January_2011 - Newsletter

Happy New Year from CTC!

Everyone at CTC hopes you had a fantastic holiday season and a safe New Year's.  Our team certainly enjoyed some rest and respite - though many participants asked for, and participated in, voluntary workouts over the winter break.  Nothing like having a motivated bunch of teammates!

If you attended our annual gala, then thank you for your support in person!  For those who could not attend, your good vibes went a long way to insure another successful night.  In four years we have managed to create a well-crafted event that has grown in participation and fundraising.  We are now looking forward to populating an even larger room for 2011.

Special thanks go out to Pastor William Gates - our keynote speaker.  Hearing how afterschool sports helped mold the direction of his life, following his high school and professional career was inspiring.   The fact that your CTC founder got the chance to hang out with a childhood icon made the night even more exciting (at least to me!).  Thanks for everyone's help and support. If you would like to browse through photos of that evening, please click here.

On the Gala night we also unveiled our new logo and website.  We hope you like the direction we have taken with our public image. The students were very involved in the look and design, which they have embraced with great pride.  We will be ordering our first wave of new clothing for participants soon, so if you see any of our kids in CTC gear on the streets, make sure to give them a high five - the new look will really allow them to stand out and be noticed in a positive way.

Since the gala we have moved everything indoors to our Gage Park location and the kids have been sweating away at constant erg tests and pain locker weight circuits.  Strangely they keep coming back for more - the sign of a true oarsman (and woman).  If any supporter would like to witness a practice, please reach out to me directly and I'll make sure that we schedule a time for you to pop 'round and cheer on the kids.

Recruitment Time!

CTC is now in the process of hiring a new Recruitment and Retention Specialist that will help identify, recruit, and retain new members of CTC's growing team.  The main duties of this person are to build relationships with schools, community leaders, parents, and coaches to insure that all participants are full invested in their activity, so they get the most out of their time spent.  Interviews have been going on for over a month and we hope to announce our new hire soon (details here).  While this process plays itself out, we will also continue to stop by schools and speak to as many freshman as possible.  Our upcoming schedule includes stops at Westinghouse, Phoenix, Back of the Yards, and Hubbard.  If you know of a school that would like CTC to pay a visit, please do not hesitate to tell us.

It goes without saying that any student can join CTC no matter what school they attend, just by making themselves known to us.  Click HERE to find the packet that we ask each participant to fill out. As long as prior notice is given to CTC about joining, we operate on a rolling basis for new kids.  If you want to join, the time is now!

Mark Your Calendars!

Looking at the upcoming schedule, we have indoor competitions at the Chicago Indoor Rowing Championships, CTC's TIRO Cup, and dual practices with other Chicago-based rowing clubs.  We plan to get back on the water in early March - a time that coincides with the annual Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and the online race against London Youth Rowing.  The end of winter is now in sight but in the meantime we will continue to get fit and ready to enter the water as strong as possible.

Thank you for your continued support! We hope to see some of you at a practice, cheering us on at the indoor regattas, or, at the very least, sending good vibes from wherever you may be.