ROWERS at Milton Keynes Rowing Club are appealing for help from
the business community as they prepare for the club’s annual regatta on
Caldecotte Lake.
Members have spent the past six years fundraising for a £90,000
project to build a large boat storage unit. The unit is now built but the club
now urgently needs to raise funds for a new pontoon for its regatta in
September.
And they are turning to businesses in Milton Keynes and beyond to
help them out in return for publicity.
The annual regatta – the club’s most important event of the year – has taken place since 2010 and features a day of races watched by hundreds of spectators lining the banks of the lake. The event plays a valuable part in encouraging new members to take up the sport.
This year, however, the club have met with a problem in the
planning stages – the pontoon that it usually borrows is not available for this
year’s event. And that means urgent fundraising, says club chair Lou Rivett.
The additional pontoon is needed to accommodate the number of
competitors expected from clubs around the region and further afield. Without
it, the regatta will have to be scaled down and competitors turned away.
“The members have worked tirelessly to raise funds for the
boatshed for the last few years which has been a more ambitious project that we
ever expected,” said Lou. “As you can imagine, our funds have been directed
towards this for so long now that we do not have readily available funds for
such an urgent but essential purchase.
“We need to invest in this for this and future regattas as well as
for the longer-term benefit of the club, to support the growing interest in our
Learn to Row courses. We hope that being able to boat without queuing for
pontoon space will lead to more people regularly participating in an activity
which has known benefits to health and wellbeing.’
Milton Keynes Rowing Club is interested in hearing from businesses
willing to donate funds towards the project in return for publicity at the
regatta. They also run a corporate team day. For more information email chair@mkrowing.org
