Row New York Event is Next Thursday!

Please join us next week! You can buy tickets here.

Row New York Seniors Meet Their Mentors!

Thanks to a group of wonderful women who have volunteered to be writing mentors this fall, all of our seniors are well on their way to having top notch essays to submit with their college applications. Melissa (our Academic Director) is piloting this initiative in an effort to give our seniors one on one help through this important process. The pairs met for the first time during a luncheon on Saturday at our offices. The group was led by volunteer extraordinaire, Kara Courtois, a rower and counselor with "College Coach". BIG THANKS to our great volunteers and GO seniors....we know fall of your senior year comes with a lot of stress, but we know you're all going to do great things!

Row New York Event is Next Thursday!

You can buy tickets here.

Don't Take This on the Subway

This is a picture of Melissa leaving the office today for practice. We can't get packages mailed to the boathouse so we end up carrying some pretty random things on the train. Today reminded me of a day about five years ago when our offices were located next to Ground Zero. I ran out the door with two new gas cans (like the one Melissa is holding) and headed down to the subway. I jumped on the uptown #4 train and everyone cleared out of the car. I mean, they literally opened the doors on either end and made their way to the next cars and I was left alone with my gas cans. Even as a native New Yorker I couldn't really blame my fellow passengers....I mean, two gas cans on the subway???!! What was I thinking? I like the fact that Melissa also had an extension cord with her today.

First Day With Fall '09 Novices

So we not only survived our Western pilgrimage across Meadow Lake, we now have 40+ novices rowing out of the big blue house! Props to Previn and Melissa for getting this group off the ground without a hitch (or water, electricity, or a real toilet). Who really needs all these frills when we can finally walk boats straight out of the boathouse and down to the dock without making a four point turn? Anyway, the new group of novices is great. They have wonderful energy and seem to know one another quite well already thanks to Melissa and her ingenious ideas (and Starbursts). For the rowers out there, this video shows the novices completing one of their first sets of jumpies. Oh, how we long for the days when jumpies were new and funny, right?

ROW NEW YORK FALL EVENT!

Please join us on October 15th, 2009 to celebrate Row New York! Special guests Ted Nash and Rosie Perez! Buy tickets here.

Row NY Tryouts BIG Success

Tryouts are one of my favorite Row New York experiences. I might not feel that way at 11PM when the day is finally wrapping up, but it's still pretty great. I love the energy in the room...a lot of excitement and anticipation. We have been holding tryouts at the Flushing YMCA since 2003 and not a tryout goes by without my remembering how different those early days were...back when 8 girls showed up, compared to the 170+ who came out for the team on Thursday. Good luck to the new group of novices!