SJC Boat Club Alumni e-Newsletter - Michaelmas 2025
It is great to speak to you all through the new newsletter, which will be a great way to communicate the continuing successes of our club and serve as a useful tool to reflect on an eventful few months of rowing. We hope you all enjoy these termly updates from across the club as we move into a new year of rowing, with the club continuing to grow at a healthy pace and supporting a new cohort of the SJCBC family. Many thanks to Cameron Renwick and the College Alumni Office for facilitating this project and allowing us to keep you in the loop with our activities on the Isis and further afield!
I have had a brilliant time since taking over as Captain of Boats from Bradley Croucher in June and have been working hard to continue the positive trajectory that he and the previous few captaincy teams helped to create. The club has seen a big boost in growth, putting out more water sessions on the Isis and at Godstow than has previously been possible. Jim has been racing around maintaining our equipment, including the new 4+ David Lee, purchased with alumni donations, which saw her first race at a competitive Bedford Amateur Regatta in May. This new addition to the boathouse has been extremely successful and has seen much use after Summer Eights and into the new term, with another racing appearance at Autumn Fours upcoming!
It has been particularly nice to see rowers from St John’s - some who began as novices with SJCBC - trialling within the extremely competitive OUBC squad on both the men’s and women’s sides. This shows the high quality of our hard-working coaching team, who have been on the bank at all times and in all conditions, and the gigantic effort of our rowers. Best of luck to them with their upcoming seasons.
I hope to see some of you throughout the year at Torpids or Summer VIIIs as the season progresses and am looking forward to sharing the club’s progress over the coming months!
Best wishes,
Joe Dunn
Captain of Boats
Head Coach – Kieran Storer
SJCBC has had an exciting and productive start to the year. We ended last year strong with six crews entered in Summer Eights, marking one of our strongest showings in recent years. Following a great recruitment drive in Trinity, the committee has run a popular series of taster sessions that has brought lots of new faces to the boat club. At the start of Michaelmas, we have been working on getting novices on the water and familiar with the Ergs and the gym. The focus for the club is developing depth across the squads, training novices for Tamesis Regatta, and training seniors for entry into Wallingford Head at the end of November. It has been great getting on the water and seeing everybody coming back with lots of energy for the new season!
Men’s Captain – Jamie Warren
The SJCBC men’s side is going from strength to strength, from a +4 in Head of the River to a +3 across all three men’s crews in Summer VIIIs. We put out the fastest M1 we have fielded for years, even making the top 10 fastest on the VIIIs course segment on Strava. We are looking to continue that momentum into this year with our recruitment of new rowers and new coaches. Everyone is enthusiastic about the year ahead.
We’ve got lots of exciting things to look forward to this year - from the Michaelmas Novice Regatta and Wallingford Head later in the term to HoRR next spring - as we build up to Torpids and Summer VIIIs next year. I look forward to a strong year of training with the men’s side, and I can’t wait to share with you how we are getting on later in the year!
Women’s Captains – Elsa Reid, Julia Marshall
The women’s side has been enjoying a really positive season of growth. We were able to enter three women’s crews into Summer Eights last academic year. W3 performed spectacularly, bumping up a total of three places. W2 also put in a stellar performance, rowing over on days two and four – excellent work by all those involved!
W1 knew we were facing some challenging circumstances, racing as a Division 1 crew. We stuck to our race plan, put our heads down and gave it our best effort. Coming into the Saturday of VIIIs, we had bumped down three places. Despite this potential discouragement, we stayed positive as a crew and knew we would have to work exceptionally hard to avoid “spoons.” Each of the girls put in a huge stint, rowing hard for each other. We were able to hold off the crew chasing us long enough for them to be bumped in a dramatic double-chase. We had done it! Our row-over felt like a victory lap, but we knew it wasn’t over yet. As the sandwich crew, we returned to row over at the top of Division 2. The atmosphere of race day spurred us on, and we sat tall and proud, taking it all in.
Well-deserved celebrations across the whole club ensued, with all crews greeted with the traditional pint of Pimm’s. We enjoyed a stylish club dinner in Hall, presenting boat club awards and captains’ tankards.
The last few weeks of Trinity included plenty of small-boat sessions and the Oriel Regatta - where we won Best Dressed Crew. Coming up to the end of term, the club had such a positive atmosphere that we were able to attract record numbers of novices to Trinity taster sessions. This was thanks to the hard work of our excellent vices, Ruth, Ewan and Peter.
This term, interest in the women’s side has remained strong, with a squad of over 40 women. The novices have so far been very keen and eager to learn. We’ve also been enjoying good weather, which has allowed us to keep rowing on the water. We’re looking forward to the term ahead, planning to enter crews into IWL, Autumn IVs, Wallingford Head and the Tamesis Regatta.
Eights Review: Report from the Captains
Summer VIIIs last term saw John’s qualify six boats (three men’s and three women’s) for the first time in a decade. All 49 athletes who participated for St John’s did the club extremely proud with the efforts they put in.
M3 and W3 were made up almost entirely of novices, making their performances all the more impressive. W3 bumped on three of four days, with Worcester narrowly escaping them on the final day but still managing an impressive row-over. M3 had a difficult start, being bumped on the first day, but came back fighting with a row-over and two bumps, ending the week strong.
