Saga of the Slips, part two

Quick update on the deck works: The Department of Transport has advised in writing that:

• As WARC is a private club that involves non-powered vessels, the deck project is not eligible for funding under the Recreational Boating Facilities Scheme.

The Department of Sport and Recreation has advised verbally that:

• As WARC is located over water and is looking to upgrade non-land based facilities, the deck project is not eligible for funding under the Community Sporting and Recreation Facilities Fund. 

We have also written to LotteryWest to establish whether there is any scope for potential funding with them. It's very unlikely as they don't fund sporting clubs like ours, however there may be heritage scope.

If the answer is "no" from all Government agencies, we may be able to approach Heritage.

The Swan River Trust wrote back on the matter of the part five permit, saying:

It may be that a permit application can be made if the works are for repairs to or maintenance of an existing structure which –

(i)                  Are not related to a change of use of any part of the structure; and (ii)                Do not alter the structure’s function or appearance.

http://www.swanrivertrust.wa.gov.au/planning-and-licensing/application-forms/permit-application

 A part 5 development application may be required for any change, addition to any structure – or any new development.

Our Statutory planning section will be able to advise you better of the application process you will need to undertake. I will forward your query to them, and ask they contact you to advise.

I will keep you all up to date on this.

Perth to Freo - north to south

Due to significant bellyaching and whinging from the masses, I have reoriented the Perth to Freo map to have north pointing north. In my defense, for many years this was the map rowers and coxswains used for the race:

I've no idea why they had north pointing sort of north-east, but I'd guess most scullers and coxswains who have done the race would be familiar with this map.

So in an effort to be a more technically correct (the best type of correct) club, here is the same map, in colour, carefully lined up to accurately match the Google map of the river and oriented with north pointing up:

Or you can of course download the PDF and keep a copy yourself here: P2F oriented north

Now, for those wondering how I worked out the distances: No, I did not Garmin it.

I used this site: http://au.mapometer.com/

The bonus of this site is I didn't have to leave my office to work out the distance. I will point out John Morgan did offer to provide his Garmin results from the historic Last Race of the Clarkson, when the six men of Squad X completed the course, happily beating at least one novice women's crew. Ah, good times.

Perth to Freo - season warm-up

Re-did the very ancient map of the Perth to Freo boatrace today. Finally is editable should we discover new spit posts.

For new players, the trickiest bit is often the start - it's easy to head off along the river wall towards UWA but that won't help you much. It's particularly tricky because the Quarry Pt spitpost isn't visible when you're sitting in a single scull by yourself. You just have to have enough guts to row out into the middle of the river and hope you're heading the right direction.

Or take a compass and head south-south-east. Either or.

Perth to Freo map download 

Saga of the Slips: Part one

The long process to garner approvals to repair and maintain the WARC deck has begun. The primary approvals required to repair and maintain the deck will come from the Swan River Trust and the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority. These two organisations need to simultaneously approve any development in our patch of water.

Fortunately the MRA and SRT had been working together on approvals for Lot 351 very recently, so know each other quite well and the paths of communication are already open.

Primary dual approval: Swan River Trust

This is how we gathered information on the Swan River Trust:

• Garton Smith\Owen: This is the law firm that worked for the Department of Transport writing leases during the 1990s. They no longer do this. They told me to talk to Department of Transport's jetties department.
• Department of Transport - Jetties: Told me our jetty licence number is SR76, (interestingly, not written on our lease anywhere). As we are a club/NFP, our licence amendment fee may be be different and as a result I could not determine which (if any) of the forms online for modifying a jetty necessarily apply. http://www.transport.wa.gov.au/imarine/jetty-licences.asp
• Marine and Harbors said: McGees (who we’ve dealt with in the past) should be our first port of call, as they're the property manager for DOT leases.
• McGees told me this sounded like a “repair and maintain” application, which could be executed within our current riverbed lease. This means it should be able to be done via permit under “Part 5”, which we would get from the Swan River Trust. We do need to drive some new piles which may mean there needs to be a variation to the jetty licence, however the work is within our existing riverbed lease.
• To do this, I need to email the Swan River Trust. We expect they will write back requesting a copy of our plans, so this action has been delayed slightly.

