On Saturday 18th September, twelve of us will be rowing from Runnymede to Hammersmith. This is just over 26 miles, in other words, a marathon. We will be rowing, or technically sculling in Quads i.e. with four people per boat. We will be carrying our boats over the locks to save queuing. We expect the whole thing to take about five hours.

Why on earth are you doing something as ridiculous as this, is the very reasonable question. We are aiming to raise £6,000 in order to cover the cost of five teenagers joining the Fulham Reach Boat Club Junior Rowing Bursary Scheme in September.

Fulham Reach Boat Club is a charity established in 2014 which focuses on teaching kids to row on the Thames. In addition to running rowing programmes for fourteen local state secondary schools, Fulham Reach also runs a Junior Rowing Programme. This is for teenagers who wish to learn to row competitively; it involves training three or four times per week with top rowing coaches; it runs between September and July. Fulham Reach has been running a Junior Programme for the last seven years but until this year it has been subsidised but not free. By covering 100% of the cost, the aim is to reach as many deprived and disadvantaged teenagers as we can; we believe that a chance to partake in a disciplined sport can be lifechanging. This is particularly true after all the hardships of Covid lockdowns.