News & Events
Deneb Captain's Log
23rd July 2018
Good Evening Cygnets !!!
Sorry for the Delay.
First of all, Greetings everyone from the new captaincy. Thank you all who made it to the last OGM and voted for the new team, Niall Smith (Deputy), Tom Broadhurst (Vice) and myself (Captain). It is a great Honour. Huge Thanks to Matt B, and the previous team (Sam and Charlie) for the fantastic hard work. May the force be with us and keep things running smoothly.
This Week! All entries for St Neots (Sat 28th) have been accepted! Good News!
Sen 8+ ( Sam, Scott, Ian Nick, Cris, Niall, Barry, Vasil) Cox TBC
Sen4+ (Sam, Nick , Ian, Scott,) Cox TBC
Inter 4+ (Niall, Cris , Barry , Vasil) Cox TBC
Nov 4+ (Rupert , Eric, Mustafa, Ashley) Cox TBCOutings/Training This week/Racing crews for St Neots get priority:
Tuesday /
19.00 at the club / OTW 19.15 Sen8+ ( Sam, Scott, Ian , Nick, Cris, Niall, Barry, Vasil)
19.00 Eric, Henrik, Joris , Julian, Mustafa plan tbc come down we sort onsite
Alex, Robin 1x?Thursday: /
19.00 - 19.15 OTW
Sen 4+/4- Boat TBC (Sam, Nick, Ian, Scott)
Inter 4+/4- Boat TBC (NIall, Cris, Barry, Vasil)
Novice 4+ N. Pickford (Rupert, Eric, Mustafa, Ashley) coxed TBCEveryone else come down we sort onsite
Thursday after Outings Loading the trailer for St Neots.
Erg of the week: If you are not racing: 4X750m rest 5min
If you are racing: 1x 750m rest 5 min 1x500mLetter of the week A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktuvc-Ejv3A
A for Availability ....So Pretty Please with sugar on top fill in your availability for the last Regattas of the season by Weds Eve, which are:
4th August HTV (Seniors Only)
11th 12th August PeterBorough/
18th 19th Oxford City Regatta /Remember --> No Aviability --> No Outing ---> No Race
and this is for the moment ...more to come ...little by little....
Have a nice Monday eve and a better weekCris
Dates for your diary:
Sat 4th August HTV
Weekend 11th-12th August Peterborough
Weekend 18th-19th Oxford City Regatta
Sat 8th September Club Day
Weekend 15th-16th Autumn Sculling CampNoel Davison
19th July 2018
Noel Davison
21st May 1953-1st July 2018
None of us can ever truly know when our 'time is up'. For Noel Davison, who died on 1st July 2018, just weeks after his 65th birthday, following a long battle with cancer, that time was far too soon.
Although most of his adult life was spent in London, Noel was a proud Irishman from County Londonderry in Northern Ireland. Educated at Coleraine Inst, a local grammar school for boys, he learned to row on the River Bann, the longest river in NI, before striking out overseas to St Andrew's University in Fife, Scotland.
Following graduation, he headed south, seeking employment with the Inland Revenue as a District Tax Inspector, and arrived in London in the early 1970s as that rarest of beings: a competent oarsman who had no rowing points - in short, a coach's dream. As a newcomer to the metropolis, Noel wasted no time in seeking an outlet for his waterman ship skills and Cygnet RC beckoned, along with nearby lodgings at 14 Vernon Road, East Sheen, the legendary home of Mike Arnold-Gilliat, the then captain of Cygnet RC.
Life at Vernon Road was an unstoppable merry-go round of rowing, sleeping and eating with the occasional sojourn to the nearby Hare and Hounds. Noel made some lifelong friends and a taste for Young's 'Ordinary', but the whole experience did little to advance his or other inmates domestic housekeeping skills.
Noel always said that his novice years at Cygnet were some of his happiest afloat. Carefree days spent paddling up and down the Chiswick reach were rewarded with several non-status wins on the River Lea, where one spectator pronounced them to be a 'tasty crew', and the Royal Naval Dockyards at Portsmouth, before losing their rowing virginity at Curlew.
Higher status wins followed. Noel was one of the anchor men of the crews coached by George Plumtree in 1977-78, which saw the participants ascend from Senior C to Elite over two years, starting with the Senior C Pennant win in the Head of the River in 1977.
Not one to stand on ceremony, Noel nevertheless felt that it was important to introduce his future wife, Eleanor, to his crew mates quite early on in their courtship. And so it was on a cold winter's evening at the height of disco mania that the happy couple braved the dank surroundings of the Cygnet bar. Needless to say, the bar fell well short of health and safety norms, even by 1970s standards, and the company was not much better. The look on Eleanor's face said it all. Still, all was not lost and over time she came to love both Noel and the inner sanctum of the Cygnet bar, if not the crew.
