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The 5th International LGBT Tournament of Paris, a weekend multi-sport event, will feature rowing as one of the 14 sports disciplines. The regatta will take place on Sunday morning at the Base Nautique in Choisy-le-Roi, a s suburb south of Paris. The venue is easily accessible from Paris using the regional train service.
The format will follow what is traditionally called a “stake race.” Competitors will race to the end, round a buoy, and return, in a timed format style. The race will feature one category: 4x+ (coxed quad). A similar attempt to organize a regatta in 2007 fizzled due to a problem with sourcing boats. This year, the organizing committee has resolved the issue by focusing the race on one boat category.
Racing will take place during the morning followed by a picnic along the rowing basin. Due to tournament event organizational constraints, the registration must close by 16 Mar 2008 so all rowers are encouraged to register very soon.
GLRF visited the venue in December 2006 and pictures are on the Gotcha! Gallery GLRF France gallery. GLRF will offer its Seat Search service and message forum chat for all members.
Israel became the 25th country to join the GLRF worldwide community today when a rower from Tel Aviv registered online. Israel has a small but strong rowing community and has supported the sport since the 1930’s. Many rowers rave about the smooth rowing conditions in Israel.
The 2008 Eurogames organizing committee has eliminated rowing from the schedule of sports disciplines to be offered at the XII Eurogames scheduled for July 2008. The move was revealed after the registration system was launched today and website visitors found rowing was not on the list of sports disciplines. Instead, canoe and kayak has been added to the list of sporting events. The decision came as a surprise to GLRF and is expected to significantly disappoint the many rowers in the European gay and lesbian community who had planned to participate.
The decision comes in spite of repeated efforts by GLRF over the last year to develop liaisons within the Barcelona rowing community and to provide introductions for the Eurogames 2008 staff. These efforts included two separate visits by GLRF to Barcelona in 2007. See related stories. The possibility of a coastal rowing regatta, as an alternative, had begun to take shape and would have provided rowers with a unique opportunity to expand their rowing skills.
GLRF deeply regrets the decision by Eurogames 2008 to eliminate rowing.
Los Angeles; GLRF sends annual holiday greetings to 64 recipients. Each year GLRF creates a special holiday greeting to send to the national rowing governing bodies of every country where GLRF has a member. This year, that number climbed to 24 countries and FISA. In addition, cards are sent to those in the rowing industry who have demonstrated a strong support for the GLRF organization and mission. On behalf of the GLRF membership and the GLRF organization, thank you for your ongoing support.
Los Angeles; The GLRF website is getting a makeover. The project, slated to take several months, will introduce a new template design, and feature more robust online tools to enhance the community interactivity. In the coming months, the website will finally be login-enabled for all web pages and not just the message board. Other conversions will include a migration to Dreamweaver, more php integration, and a fully functional mysql database.
During the remodeling, please bear with some of the dust and construction materials.
Worthington; GLRF members and visitors may have experienced difficulty accessing the website between 03 and 06 Nov 2007. The problem resulted from the online hosting service’s planned server migration maintenance period. The original estimate had been for a maximum down time of 14 hours but due to technical challenges, lasted 116 hours.
The migration snafu caused immeasurable harm to the GLRF brand and the website credibility since GLRF was hosting a booth at the Head of the Hooch regatta over that weekend and many visitors had picked up brochures and inquired about the organization. We will be pursuing alternate hosting solutions to avoid similar situations in the future.
GLRF finished a busy and very successful regatta booth promotion season by hosting a booth at the Head of the Hooch in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The event, hosted by the Atlanta Rowing Club (ARC), is viewed by many rowers as one of the most exhilarating events of the North American head race season. The community of Chattanooga has taken to rowing like no other and welcomes rowers with open arms. The ARC regatta organizing committee were super nice and made a point of saying they were glad we were there.
The season finished with GLRF hosting booths at 8 regatta events in three countries and two continents. The GLRF regatta booth promotion program provides an opportunity to develop awareness of GLRF within the broader rowing community and helps to foster a discussion and recognition of gay and lesbian rowers in the sport. The booths do not always go without incident. Some rowers and spectators express their indignation and outrage at the presence of a GLRF booth at straight rowing events. These individuals are collectively and gently referred to as stomping visitors with clenched fists. This season’s off color comments included: “Who let you in?” and “Why are you here” and “You should be ashamed of yourselves!” and “Ohhhhhhhhh!!!!” The supporters far outnumber the detractors and many of the supportive comments come from parents who stop by to say how glad they are that GLRF is at the regatta. When GLRF faced resistance from one club to host a booth at a regatta, USRowing, the national governing body of rowing in the United States, stepped in and declared without reservation: “they are coming and that’s that!” If you row for a US club and you’re not a member of USRowing, you should be!
