It’s time to put the long winter workouts in the erg room behind us. The Saline Rowing team spring season officially begins this week! I hope everyone enjoyed there spring break and we are all rested and ready for the next 2 months of rowing. Activities will start to pick up rapidly. Below is are highlights for the upcoming week.

Practice
Practices this week will be at the boathouse Monday - Thursday starting right after school until approximately 5:00 pm. After practice Thursday, the team will be loading the boats on the trailer for the regatta this weekend so it may be a little longer than usual. Practice Friday will be held at the Skyline team site where the rowers will be unloading the boats for the race on Saturday. See the Regatta info below for directions.

Skyline Regatta
Our first regatta of the spring season is this Saturday, April 16 at Ann Arbor Skyline. Rower report time is 6:50 am. Because this is the first week back, the regatta lineups will be changing throughout the week and will not be set until Friday night. Also, rower lineups will continue to evolve over the season as the evaluations will happen weekly, so boats the rowers will be in this weekend will not necessarily be the boat they will row in by the end of the season. The regatta will be at the Washtenaw Rowing Club site at 4090 Geddes Road, Ann Arbor. Here is a link for additional information and directions to the site:

http://www.washtenawrowingcenter.com/?page_id=70

Regatta Food
For parents and guests that would like to partake in the food served at this weekends regatta, you will need to sign up and pay by this Tuesday, April 12 so that the food committee can plan for the number of people to feed. Here is a link to Pay Schools where you can purchase your meal(s) for this weekend:

https://parent.payschools.com/cat.asp?id=C740BA23A6504DACBD07791491B63467&

Spring Dues
Spring dues were due at the end of March. If you have not already paid your dues, please do so as soon as possible at the link below. We will be sending out past due reminder notices later this week.

https://parent.payschools.com/cat.asp?id=C740BA23A6504DACBD07791491B63467&

Salt Springs Regatta Planning
We are hosting the second annual Salt Springs Regatta on May 14 at our Ford Lake boathouse. There is another planning meeting this Thursday, April 14 at 7:00 pm in the Saline Public Library. We are asking for all parents who can make it to attend the meeting. If you have any questions, please contact myself or Mike Ward.

Parents Bonding
At the beginning of each season, we like to get the parents together outside of the regatta site for some “Adult Team Bonding”. Kelly and I, will be hosting the team parents at our house on Saturday, April 23 for some early season festivities. Please join us from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (address below). Just bring yourself and lively spirits. We will provide the the rest including beer, wine, pop and snacks. Please RSVP to me at christopherdfrick@gmail.com.

Spring Break Training
We had 22 rowers who were able join the team on the first spring break training trip a the Nathan Benderson rowing facility in Sarasota, Florida. This is the site of the 2016 Olympic Team trials, 2017 Youth National Championships, 2017 World Rowing Championships and 2018 NCAA Championships. We were able to get out on the water for 9 training sessions along with several trips to the beach and a day at Busch Gardens. If you are not friends with Saline Rowing on Facebook, I would encourage you to like this page and see some highlights from the week. We hope this is the first of many future spring break trips as a team and we have already reserved a block of rooms and time on the water for Spring Break 2017. Keep an eye out for 2017 spring break information in the future.

Special Thanks
Please thank coach Matt and coach Fraser for taking time off to drive the boats to and from Florida and putting in some long hours on the water with the team last week. Their efforts and hard work were highly appreciated by both the rowers and their parents.

That’s all for this week. Have a great week and see you Saturday!

Chris Frick President, Saline Rowing Club