Cygnet was Noel's first port of call, but we cannot claim a monopoly; he also rowed at Molesey Boat Club and, latterly, Tideway Scullers. Molesey provided Noel with the springboard he craved to achieve greater things: regular wins at Elite would follow, coupled with impressive performances at Henley Royal Regatta and National Championships. On a lighter note, in 1979 Noel starred in a TV commercial that featured him stroking an Vlll as it gently slipped below the waves while the cox, Ronnie Corbett, blithely puffed away on a Hamlet Cigar. The commercial can still be viewed today on You Tube.
Noel always appreciated the importance of putting something back into the sport and in late-1983 the opportunity arose to return to Cygnet in the self-styled role of Squad Co-ordinator. The experience he had gained at Molesey proved invaluable in changing the training and racing ethos at Cygnet and laid the foundations for some of the club's most successful years in 1984-87, not least a coxless lV that he coached virtually singlehandedly from Senior B to Elite in one season.
Family and professional commitments subsequently took priority. Noel bade farewell to the Inland Revenue, joining Arthur Andersen where he obtained a chartered accountancy qualification, before moving on to Ernst and Young in 1994. EY played to Noel's strengths and he became a much-respected international tax partner working on some of the most prestigious accounts of the day. As a devoted family man, there was never any doubt that Noel and Eleanor made a great team, while he adored son Paul and daughter Julia, encouraging them in their every endeavor; they, in turn, embraced his unwavering work ethic, carving out their own paths as successful young people, determined to maintain the Davison traditions.
All work and no play is never a good recipe for life andthe draw of the Tideway is hard to resist. Noel returned to veteran rowing in the mid-noughties, gracing one or two heads and regattas along the way. His talents as an oarsman were much in demand and he rowed at both Cygnet and Tideway Scullers, before illness curtailed activity afloat. Even so, Noel continued to fulfil his landward duties as Honorary Examiner at Cygnet and Honorary Secretary at the Head of the River Fours until just months before his demise. Indeed, he was arguably one of the few officials who managed to get his head around the new points system - for that alone he will be sorely missed.
Irrespective of which club he rowed for, Noel always brought wisdom, dedication, a certain air of authority and sheer bonhomie to the water. Prior to writing this piece, I asked, Rhodri Walters, a longstanding friend of Noel's, how he would describe Noel; he replied "much like his rowing style - long in the water, steady on the slide and easy to follow". Lawrence Williams at TSS recalls: "I remember a pause in one of our earlier more catastrophic outings when he (Noel) was sitting behind me and I filled a gap in conversation by informing him that we now had two professors in the crew. His immediate response was brief and typical - "Good, we need all the intellectual firepower we can get."
Appearances can be deceptive and some will argue that Noel was a man of few words. It is true that he was certainly not one for small talk. However, all those who spent time with him will know that once you scratched the surface, he was always happy to engage in debate on all manner of subjects and often held quite strong views. An economy of words, coupled with his calm demeanour, meant that whenever Noel did hold forth, the assembled company, whoever they were, always sat up and listened.
Rowing was not Noel's only passion. He also had a great love of literature. Retirement gave him an opportunity to cast off his professional mantle of international taxation and immerse himself in English Literature, obtaining a degree from Oxford University in 2017.
Against his better judgement, Noel also partook of several canal trips organized by Malcolm Burman and his cohorts at Cygnet. Malcolm recounts: "..not sure what he made of those. He seemed to enjoy them, despite the fact that it rained most of the time - but I seem to remember he was very keen on steering, particularly in the tunnels and we had to drag him away from the tiller [for lock-opening duties]."
For many Cygnet members, their last memory of Noel will have been of him sagely presenting his report at the February AGM in his capacity as Honorary Examiner, a post he had held jointly with Malcolm Burman for eighteen years. For the crew of 1977-78, a happier memory of Noel will have been of him sitting in the Cygnet bar reflecting on a lifetime afloat on the occasion of the 40th reunion of the Plumtree Vlll in March 2017. He will be greatly missed.
Paul Rawkins
The Last Log
16th July 2018
It's been a busy year since the last captaincy election. The squad has had to weather the loss of Tim Male as head coach; big thanks to everyone who has stepped into the launch to help out during the year, particularly Kirsty, Alan and Gareth (in his single scull).
The meatwagon continued the regatta season where they left off last summer with wins at Chiswick, Borne and Richmond regattas; in each case the top tier of the 4+ events. Well done, and I hope there's still time for some final hurrahs before winter training takes over.
Big thanks to everyone who has stepped into the smallest seat during the year; particular thanks to Anna and Hannah for crossing the divide when their BBLRC duties have allowed it. Hopefully most of the squad have now had a go at steering/coxing under supervision; please consider taking the steering test and becoming accredited to help the club continue to field crews for training and racing.
Outings this week
Tuesday 7pm - plan TBC - Rupert, Kay, Julian, Henrik, Eric, Barry, Ashley
Thursday 7pm - 4x+ (Lambe) Barry, Henrik, Julian, Mustafa, coxed by Matt
Weekend outing plans to follow later in the week, as it's currently looking a little sparse (again) on fitclub, and racing plans also to come after the elections/impromptu squad meeting on Tuesday night. (After we find out whether there are any names on the board.)
Matt
