Cox Box Squax Issue 074

After years of delays, the GLRF online platform has been upgraded and completely overhauled. You will find some familiar elements, like the forums, the calendar, and groups.  But the look, the function, and the ease of use is what really stands out.  Above all, the platform is designed for your mobile.

Consolidation and creating community were the major driving factors. Gone are 9 calendars and 6 regional news sections.  Instead, there is one news section and one calendar.  Groups have been repositioned for a demographic focus.  All regatta groups were merged with the new Regattas+ feature. Tags connect everything amongst the content.  

The mindboggling GLRF Countries and GLRF Categories were replaced with Members.  This new feature showcases the number of GLRF members in every country, every region, and every metroarea. Now you can cite and claim these numbers to show the world the size of your community.

Log in and take a look around.

In GLRF V1.0, adding a regatta meant creating a calendar event or creating a group.  Both alternatives had their limitations.  With Regattas+, any GLRF member can add a regatta, rowing camp, and ergatta that would be of interest to our community.  The listing has fields for website urls, registration urls, deadlines, and a descriptive text for the event.  Even more useful are the community-creating features: Members Going, Comments, Files, and Images.  All of these features allow GLRF members to share and contribute.  These listings are not restricted to just LGBTQ  events.  They can be for any regatta, ergatta, or rowing camp. 

Best of all, the listings are collaborative.  Any GLRF member can edit the listing to help refine or update information.  As a repository, the listings provide a source for files and images from past competitions.

What will be the next listing to be added?

2025 marks the fourth time that GLRF will host the Global LGBTQ+ Indoor Rowing Event.  The Sin City Erg is one of 27 sports under the umbrella of the Sin City Classic, the largest annual LGBTQ sports tournament in the world.

We all row and we all use the erg (some more than others). Most of us like to compete and many of us participate at regional and community indoor rowing events.  This is the only national let alone global lgbtq-focused indoor rowing event.  It makes sense to host it at a gathering of LGBTQ athletes.  Softball, Soccer (Football), Flag Football, Dodgeball, Kickball, Pickleball all have hundreds if not thousands of entries at the Sin City Classic.  All these people fly in for the weekend tournament.  You would think rowers would do the same, especially since there is one entry fee for unlimited individual and team entries at the Sin City Erg.

Early registration is open until 20 November 2024. Hope to see you there!

A great feature of the GLRF community platform is the Status Update.  Check out @Sarah’s update about a women-in-sport survey.  Click on GLRF Status Updates to see a list of all the updates or look for it by scrolling down on the Home page, the GLRF Stream.

The development work involved in upgrading the V2.0 platform has been very costly.  Since the launch of GLRF, the OnTheWater fee for the upgraded membership has remained US$20.  We have made the decision to raise the fee to US$45 as of 01 January 2025.  You can avoid the membership fee increase by upgrading to automatic renewal before the end of 2024.  Doing so will lock in the price for the lifetime of your GLRF membership.  For those GLRF members who are already set up for automatic renewal, you are already locked in for life.

The OnTheWater membership upgrade is an inexpensive way to support GLRF and if we could get a sizeable number of members to upgrade, the financial support would be substantial!

GLRF is more than a news site.  Use GLRF as a central hub, a grand central station where every GLRF member can add events, images, , regattas of interest, groups, topics, and news.  GLRF acts as a meeting point between rowers who have one foot in a rowing club, be it straight or gay, and the other foot in the LGBTQ+ rowing community. 

Sure you can post on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X, and supposedly all those people who follow will see your post but will they? All those people are following lots of things and unless they are hunched over their phones 24/7, they might miss it.  One visit to GLRF and everyone everywhere sees it all.