The GLRF worldwide community continued its European expansion with its first membership registration from Austria. The GLRF community now counts members in 24 countries. Although still unconfirmed, it is believed that the new rower may have learned about GLRF through its booth at the 2007 FISA World Masters in Zagreb, Croatia [Hrvatska].
Austria has a rich tradition of rowing and hosts some spectacular regattas in both the north and south of Austria. It is hoped that the addition of Austria to the GLRF community will draw interest from rowers in Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Of course, now that a Global Rower page has been created for Austria, we hope more Austrians will come forward to create a thriving local community within GLRF.
GLRF Executive Director Brian Todd visited four European countries to promote GLRF, meet with GLRF members, and liaison with rowing clubs and sports organizations.
GLRF hosted a booth at the 2007 FISA World Masters Regatta at the Zagreb, Croatia Championship rowing facility. The event drew 2,910 entries from 39 countries filling 8,288 boat seats. Reactions to the GLRF booth were all over the place: indignation, laughter, outrage, and genuine warmth. GLRF members from Croatia, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and England stopped by to say hello. The organizing committee of the regatta went out of their way to ensure GLRF had everything it needed. The regatta director personally came by the booth on two separate occasions to ask if there was anything he or his staff could do. The local gay and lesbian mutli-sports team, qSport, was instrumental in helping GLRF resource booth materials and liaison with rowing officials as well as host GLRF members. Their assistance cannot be thanked enough, perhaps a thousand million times would only put a dent in it.
During the regatta, GLRF had the good fortune to meet with five straight rowers from a Barcelona rowing club who were eager to assist and help organize the 2008 Eurogames rowing regatta. Following the FISA Masters regatta, GLRF traveled to Barcelona to meet with these rowers as well as another rowing club who had volunteered their assistance during the GLRF Feb 2007 visit to Barcelona. The results of the GLRF Regatta Advisory Barcelona visit report were discussed as well as the results of the input from the European GLRF community. Both rowing clubs went out of their way to be accommodating and took several hours of their time to discuss regatta options and to showcase several alternate locations for a coastal rowing regatta. Unfortunately, several attempts by GLRF to meet with the Eurogames 2008 organizing committee were unsuccessful.
At the conclusion of the Barcelona visit, GLRF traveled to Denmark to meet with GLRF members and the staff of the 2009 Copenhagen World Outgames. Like Zagreb, GLRF was treated with the utmost hospitality and kindness. GLRF member and former Denmark national team member Adrian T. acted as the doting host and studly Royal Danish Rowing Ambassador, taking GLRF on a tour of Denmark and inviting us along to experience the Danish National Rowing Championships. The weekend visit to Arhus provided a unique opportunity to meet national rowing team members first hand including super cool and soft-spoken world champions Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist. GLRF member and top Danish rower Rune G. led a group of us on a bike ride tour of Copenhangen and hosted a dinner party in GLRF’s honor. The 2009 World Outgames staff opened their offices and their packed calendars to welcome GLRF, introduced the staff, and briefed us on the progress of planning for the 2009 Outgames rowing regatta. Currently two locations are under consideration: the inner harbor in Copenhagen and Lake Bagsværd. Other activities are being planned to make the regatta a truly memorable experience for all participants. Finally, a 16,000 meter piece on Lake Bagsværd with a talented 4+ crew turned the visit into sheer bliss. Words cannot begin to express the kindness and generosity of the Danish rowing community!
A weeknight stop in Zurich provided an opportunity for GLRF to meet with two Swiss GLRF members. They were eager to hear about the opportunities for rowing in Barcelona and Copenhagen. Like Croatia and Denmark, these generous hosts went out of their way to welcome GLRF with wonderful apartment accommodations, dinner at a delightful, bustling, and very local Swiss restaurant, delicious cappuccinos and a quick turn of Zurich at night. Watch out for these Swiss GLRF members - they are ueber competitive and so very very nice.
GLRF submits Barcelona rowing visit report to the European GLRF rowing community. A comprehensive, multi-page report was emailed to all members of the GLRF European rowing community for their review and comment. The report looks at the options and current realities of hosting a rowing regatta in the Barcelona area. Review the report: Barcelona Rowing Visit ReportvF5.pdf
The report serves as the debut for the newly relaunched GLRF Regatta Advisory Group, now focused as a community input forum to help regatta organizing committees better plan regattas of all sizes to meet the needs and desires of the gay and lesbian rowing community.
