Rowing organizations preparing for upcoming seasonDate: 4/19/2021 SPRINGFIELD/HOLYOKE – Outdoor recreation businesses are preparing to welcome the warm weather season once again.
One of those businesses, Holyoke Rows, offers Western Massachusetts residents several ways to enjoy the warm weather. Stephanie Moore, president of Holyoke Rows, said despite coronavirus restrictions in place last year they had an incredibly successful season. “We did really well last year,” she said.
The business, she said, offers a variety of programs for people of all ages and skill levels seeking to enjoy the sport of rowing. Moore said they offer a program for both high school and middle school aged students.
The free high school program, she said, runs for two hours Monday through Friday and has already begun for the season. She said it serves as “a regular high school sport after school,” from 3:15 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. In a normal season participants in the program would compete in three or four races, she said. However, this year, due to the restrictions surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, she was unsure of how many races the high school students would participate in, but they would compete in at least one race.
The high school students often race with participants in the middle school program, Moore said. The program for middle school students, which begins after school’s spring break, is also free and allows for students to participate in the program three days a week. In addition to participating in the sport, Moore said that they also included a social component to the program. “We do Friday night dinners, make them feel like the boat house is theirs,” she said.
Moore said that the program welcomes students from any community and provides a variety of skill levels. “It’s as rugged as the kids want them to be, we have a pretty good group in terms of intensity,” she said. In addition to offering student programs, Holyoke Rows also offers a program for adults.
The adult program, she explained, would only offer rowing in single person boats until slightly later in the spring when they would begin rowing on a team boat. “Right now we have everyone is sculling, a single person boat, until the beginning of May. Then we start our team boat,” she said. “Enough of us are vaccinated that if feels like we can do this again.”
Additionally, Holyoke Rows also offers both a veteran’s only dragon boat team and opportunities for adaptive rowing. The dragon boat racing, she said, began the week of April 19. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Moore said they filled the 20 person boat. While she was unsure of how many people would participate in the program this season, she said “we can definitely use more” members.
The adaptive rowing program, Moore explained, was put on hold last season due to the nature of physical assistance that some members needed. This year, she said, instead of group events they would be attempting one person events and just trying to help get the adaptive rowing population out if they wanted to row. “This year we do have funding to do events, sort of like one person events. If someone with a disability wants to go out, we’ll get them out. We usually have a nice group of 10 people that row with us, we usually go to races,” she said. “We really try to include our adaptive rowing population as much as we can.”
One of the businesses’ most popular programs, Moore said, was their kayak rental membership, which is slated to begin soon. Members who sign up for the program pay $115, get a key to the boathouse and are allowed to take the kayaks out whenever they want. “It’s really popular, it gets the community out there,” he said.
While most people have a basic understanding of how kayaks work and are able to navigate the boats with ease, Moore said they do offer guidance for those who may need it. “It’s pretty basic, but we do workshops for people who are a little insecure, but kayaking is so basic,” she said.
Moore said the kayak program grew dramatically last year as “families were desperate to find something to do.” She said they began the season with 30 members and had grown to over 100 members by the time the season had ended. She said “in theory” there was a limit of how many memberships the kayaks could accommodate, but they had yet to hit their limit yet. She said they own about 50 to 60 kayaks, some of which had never been used. “We did not run out last year, so we’ll just see how it goes,” she said.
Another factor in the increase in membership they received, she said, was the length of their season, which lasts until November. “We go into November, usually like the second week into November, right before Thanksgiving. It’s a long season,” she said. “We got a lot of people last year from other clubs that shut down earlier, they still wanted to row and we were out there.”
Moore said the despite the risk for coronavirus, boating was a safe, outdoor activity and they were taking additional safety measures to ensure everyone stayed safe as well. “It’s a safe activity. There’s only one family or germ pod allowed in the boat house at a time. There’s a hand washing station outside the boathouse, we keep distance in the boathouse,” she said. Moore added that while more than one person was sometimes required to carry a boat, the boats were more than six feet long. Additionally they had shut down their meeting rooms and were no longer renting out the boathouse for private events.
All this, she said, had kept their members and staff safe, adding that while they’d had a few remote cases they “never had to shut down” and were able to continue serving the public. She said they were currently hosting sign ups for their summer programs, but trying to reach those who didn’t and typically hadn’t been able to use the kayaks. She explained that for a parent that may be stressed, signing their child up for a summer rowing program may not be at the top of their priority list, but they were seeking to reach those families.
“I feel like that’s the case for a lot of families in Holyoke, they have a lot of things going on and signing up for camp in April is not on the list. We have space to grow and we want to grow to make sure we represent the whole community,” she said. Moore added that while they’ve had a diverse program in the past, it currently was not and they were seeking to expand that.
More information, membership prices and season start dates can be found at https://www.holyokerows.org.
Pioneer Valley Riverfront Club
The Pioneer Valley Riverfront Club (PVRC) has finally reopened after being closed since 2020 due to COVID-19. According to Ben Quick, executive director of PVRC, the status of the club looked “dicey” for a while, but with successful fundraising campaigns and reorganization of club structures they survived.
PVRC is a nonprofit in Springfield that operates river-based sporting activities such as youth rowing, adult rowing, dragon boating and kayaking. Their goal is to develop river access for the public and encourage recreation in the Greater Springfield area.
Quick said that the support of the community was a big factor in helping the club over the past year. He said that the club actually ended 2020 with more money in the bank than they started with due to fundraising and a lack of expenses.
“Between getting two Paycheck Protection Program loans and running a fundraiser over the winter, we raised a total of almost $100,000, which is big money for us,” he said. “I’m extremely grateful to our supporters for being open to donating money to a program that wasn’t even open, you know. That’s a big ask.”
On March 29, PVRC welcomed back their youth rowers. April 5 was the return of adult rowers and on April 12 both novice rowers and dragon boaters returned.
PVRC’s youth rowing team practices 5 days a week. With COVID-19, the size of the team has had to be reduced. When the pandemic began, team boating came to an end, but now with restrictions loosened and safety measures in place, the team boats are allowed out again.
Quick said that both rowers and parents are excited to be back.
“It was so exciting. The kids were just giddy and the parents were thrilled because their kids can get back to the sport they love,” he said. “Everyone has just been so excited and we were extremely grateful to also have a very nice group of new kids coming down too. That was our main concern. Is anyone new going to come down? And we’ve had almost as many new kids as we’ve had returning, so that’s really good for the future of the program.”
Quick said that they are hoping to have rowing competitions this summer, but spectators most likely won’t be allowed.
“The goal is to have competitions, but because they tend to be big affairs where lots of people come together, of course COVID-19 has affected those,” he said.
PVRC has already set a date for their annual Dragon Boat Festival in June, but in case of COVID-19 complications, they do have a back-up date in October.
“We’ve found ways to make it work by limiting the number of people that are in the park per time,” said Quick.
For now, PVRC is just excited that they were able to reopen and can continue their services for both experienced and new rowers.
“Springfield has a long history of rowing, but unfortunately for many years it was almost non-existent. For about 20 years, from the 80s to the 2000s, there was nothing happening here. We’re the only rowing program in Springfield on this stretch of the river right now,” said Quick.
Kayak rentals at PVRC will start Memorial Day weekend and will be available every Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Those looking to join a rowing team or learn more about PVRC are always welcome, according to Quick.
“We’ll take anyone new at any time and really introduce them. It’s not like kayaking or canoeing where you hop in a boat and go. There’s a lot to learn, so it’s important that people get taught the right way,” he said.
More information about PVRC is available on their website at www.pvriverfront.org.
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