Free Spirits FAQ

Who are Free Sprits?
How do I join Free Spirits?
What is the meterboard?
How do I get my national flag changed on the meterboard?
How long does this thing last?
What are all these “challenges”?
What is the CTC?
Where can I talk about this and find out more?
Where can I get that pretty image in my signature that shows all my best times?


Who are we?

Free Spirits was founded in May 2006 by a group of about 12 people that used to be members of another team.

We wanted to create a team where everyone is welcome, there are no rules or obligations to meet any set targets and it is there for us to have fun. Since then, the team has grown and now each year pushes 500 active members (we go back to zero at the start of each season in April), having clocked more than 100 million metres!

There’s no limit to the people in the team, who can be any age from anywhere in the world. We are a truly open global team.

There’s no fee for joining, no obligation to do a set distance or achieve a particular speed.

Just keep track of all the metres/times you do , record it on the Concept 2 web site and the system automatically adds up our team total and compares it to other teams.

What’s the catch? – there isn’t one – except you might get a bit hooked on it, lose some weight and get fitter!

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How to join us:
  1. First, you need to set up a profile on the Concept 2 website.
    This is free, takes 2 minutes and you don’t get any spam email – your privacy is protected.
  2. Go to: http://www.concept2.com
  3. Near the top right, there is a link Personal Online Log – click on this.
  4. Click on REGISTER to join.
  5. Enter as many details you wish to….you can always edit this later.
  6. Right at the end of this is a drop down box labelled University/Club Affiliation.
  7. Click on this (it’s a huge list), scroll almost to the end and Free Spirits are listed under Virtual teams.
  8. All you now need to do is record all of your times and distances as you do them. You can also retrospectively enter distances/times back to May 1st.
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What is the meterboard?

If you set yourself up as described in the paragraph above, then your metres/meters will be automatically recorded each hour in the Free Spirits meterboard. N.B. It takes TWO rows for your name to appear. If it does not appear after two rows then ask for advice in the web site forum.

It is called meter board not metre board because it was created by an American, but Europeans can still read this as in a meter that records things (voltmeter, ammeter etc.).

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How do I get my national flag changed on the meterboard?

Go to your Free Spirits profile page in the forum and type the correct code in to the Meterboard Flag Override field.

Enter a three letter code for the flag you want to display on the meterboard instead of the default (set in your profile at Concept2.com). Most ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-3) work, plus ENG, SCO and WAL for those in the UK with different sympathies. You must visit the meterboard and view the flag before others will be able to see it. There is an Easter Egg in there too which gives a pirate flag.

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The rowing “year”:

The rowing season starts on May 1st each year and runs to April 30th.
All distances are accumulated for the current season.
At the end of the season, a new season starts – last year’s results are archived.
They can still be viewed, by looking at the History tab.

Other challenges we get involved in (optional):

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Concept 2 Cross Training Challenge

A single challenge each month set by the web site owner at http://www.c2ctc.com/.

Teams take it in turns to choose the challenge each month.

You just record your best time – the system organises people into boats based on best time first. Each boat has 5 people – Positions 1, 2, 3 open to anyone, position 4 must be a Lightweight (Male or Female), position 5 must be Female.

Points are awarded at the end of the month for each FULL boat based on best time.

Examples of challenges:

May 2006 – 5,000 m
June 2006 – 1,000 m
July 2006 – 30 minutes
August 2006 – 500 m

N.B. Any times recorded on these challenge also go on your C2 logbook (but you have to enter them both separately)!!
Discussion Forum

Free Spirits has in the past had a single discussion thread called “Free Spirits” on the Teams & Clubs Forum, which is found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/forum but we are now using the forum on this site.

You need to register a profile to use it the first time though, which is easy.

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Forum Signatures

You will see that several people have a special image in their signature that shows all their personal bests. You can find a link to this in the Utilities menu above. It is called The PB Image Generator (v2).

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