Learn to row at Cambridge ‘99s has progressed over the years. Initially we were working in set groups in eights to fours. Eventually we evolved this to teaching people in our coxed pair (The Tub).

The sessions are normally a short technique refresh on the ergs and then straight into the tub.

We’ve found that the rowers get a much better experience, getting direct feedback on their rowing which is always a struggle in the eights. We generally will get people skilled enough to row in our Progression Squad in 3 sessions but we keep going until people are ready.

This also allows us to schedule sessions around people’s lives, with different people and coaches. Sometimes people come as pairs. We sometimes put people out in our Explore sculls and doubles if we think they will benefit from this.

Another advantage is that we have been able to take on people with certain physical issues to allow them to get the direct coaching they need to be able to row.

British Rowing offered financial and technical support for our Learn to Row programme from 2023 and this enabled us to really expand our learn to row offering. We increased the number of sessions we could run at the weekends and allowed some weekday sessions. The visibility of our courses on the British Rowing website helped a lot as well to get participents.

This meant that over the last two years we’ve had almost 150 people come through our course. Just over 100 joined our Progression Squad. Some have moved up to the race squads, including one who is the fastest on the ergs now!

Gender split was approximately 50/50 and we had people of all ages. We ensure that there are few barriers to join, in fact our only limit is that they can swim.

While we’ve taken in people directly who can already row, the majority of our membership is made up of people who came up through the Learn to Row programme. In fact our current and previous Progression Squad captains learnt through our Learn to Row course!

This year we’ve been trying to get people to do a session as a cox as well just to see if they are interested. It is also the first step for anyone who wants to learn to cox, to join a learn to row session. Our tub can take two coach/coxes so it is a perfect opportunity for coxes to give it a go.

I’ve always enjoyed sports as a way to get the most out of myself in fellowship with other like minded people. I loved competing in athletics from primary school through university, but as I got older the opportunities were harder to come by. The learn to row program was an opportunity for me to try a new sport and enjoy the process of being a true beginner at something. Running and cycling are great, but they’re much more individual sports. I really enjoy the individual challenge and fitness required for rowing, but also learning the technique, and rowing in sync with 7 other other humans all learning along with me. And there are simply some incredibly fun and cool people in the club and even outside of rowing, the social atmosphere in the club is really special. It’’s an exceedingly welcoming and supportive group of people and it is always a highlight of my day or week when I have the chance to spend time around the boathouse.

Nines feels like a community and I am really glad I ultimately joined this club over any other.