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“I regret I have to think that 1963-64 to my club has been very trying in many ways, but, how happy I am to have been one of the team of loyal members who kept the club afloat,” Frank Findlay wrote in his President’s addendum this year after what had been a tough year allContinue reading “1964 Vale Teddy Jones”

Mr. Francis E. Findlay was elected unopposed for his fifteenth term as president. Alan Dixon continued in the position of Captain and Albert Harden was secretary. These three members of the executive plus committee member, Ralph Murphy, qualified and became licensed regatta officials this year. The hire of the hall, under the guidance of theContinue reading “1963 First Victorian Sculling Championship”

Mr. Francis E. Findlay continued as president and was also the president of the Ballarat Rowing Association with Mr. Albert Harden the secretary. This meant a busy year for Frank and the club as the King’s Cup Regatta was held on Lake Wendouree in March and the inaugural National Championship were held in April, havingContinue reading “1962 Kings Cup Regatta and first National Regatta held on Lake Wendouree”

After nearly four years back in our own home the club began again to revive its rowing fortunes. Again the catalyst to this resurgence lay with one or two key oarsmen like Alan Dixon and Bob Coutts and coach Mr. Pat Harrison who reinvigorated training. The Lake was a hive of activity this season withContinue reading “1961”

This season proved to be one of the most successful for some time. The club attended 21 regattas over the summer and winter series with 85 crews. The wins were mainly achieved by one crew. The Maiden four of Neville Kerr, Michael Walsh, Alan Dixon and Bob Coutts coached by Pat Harrison started the seasonContinue reading “1960 The invincible four”

Membership was on the increase this year with nearly seventy members. Many of these were novice rowers and this year saw several novice crews start to make their mark. Constable Pat Harrison, who was stationed in Ballarat, joined the club this year as an Honorary member and he started regular winter training with the clubContinue reading “1959”

This year the boatshed was edging nearer to completion. Members had lined and painted the inside of the shed upstairs and down. The outside had been painted upstairs but still had to have the coat of render applied downstairs. Eight long years of long, and a lot of time and energy by a core groupContinue reading “1958 A very good year!”

The Annual Report of 1957 opened with: “What a wonderful year for this club and rowing in general the past season was. Firstly, we had here on our Lake the rowing and canoeing events of the XVI Olympiad which proved to be an outstanding success, with Australia represented in every rowing event for the firstContinue reading “1957 Are we there yet?”

The club had five years almost to the day to complete the new shed. They had raised nearly two thirds of the money needed. So why did it come down to the wire, only being completed a week before the Games began. Bureaucracy at the many levels of government almost saw a complete disaster. ButContinue reading “1956 New shed and Olympic Games”

This year the Victorian Rowing Association recognised the difficulty of country clubs in competing with the much larger metropolitan clubs and inaugurated the Country Premiership. Ballarat City won with 46 points, Colac was second with 34 and Wendouree third with 16 points. Ballarat Rowing Club scored just 2 points. Given that most of our winsContinue reading “1955 VRA Country Premiership 1954-55 and a quadruple.”