Overview

In 2023 the Carleton Ravens Varsity Rowing Team has had one of its most successful seasons to date and we are looking to build and grow on this success! This year at the OUA championship regatta the Ravens Rowing Team brought in a program-record of 5 podium finishes and was 4^th in the medal tally of the 13 universities who participated. Our women’s team placed 4^th overall, and despite only having 7 male rowers the men’s team placed 7^th overall. At OUAs, the women’s lightweight pair placed 2^nd finishing less than 2 seconds off of first place, and are looking to make that a first place finish next year. With your help, we can make that happen. The Ravens team is growing, and we won’t be settling for 2^nd or 3^rd place finishes next year. We want to raise the bar and challenge the top rowing universities in Ontario and across Canada. Thanks to the money raised in previous years, 3 of our crews who medaled at OUA’s did so in our 2 Ravens-branded boats: the Prophecy and the Corax! Furthermore, at the infamous Head of the Charles Regatta, our very own collegiate women’s 4+ had an excellent performance medaling and beating over 34 other crews while doing so.

The Background

Unlike some of our better funded competitors, the team relies on Giving Tuesday donations to fund the team and keep us afloat. On Tuesday, November 28^th the university matches your donations dollar for dollar up to donations of $5000. Our rowing team is fortunate to train out of one of the biggest and oldest rowing clubs in Canada, our very own Ottawa Rowing Club. Due to the club’s size and age, our team must share equipment with other rowing programs at the club, and thus we are limited to using certain equipment on certain days of the week. Unlike many universities, our coaches are all volunteers. They take out many hours of their week to coach and train us on top of their busy jobs and lives. Every week, Monday through Saturday they are at the boathouse with us at 5 a.m., helping us become faster rowers. Each evening they take time out of their day to send out boat listings to let us know which boats we have access to, and what type of workout we will be doing. They put many hours of their time (and sleep) into coaching and mentoring us, all while not getting paid a single penny to do so. Furthermore, our team is growing and we currently have over 25 athletes. However our winter training equipment is quite limited as we have less than 12 functioning rowing machines (ergs) to train on. As a result, the full team is unable to train together at the same time and must train at different times of the day. If possible, we hope to purchase some ergs so that more of us can train together over the winter.

The Rollout

With your help, the Ravens Rowing team can continue to expand our fleet so that we can minimize the amount of shared equipment we must use. We hope to become a more independent team that can train with our own equipment every day of the week. As our funding will allow, we are looking to purchase an additional double or coxed four and continue to maintain our oar inventory. Additionally, some funds may be allocated to support the team’s budget to help mitigate fee increases that we student-athletes must absorb. Any donations are greatly appreciated and to our long-time donors, we greatly appreciate your continued support. Without your donations, we would not have the equipment we do now and so we truly thank you.