Free Spirits Rowing

Hi [mention]Stan [/mention]
Hopefully you are doing fine!
Not sure about the health as you have less than 23k on the Meterboard for this season.

According to the Meterboard icons you haven’t been on the forum, while looking at the Meterboard (no FS icon), so I am not sure you read this. Hopefully you do.

I would like to ask you, whether it would be ok for you to hand the captain’s role for the FS team in Concept2 over to someone who is more active on the forum and the erg? [mention]JonT [/mention]would be a great candidate with all the hours he is putting in to keep the Meterboard, Forum, challenge icons and statistics, hence, the club alive.
Or maybe some over active member (Plummy, Peter, …) in case Jon things he has more than enough on his plate. Otherwise I could take the role as well.

There are several reasons why I am asking.
While I love the free spirits idea of that people are not like in other teams forced to do anything I still believe that an active captain could interact with Concept2 and the tools they provide to:
- inform and remind members about challenges (CTC, IRL, C2…) as not all understand what is out there, teach them how
- promote the forum, not all are aware of the forum.
- check who is on the list and hasn’t contributed for many years, check whether they are ok
- invite people to the forum
- engage them to contribute to the club
- promote the club in other forums

In the end people must have joined the club for a reason, otherwise why sign up. And if you sign up, one is probably more than happy to contribute in some form or another. Signing up for the team challenge is piece of cake when you know how.

So what are your thoughts?

Looking forward to hear from you.

Best regards from Norway,
Tako

Hi Tako,

I'm not massively surprised that you have not had any responses to your email.

Anyway, my view is that FS is really now a group of individuals who largely get on with their own thing and a small subset of whom (literally a handful) who participate in discussions on the forum and help and support each other. There is nothing wrong with this, its just how things are now. Hence, no response to your email - I really don't think people care. The small group support each other and participate, and I really enjoy that. The vast majority just do what they do.

Having said that, I am more than happy to email Andrew (aka Stan) and ask him if he will remove his name as captain on the Concept2 site. If you then want to register as the captain I doubt anyone will argue with that. I'm sure doing some of the things you mention in your message will help, but don't build up your hopes. I definitely don't want to take the role as Captain. I already do a lot for the group and don't want to increase that, especially given what I said at the top of this message.

Jon

P.S. the [mention] facility is an extension to the forum which we do not have installed. As a general rule I try to avoid customisation extensions because we are then dependent on other people to write good code and maintain it.

Hi Tako and Jon,

The fact I'd messaged Tako direct rather than respond here is probably part of the issue (even though I do post reasonably frequently), but in terms of community spirit (and jovial competition) more involvement would be good to see - admittedly from the perspective a relatively new joiner.

All.best,
Ian

Thank you Jon for the reply and your thoughts.
The reason I proposed you as first Captain candidate is twofold; on one hand I think you would do a great job and on the other hand I think you should be the first to get the job if you wanted it. But of course I also think that it would be better if you do not have to take more load and instead get support.

Also good to know that the mention feature is not supported. I now also sent Stan a message via the C2 logbook but no response yet. So if you could mail him it would be great.

Fully agree with your view on the club’s status, and as I wrote I like the freedom, but if one does not contribute in any way there is no point of being part of the team.

I do not have great hopes either but I would at least like to try.

Tako wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:24 am Thank you Jon for the reply and your thoughts.
The reason I proposed you as first Captain candidate is twofold; on one hand I think you would do a great job and on the other hand I think you should be the first to get the job if you wanted it. But of course I also think that it would be better if you do not have to take more load and instead get support.

Also good to know that the mention feature is not supported. I now also sent Stan a message via the C2 logbook but no response yet. So if you could mail him it would be great.

Fully agree with your view on the club’s status, and as I wrote I like the freedom, but if one does not contribute in any way there is no point of being part of the team.

I do not have great hopes either but I would at least like to try.

Hi Tako

I agree that having someone to encourage people to take part in the various challenges would be a good idea. I seem to remember Stan sending individual reminders to people a number of years back, but maybe that’s just my memory playing tricks on me now that I’ve reached my 70s.

But there are many reasons why people don’t contribute as actively as they once did. In my case, it’s because of lower back issues that have prevented me from rowing at anything like the level or frequency I used to do a number of years ago, when I was a lot fitter. I try to dip in from time to time, but I probably should make a point of doing so more often, even if it’s just to congratulate people on a good performance or commiserate with them when things aren’t going according to plan.

Having said the above, I don’t agree that there’s no point in me being a member of the team if I’m not a regular contributor to the forum or the various challenges. I’ve very much enjoyed being a member of Free Spirits over the years and I find that keeping a link with the team (even a very tenuous one) has stopped me from giving up altogether. And I’m still hoping that I might find a “magic pill” that will enable me to at least partially overcome my back issues so that I can return to rowing on a more regular basis.

Anyway, I appreciate the thought and the good intention behind your suggestion and it would be great if our paths could cross again at some stage in the future.

Best wishes

Paul V

I've been away for a week so only just catching up on forum activity. I agree with Tako's thinking but definitely need to get Stan's thoughts on this before doing anything else.

I know he has a very new C2 - fact (why get it if no intention of using it?)
I know he's lost a lot of weight - fact (amazing amount)
I know he's wanting to get back on the metal mistress - fact
The only piece missing is - actually getting going
The above is all from a recent conversation I had with him.

The above said, he may well freely admit that overall he'd be happy to hand over the reigns to someone new as other life commitments are currently in his way.

Plummy

Thank you for the update Dave!
That sounds promising, please check with him!
Hopefully he will find the way back to an active erg life and captaincy!!

