those with decades of rowing experience to more recent converts to the sport, including several who learned to row with the club. The Squad is happy to welcome new members, and to welcome back alumni for an outing if you’re passing through Oxford!

In 2023, the Squad had two VIIIs that raced at both the Quintin Head and Head of the River races, and maintained a good presence at local and regional events throughout the summer, achieving some wins at Isis Sculls. More recently, a squad member took on the challenge of the British Rowing Indoor Championship. Overall, it was a busy year, despite some extended periods off the water due to high stream. In 2021 and 2022, the crews performed very well at the Met Regatta and the Henley Qualifiers, though they did not quite manage to qualify for Henley on either occasion.

Recently, the squad has also benefited significantly from investment in equipment, including the acquisition of a 1st VIII added to the fleet in 2019, a bow-loader 1st IV+ acquired in 2022, and a stern-loader IV+ and a 2- in 2023, along with upgrades to the blades.

The OARC Men’s Squad is looking forward to building on these achievements through 2024.

Women’s Squad

The Senior Women’s Squad has grown considerably over the last few years and now has more than 50 members, both sweep rowing and sculling. The squad offers regular training sessions throughout the week. Racing is offered at both a recreational and a competitive level.
The Women’s Squad has 50 members and we typically boat 18 crews a week, across both sculling and sweep rowing.

We have successfully recruited 2 further coaches this season, to complement the other coaches we share with the other squads. Alessandro Tagliavia competed with Fordham Preparatory School, Boston College, Community Rowing Boston and Riverside Boat Club in the USA, and has coached introductory, recreational, and competitive sweep rowing and sculling across youth and adult squads with Community Rowing Boston and Greenwich Crew.

Alistair started rowing as a junior and then rowed with Oxford Brookes during his undergraduate degree in Sports and Exercise Science. He is now studying for a Masters in Applied Sports and Exercise Science and also coaches at Headington School. He coaches all levels, from novices to those aiming to compete at Henley Royal Regatta.

Alistair and Alessandro have fitted in well with our established coaching setup (John Ewans, Caroline Smith, Mark Portnoi and Tim Halliday) and the women have benefited from their input.

Our first event of the season was Isis Sculls in September, which saw a 4x, two 2xs and an Mx2x representing the Women’s Squad. The 4x was thrilled to win the W4x event, despite a clash with another crew requiring the crew to stop and restart. The rest of our racing this season has been somewhat stymied as poor weather has resulted in the cancellation of everything else we have entered. We were particularly proud of the WVIII+ due race at Upper Thames Autumn Head last October: their commitment was fantastic, they made huge technical gains and were very supportive of one another. The crew really exhibited what we strive for our members to achieve. We very much hope that WeHoRR will go ahead in March!

The Christmas Dinner saw the achievements of squad members recognised by the wider Club. Huge congratulations to Harriet Campbell Longley, our Woman of the Year 2022-23! Harriet continues to work hard on her rowing, always makes us laugh when she hits the WhatsApp groups, encourages and supports Dev, is a superlative Breakfast Monitor in Chief, regularly signs up to cox and generally makes a wonderful contribution to the Women’s Squad and wider Club. We were proud to give honorary mentions to Natalie Burrows, Harriet-Rose Noons, Hilary Wynne, Jo Conway and Becky Whidden. Between them, they regularly row, train, encourage others, steer, cox, help out, are ridiculous, often hilarious and contribute a huge amount, for which we are very grateful.

We were thrilled to see Becky Whidden being awarded with the President’s Prize! A well-deserved recognition of all the love and work Becky has poured into Accies since she joined, and, in particular, of the tremendous Learn to Row campaign which she ran so magnificently this year. Hanna Willis deservedly scooped Cox of the Year, a well-deserved accolade for taking on her first Tideway head earlier this year at HoRR: a challenge she rose to in splendid fashion.

Despite the weather keeping us off the water over the 4 weeks, the squad has stayed positive and some excellent land training is being done. We have a dedicated group who erg on Thursday each week, before heading to the pub for a well-deserved pint and some cheesy ships. We have organised circuit training at the Florence Park Community Centre, which has been well attended, and some of the squad have started going to the ParkRun at University Parks.

Development Squad

OARC’s Development Squad is where those who have completed one of OARC’s summer “Learn To Row” courses train and develop their skills before proceeding to the Senior Squads. The Development Squad rows several times each week. Many of our Senior Squad rowers learned to row at OARC.