1993 has seen one of the greatest changes ever in the life of the school; it now has about 320 pupils, two thirds of whom are boys and one third girls, and the youngest are aged 11. Both the total number and the ratio are subject to change as we move towards the year 2000.

There are many problems associated with a reduction in the number of boys who are available to choose rowing as their sport. If each year group is to have (say) an eight and a four, or two or three fours rather than the three eights there used to be, it becomes more and more difficult to win races. The regatta results reported elsewhere in this newsletter illustrate this.

Girls' rowing is a fast growing sport, and successful girls' crews in other clubs are seen to train as hard and effectively as the boys' crews. The efforts of the Monkton girls in recent years have been sporadic at best, and sometimes (like in 1993) lacking in drive and ambition.

If the Boat Club is to continue serving the school, there are some aspects of its work which must change to suit new times. There are various ways forward. If there is a lack of will to train consistently and with a single-minded sense of purpose, rowing could easily become a gentle pastime; occasional forays to the river would give breaks from the routine of school work, and the peace and calm of the river could be of benefit to any who cared to take part in such activity. This is certainly one way of taking to the water, and a pleasant one it is too - favoured on the continent, where families go on the water together, father, mother and children rowing or sculling in the same boat, and thoroughly enjoying a morning's gentle exercise or a week-end's ruderwanderung, without any competitive element to the activity.

Rowing can be taken more seriously, with regattas and races in mind. There is a whole spectrum of training regimes which crews undertake in preparation for events. Watchers of our club could see a wide variety of routines in use during the past year. Some crews underwent steady training, starting with winter weights before Christmas, and months of outings during which technique and fitness were improved. They worked hard and deserved rather more success than they actually achieved in races. Other crews came to the river in a half-hearted way, and not a few of their regatta entries were cancelled because them seemed little point in entering crews who did not make the best of themselves.

Successful racing crews take training more seriously than the average Monkton crew. This year's 114 crew won some good races for it variety of reasons: they had talent and strength, they trained hard from September (two or three sessions a week in the Michaelmas Term, and moan front January), they developed a winning mentality, and they had excellent equipment. Another pair of oarsmen who deserve mention here are Peter Alvis and Jeremy Hepworth, who rowed in the winning Temple Prize crew at Henley this year. Many months of training went into that victory, and it was not easily won.

What is the future for M.C.S.B.C., then? We are bound by school policy, of course, so our wishes may not be attainable. Pupils are drawn towards many activities, most of which are easier than the rowing option. It is the fashion for schools to provide a wide range of worthwhile activities, but there is always the danger that this wide range will result in lack of depth. Academic work is an important priority for all, and the school day is on the whole divided into small chunks of time which make training difficult. (This year's winter training, for instance, was very much curtailed.) Monkton has for years been a rowing school, not just a school that rows; and there is a difference. We take the view that we should remain a rowing school. Pupils, both boys and girls, should be encouraged to row and to succeed, and be given the best possible facilities for doing so.

The youngest pupils are at the right age for learning skills of balance and coordination, which they will never leant as well or naturally later. They should learn these skills while at the same time and primarily just having fun on the water. We should be encouraging them. (For some years, we have welcomed MCJS boys to try sculling, and they always make dramatic progress which no older beginner can make.)

The girls should take part as much as the boys - and we need to help them more, because experience in clubs is that girls need a great deal of encouragement during training. We have done our best recently to promote girls' rowing by building boats especially for them. It was hardly encouraging to the builders this year that a brand new boat remained unused because the girls who had expressed interest in starting the sport did not eventually get to the river.

The most dedicated and ambitious rowers should be encouraged to excel in their sport. Rowing is a time- consuming activity, and training must take place continually if there is to be hope of success at high level. This year's foray of two competent oarsmen into tuitional trials ended, as several other previous attempts have done, in failure because we could not get to some of the trials, and there was insufficient training in advance of others. One cannot aim at the top without some inconvenience.

This aim for excellence is an achievable one, given coaches, equipment and time, so that the ambitions of everyone who takes part in our sport can be realised through dedicated training.

It must be our job to bring enthusiastic newcomers to our sport. Most members of Bluefriars were newcomers themselves not all that long ago, and we are as always grateful for their support in the work that continues with succeeding generations of rowing folk.