W2 faced a tough challenge, with some very speedy crews chasing them, leading to two bumps, but they rose to it admirably with two very strong row-overs on Thursday and Saturday. M2 dominated their division with three ruthless bumps on the first three days, only narrowly missing out on blades on the Saturday as every crew in front of them bumped out.
W1 faced tough competition as they fought to keep their spot in the first division. Whilst they were bumped the first three days, they managed to evade Jesus on the final day to end 13th on the river — an impressive effort. M1 achieved three solid row-overs, conceding only to the unstoppable Exeter M1 on the third day.
Saturday night saw the week’s achievements celebrated in style at Boat Club Dinner, where a new committee was voted in, committed to continuing the momentum built into the new year.
Alumni Showcase - Laura Boddy, Medicine (2014, Medicine)
I started rowing in my third year, pretty late compared to other rowers in my year. I had initially fallen for the comments from other sports societies that “rowing is a cult” and “all you’ll ever do is rowing,” but after two years of playing college netball, I decided I wanted to do more sport. I decided I would try out for Blues netball, and if I was unsuccessful, I’d start rowing. I was cut the first day of try-outs, and that was the start of my rowing journey.
I was not the most natural novice. I tried to go off at a heroic 1:52 during my first 2k, having no idea what to pull, and spectacularly died at 1000m, crawling over the line well above 2:30. However, I loved the water sessions, my crewmates, and the ability to always make it back for hash browns at breakfast. My novice crew made it to the quarterfinals of Christ Church Regatta and then became the W2 crew for Torpids and Eights in the mighty Shakira (although I hear it’s called by its proper name now). A particular highlight that year was finishing my finals, running out to get trashed, getting driven to the river, and bumping within 250m in a party hat. It’s just as well we did, or the Lambrini I’d drunk outside the Summertown Hall may have come back up.
I then moved up to W1 and became more obsessed with the sport, learning new skills like weightlifting and enjoying seeing the plates go up and the splits go down on the erg. The buzz of going sub-8 minutes for the first time on my 2k was amazing, and holding station in Division 1 that year was incredible - bumping Hertford, the big rivals of the women’s squad at the time.
After that Eights campaign, I was now in clinical school, and being around for placement in the summer meant I wanted to continue rowing in Oxford. My novice coach, Emily Hinson, had rowed for OUWLRC that year in the reserve crew, so I signed up for the development squad. Getting to row out of the Oxford Boathouse in Wallingford and learning new boat classes like coxless fours made me wonder whether I should consider the Uni Squad. At the end of the dev squad season, I was recommended to trial the next year, and I went into it with the thought to enjoy the process and take as many opportunities as possible.
University rowing was an entirely different challenge. You’re suddenly surrounded by a squad of women who were all at the top of their W1s, and I was humbled on the erg and on the water. Anyone who knew me that year knows my diabolical ability to steer or row a pair, but the women in that squad would motivate each other and encourage one another to keep trying and improving. Bit by bit, you learn and improve, and the pride of representing Dark Blue for the first time makes it all worth it. During that first year, I experienced so many things: rowing abroad for the first time, seat racing, BUCS Regatta, and finishing off with a medal in China. It stung not to make a Boat Race crew that year, but it was incredible to see my teammates beat Cambridge at the last Henley Boat Race.
I wanted to keep stepping up, so I came back prepared and made it into the Bow Seat of the Lightweight Blue Boat the next year - the first year it was to be raced on the Tideway. The excitement of so many unknowns meant a lot of learning by trial and error: more 5k tests, driving to the Tideway every month, learning the landmarks and the racing lines you’ve seen talked about on TV but never thought you would race because we were lightweights. Unfortunately, Light Blue prevailed in the end that year, but I’ll remember the noise of the cheering underneath Hammersmith Bridge and the love and outpouring of support from our reserve crew who won the reserve race that year, and the alumni who I’d rowed with the year before - and even those I had never met. I deeply respect the eight other women I rowed with for their grit, determination, and resolve. We are all now in different careers, living in different countries - some of us married and with children - but we still meet when it’s Boat Race time or at Henley and know that connection is always there.
Rowing has always been an escape from the other externals in life. I was a COVID-19 medical graduate and started practising as a doctor on COVID wards in Oxford and then Manchester. No rowing was happening at the start - very appropriately - but when restrictions were lifted, I signed up straight away as a way to leave the stress of work at work, get outside, and meet new people. I have continued to row post-university and currently row for Nottingham Rowing Club while training to be an ophthalmologist. I can now row a pair at last, and recent highlights have been competing in the Wargrave Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta and winning two medals at the World Masters Regatta. I also love seeing SJCBC kit out in the wild at competitions like Henley Women’s and seeing current SJCBC rowers and alumni achieving great things in the sport.
To any alumni thinking of getting back into the sport of rowing - do it. Getting out of the office and on the water has helped clear my head so many times. There are so many local clubs everywhere you go with people who are passionate about the sport and put on great competitions, both big and local. If there’s water where you live, there’s probably rowing.