Having had relatives through the Boat Club as well as my 4 years here, I've seen and heard of many differences and changes through the years. Whether they turn out to have a positive or negative effect is sometimes subjective but ultimately changes are made with the intention to make progress and improve something.
Something I heard a lot last year was "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got". Nothing is truer. Sometimes it takes courage to make changes, but those who prosper in life are those who are best at plan B. If no-one had dared to make changes down at the river, the coaches would still be riding across the fields shouting their pearls from horseback. Changes in this aspect of the Boat Club have clearly been well accepted - probably more so by the horses than the coaches.
However, a lot of the time, change isn't welcomed and a firm hand is necessary. It's in our nature to just continue plodding along at whatever we've always done, and it takes fresh eyes to realise that something needs altering. The Boat Club went through a stage where people were happy to accept that MCSBC was the club that everyone expected to beat. Gordon Reay was that fresh pair of eyes and he made changes. He put in a 5 year programme, with specific and appropriate coaching and training, for the 3rd form entering the club right up to the sixth form in the first squad. It was at National Schools Regatta in the semi-final of J18 Championship 4- last summer, when we were a length clear of the rest of the field, that he saw his plan come together. A coach from another school turned to GPR and said "What have you been doing to your boys - you're supposed to be the whipping dogs!". Time is not responsible for this change - the people who work tirelessly and the people who dare are.
Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change.