Schools and coaches working together to support our rowers!

The 2024/2025 season for our rowers looks a bit different to what we have had in the past, but we are excited to be working with other schools and coaches to offer rowing to our students.

With two senior rowers and 10 keen novices coming through opportunities have been given to these girls through the generosity of other schools and their rowing coaches.

Margaret Peters has migrated to the Gold Coast for the summer to get some training and races in before the school NZ Rowing 2025 Season.

Margarets mornings consist of getting up at 4:30am and being on the water by 5:00am. The afternoons involve erg training time. 

Ella Inch is training with the Craighead squad for the club season over the summer and will spend a lot of the summer up at Lake Ruataniwha.

Our 10 novice rowers consist of Year 9, Year 10 and Year 8 students coming to Timaru Girls' in 2025. With these keen rowers looking for a coach and word getting to the legend Brian Smith from Timaru Boys' High School that we needed help a meeting was held, and we were underway with our new programme for novices which is the 'Learn to Row' programme.

The girls are spending Sunday mornings at Lake Opuha under the guidance of Brian Smith. With support from Carl Tairua and the girl's parents they have had 4 sessions on the water and are coming along in leaps and bounds.

From the start of the season when we thought we would not be able to offer rowing to our girls we have managed to give 12 girls an opportunity to continue rowing or start in their first year as novice rowers.

This of course would not have been possible without the support of a few key people. A massive thanks to Craighead Diocesan, Timaru Boys' High School and their coaches Dean Milne and Brian Smith for their support of our school and our rowers and to Carl and Marissa Tairua and all our girls' parents for their support.

If you or your daughter is interested in joining the 'Learn to Row' programme in 2025, please contact Malfy at sport@timarugirls.school.nz