Meet British Rowing’s new Community Team
The team has been created to support British Rowing’s strategic participation development and plans for growing participation in indoor, coastal and flat water rowing across England
From left: Rob Mayes, Di Farrell-Thomas and Chris Farrell
They will be working closely with our fantastic clubs and stakeholders, looking at ways to get them the right support and help open more doors and opportunities for people to go rowing.
The team is headed up by Chris Farrell, who has been with British Rowing for over 12 years, most recently as Project Manager – Indoor Rowing. Since being promoted to Head of Community back in May, Chris has had an extremely busy summer helping clubs all over England to advertise their Learn to Row courses and taster sessions on our new GoRow booking platform, as well as masterminding the Great British Rowing Weekend in September, and in between that getting hundreds of people on ergos at the Olympic and Paralympic Fanzones during Paris 2024.
Chris has been supported through all of this work by Dan Hetherington (right), who has been with British Rowing for nearly 19 years, and is now taking on the role of Community Development Manager – Youth. Previously Project Manager – Youth Indoor Rowing, Dan will continue to deliver across all of our youth indoor rowing programmes, as well as managing our youth rowing development in schools and universities, and indoor rowing events, and working on key Sport England engagement initiatives alongside Chris.
Facilities Coordinator Alan Meegan and Fundraising Officer Tabby Mansha continue their existing valuable roles as part of this team.
In mid-October, the Community team was completed by two new Community Development Officers, Di Farrell-Thomas and Rob Mayes. Di brings a wealth of experience from other sports, most recently as Diversity and Inclusion Project Manager at the British Horseracing Authority while Robert has been a British Rowing GROW Coach based at Broxbourne RC for the past two years.
Di and Robert will be providing rowing clubs with tailored sport development support and advice to help them develop sustainably, and to foster a positive and inclusive rowing environment either via indoor, on the river, or coastal rowing. They will initially focus on supporting adaptive rowing initiatives, learn to row schemes and wider club development programmes including our coastal sculling community club engagement.
Chris said, “We are really looking forward to supporting our rowing clubs, stakeholders and partners to develop new opportunities and flourish within their local communities, enabling more people to go rowing Please get in touch with us by emailing [email protected] to let us know how we can support your club.”
