A recruitment drive to attract more men to get involved in rowing is starting to pay off.
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Membership of the Orana Dragon Boats Club is now at its highest level of 51, with several new faces coming on board in recent weeks.
With the club now into a competitive nature at some major regattas, they have been keen to bolster their male ranks for mixed and mens competitions.
According to publicity officer Chris Robinson the numbers are growing which will in turn mean a competitive boat for the competitions.
“All up we have 51 members and that’s the biggest number we’ve ever had,” she said.
“Only recently we had seven people starting to come from Narromine each week.
“Through the publicity generated in the Daily Liberal everyone is starting to get to know about us and what we do.
“Last year when we went away for competition we found that we were just off the pace in the mixed events because the other boats were stronger in the male area.
“So we thought that if we could improve our numbers of males then our results would be better.”
There’s a busy period coming up for the Orana club with the internationally renowned Chinese New year Festival on Darling Harbour on February 26-27.
“This is one of Australia’s biggest competitions and we’re hoping to be competitive,” Robinson said.
“We have entered crews in the Masters, Men, Women and Open divisions and everyone is keen to do well.
“There will be crews at Darling Harbour from all over Australia and to do well in that company is what you set out to achieve.
“After then we have Canberra on March 13-14 and a two-day regatta at Penrith.
“Following our recent results from Penrith before Christmas, Orana is acknowledged as one of the top country clubs and as a result we are looking for good results at Canberra.
“There will be some tough races on offer with 250m events on the Saturday and then a gruelling 500 metres course on the Sunday.”
The Orana club currently has two boats operating each training session as well as canoes.
Thursday evening rowing starts at 5.45pm and on Saturday morning it’s a 6.45pm roll out.
“We would still love to see some new faces, just come on down to Sandy Beach (below Tamworth Street) either on Thursday or Saturday and see what our club is all about,” Chris Robinson said.
