British Rowing Organisational Changes

A message on recent organisational changes from CEO Alastair Marks

British Rowing has recently undertaken an organisational restructure process which was concluded last week. We have listened to feedback from the rowing community and reviewed best practices from other sports organisations which has led to role and team changes enabling a different approach. We are keen to create the best level of support for the sport through greater collaboration and investment. Offering clubs a better deal in terms of support and expert guidance is vital and working across regions on development plans built around people, facilities and open communication is what we want to focus on.

On paper this looks like we want to provide more support with less people but by streamlining some of our workflows and changing roles in the Membership & Rowing Community Directorate we are confident we can deliver that.

As a result of changes to the organisation structure, the following positions are no longer in the structure; Deputy Director of Legal and Governance, HR manager, Head of Community Development and two Community Development Manager positions. We want to thank the individuals in these roles for their dedicated service to British Rowing and contributions to the organisation and sport as a whole.

At the same time we are pleased to announce that Jacqui Traynor will take up a new position as Head of Safeguarding & Integrity to build on the good work we have done already in this vital area. We look forward to working with Jacqui to evolve our support to the community to ensure that our sport continues to be as safe and as welcoming as it can be.

Whilst we are entering a period of transition please know that servicing the rowing community remains the core of what we do. As a result, we have streamlined our inboxes and are switching on the phone lines from today. Please visit our updated Contact Us page to find out more.

We have also briefed and outlined for the Regional Councils and Sport Committee changes of staff liaisons attending their meetings in the interim and going forward. We have several vacancies for key roles at the moment so please do have a look and share the roles with your wider network.

Going forwards on the last Tuesday of every month we would like to provide everyone with the opportunity to ask questions to British Rowing CEO Alastair Marks. From Tuesday 26 July we will be hosting our first opportunity. Sign up here to attend and we will be happy to ask any questions you may have on the restructure or anything else you’d like to ask.

Alastair Marks

British Rowing CEO