Primary dual approval: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

• The MRA has been involved in the Lot 351 approval process and worked with our feedback. So we already have a relationship with them.
• We will need to lodge a development application (DA) with the MRA that will also need to go to the SRT.
• A DA “pack” is being sent to WARC shortly so help start this approvals process.
• They told us dealing with heritage sooner rather than later is a good idea.

Heritage

• Our heritage building number is 2090.
• They said the SRT and MRA will both refer our planning application and licence amendments to heritage for review anyway.
• HOWEVER, the process can be made smoother if we deal with heritage earlier rather than later. As there is a moderate change to the size of the deck and a likely change to the materials, this will need to go through heritage.
• Their ideal is replacing “like with like”. I explained that wasn’t really an option considering the size of modern boats and danger it poses to rowers. It will be critical that the Building Maintenance Committee keeps records of all options considered, as well as the reasons they are variously dismissed.
• Heritage sponsorship is not open to us, as we are an NGO. This might seem counter-intuitive, however heritage funding is only available for organisations that do not qualify for City of Perth/DSR/Lotterywest funding. That said, if we are ruled out of any funding for any reason, that makes heritage available to us.

Secondary approvals: City of Perth

• The COP said we fall under the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority and therefore do not have to liaise with the COP over this in terms of planning.

Aboriginal Affairs:

• It is likely our DA will go to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs for review. If the SRT grants this as a Part 5 permit based on not exceeding our riverbed lease, will not need a Section 18 from DIA. S18s were required for the Lucky Shag extension and Lot 351.  http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/en/Section-18-Applications/

These are the MRA application forms:

• DA Form 1 Application for Approval
• DA Requirments Checklist
• Development Policy 2 - Development of Heritage Places
• Planning Fee Schedule

For further information, email president@warowingclub.org

Champion Club results 2005-06 to now

  The following is a table that records where WARC landed in the annual Champion Club awards from 2005-06 to now.

The figures these awards are based on are a little on the rubbery side, but there's a couple of interesting things to see.

It looks a bit like a pattern for WARC where we hit the top, then gradually slide downwards for a while.

Our biggest pitfall is our retention figures (more on that later) and to some extent, our novice recruitment.

Graph 1 shows the overall results, with WARC and Freo singled out. I've singled out Freo as they're a similar sized and similar level club. (And the President of Freo told me they were interested.)

Graph 1: Overall results

Graph 2 is about novice recruitment. The average for 2013 was dramatically affected by UWA's recruitment of 118 novice athletes in one year. Pretty exhaustive. To put that in perspective, Freo was the highest-recruiting club over the seven year period, with a total of 250 recruited. WARC was in line with ANA with 177 - about middle of the road. Our recruitment of just four atheltes from 2011 to 2012 really damaged our scorecard. (No idea what happened there).

Graph 2: New novices

The next graph is actually where WARC shines most: athlete participation. In 2012, we hit a record 20 races per registered athlete - no other club has got near that so far and we have the highest average for any club. However, we plummeted this year (along with everyone else) to a record low of 7.4 races per athlete.

Graph 3: Participation

And finally, we get to the Achilles heel for WARC: Athlete retention. We'are actually not *that* bad, the averages tend to be a bit confounded by some of the smaller clubs that crack out 100 or 90 per cent retention (hello the first two years of Champion Lakes) however we are still below Freo - a good benchmark, I think. So this is something to work on. Peeps, we need you to stick around.

Graph 4: Athlete retention

There's not much else to say here. Some of these figures are a little rubbery as they're largely taken from ROMS or provided to RWA and I think we are well aware of the difficulty of accruing accurate records for our own club, let alone an entire state.

But I think it does show up some of our strengths and weaknesses pretty interestingly, and shows we've not always been the big fish.

Happy rowing,

PBR.