Members will be part of Bristol Channel Social Rowers (The Club) which is a rowing club set up informally by its founding members to provide the opportunity for non-competitive adult rowing on Bristol’s Floating Harbour. Legally it is termed an ‘Unincorporated Association’ which means that it has no separate legal identity. This means that a legal claim could be made against an individual member or the wider club. The Club seeks to mitigate such a risk by holding insurance that includes third party liability cover and by maintaining a healthy finance reserve at all times.
Members shall, upon leaving The Club, relinquish any legal right to The Club assets.
Members shall, upon leaving BCSR, relinquish any legal right to BCSR assets.
Should BCSR be wound-up then its assets shall be gifted to another organisation with, as far as reasonably practical, similar aims and aspirations or alternatively a charity chosen by its remaining members.
Member contact details provided in support of a membership application or renewal (or provided by way of an update) shall be stored on a computer or computers. In addition, email addresses and phone numbers provided shall be routinely distributed to all members as part of a ‘contact details’ email.
Members shall not share the contact details of other members outside The Club.
All club members will treat others with respect, where individuals are valued and treated with fairness.
If a member is uncomfortable with certain behaviour then they should challenge it or alternatively report it to the Club Captain. If they wish it to be discussed at a wider forum then they should also raise it at one of The Club quarterly meetings.
Members must be capable swimmers.
BCSR is run by its members. The forum for discussing ideas and issues is the quarterly meetings (Chip-to-Shore). Decisions are by consensus at the meeting. If there is clear agreement on a proposal then it is accepted without voting. A vote will be taken if necessary. Voting is by attendees only.
BCSR has three key roles namely, BCSR Captain, Finance Lead and Maintenance Lead. Each holder was accepted at a quarterly meeting with a clear consensus. Precedence has been for the holders to continue in the roles until they choose to stand-down. The BCSR Captain has the responsibility and authority for managing BCSR outside of the quarterly meetings.
Scheduled row are managed through a website based tool `ROWter`. Members add themselves to a boat in a similar way to the selection of a seat on an airline booking site. Although `ROWter` requires the rower to select a specific seat the actual allocation is undertaken by the row lead just prior to the row.
As well as scheduled rows, any member can join together with friends from the BCSR to enjoy a private row or rows subject to (i) the BCSR Captain being briefed, (2) the row not impacting on the scheduled rows and (3) at least one of the rowers being a Row Lead (a rower with experience leading scheduled rows).
At the time of writing our Safety Assessment is a draft document. The primary risks are (1) slips, trips and falls at the quayside/jetty and (2) entering the water. Members should (1) take extra care when the jetty/quayside is slippery, (2) announce when they are stepping into or out of a boat and (3) work with others to ensure that, as far as reasonably practical, changing places follows a one-at-a-time rule.
We use standard commands during our rows, these can be viewed on our web page along with terminology, we expect all our members to familiarize themselves with these and remain alert to commands / instructions given during rows.