Paul, I fully agree with all you wrote, but while not being that active on the erg you still managed to visit the forum, contribute here and made sure the 1k you did counts for the team in the team challenge.
Hope you find a magic pill to get your back ready for erging again, and maybe next time don’t start with a fast 1k

Hi all,
first of all I apologise for my absence and thought you would have ousted me long ago! I have just been contacted by email regarding this discussion and I have passed captaincy to Tako. Tako you should get an email from C2 offering the role to you. I think you just need to accept and it will all go through.
I fell out of love with the erg for a while and put on way too much weight. I realised I was doing a lot of damage to myself last year and since last July I have shed over 4 stone in weight and I am feeling a whole lot better. I feel like I want to start up my rowing again and hopefully you will see more entries on the meterboard from me, but I accept I should not be captain of this great club and I am happy to relinquish responsibility to Tako and I wish him all the best in the role.

It’s good to hear from you Stan

First of all - Thank you for all the work. You have done for us all the club during your time as Captain

Secondly - 4 stone That’s incredible

I wish you the very best for your return to the metal mistress. We all know how unforgiving she can be, but I am confident that you will do your best to tame her and hope to see you on the forum again before too long

Great to hear from you Stan and congratulations on the weight loss.

Great to hear from you again Stan!
And as the others also pointed out congratulations with the impressive weight loss!
Hopefully we will see you more regularly hear in the forum, CTC, Meterboard, and that you get back into an erg-flow.

As I wrote in the initial post I hoped that some of the other active members would like to step up, and I would have taken the task if they would/could not.

After checking with them Peter has accepted the challenge and I will make sure he gets the role in the Log book as well. So unless there are any objections or others that want the job as well I would like to call for three cheers for our new team captain Peter!!!
And a big thanks to Stan for his contributions!!!

Hi all, good discussion prompt Tako.
Great to hear from you Stan, and that you have taken steps to get back to a healthier life. Very impressive!
Thanks for your years as Captain, and best wishes to Peter.
Wolfie

Amazing results Stan

Welcome aboard Captain Peter!

Hi all,

thank you for trusting me as team captain I'll do my best to support Free Spirits in every way.

I'd like to thank you Stan for seventeen years of captaincy! I'm also glad to read that you regained fitness and lost weight, well done!

A big thank you from me as well, Stan. And I agree witht the others: I hope you'll find joy in rowing again.
Tako: thanks for bringing this up, I think it's useful to have a more active captain, as Stan used to be.
And Peter: I trust you to be a great captain. Have fun

Welcome Peter, I am sure that you will make another great Captain. Stan thanks for all of your hard work over the years and hope to see you at least virtually soon. Happy to help out with anything that doesn't require technical know how!

- Iain

Thank you all. I was forced into doing something about the weight last June when I began suffering horrendous joint pain. I did something different this time and joined a group - slimming world, and here I am 4.25 stone lighter and back under 100kg - I would eventually like to row as a lightweight but that is some time away yet and would definitely be new ground for me.
I thought I had handed over captaincy to Tako but it appears to be Peter - either way I am happy its in good hands. So many happy memories of this sport you would think it would be dead easy to get back into. Got tomorrow afternoon off so I am going to try and get a session in. Possibly friday too. I am then visiting my dad over the weekend but I will try to get a 3rd session in on Monday. Who knows I might even start a stans very slow comeback thread.
Great to see so many old hands still pulling the string! Wolfie, Iain, Fred, Plummy and too many others to mention.
Incidentally I still seem to have administrator rights on the facebook page. That doesnt seem to involve much other than approving or disapproving applicant to our facebook page. I am happy to continue doing this but wondering how many others have that right as I had nothing to do with producing the page itself.

Stan wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 8:10 pmIncidentally I still seem to have administrator rights on the facebook page. That doesnt seem to involve much other than approving or disapproving applicant to our facebook page. I am happy to continue doing this but wondering how many others have that right as I had nothing to do with producing the page itself.

Hey Stan - I don't think we've "met", but I've been around here since early 2016. Congrats on the weight loss - that's a tremendous effort!

Anyway, I checked the info on the Facebook page, and it shows "Colin Bradley" as Administrator with yourself and Paul Victory as "Moderator"s. Essentially answering your question that you, Paul and Colin have rights to do administrative things on the page.

Stan,
As a serial "restarter", I would caution taking it easy to start with. I generally find that 2 sessions a week is all that I can manage initially and my HR takes a while to make any HR based training an option (very modest sessions that don't seem particularly taxing take my HR well into AT within 10-15 mins! I thus assume that I( have to treat them as "serious" sessions and give myself time to recover from them. I have stopped training a couple of times after a month or so due to premature plateauing when I have dived back into 4+ sessions per week.

I look forward to see you back climbing the metreboard.

Kind regards

Iain

Stan welcome back matey lookin forward to seeing your continued progress towards LW I lost a bit of weight last year and you know what I think I actually can see my Abbs again,go for it Andrew.

What an interesting time to be drifting back towards the club after several years seemingly adrift.

I echo what others have said and thank you Stan for all you have done over the years and also wish you well in your continuing health improvements.
I also congratulate and wish Peter well as we move forward (and the changeover email certainly brought it back to forefront of mind.

I have recently (Monday) moved to Southport and intend to make changes about my prior lifestyle and getting back on the erg, being part of this amazing forum and group and also getting back onto the water as part of a longer term weight loss goal and health improvement.

It is great to be back and wishing you are all well!!!

Seb

Hi Seb, I don't suppose you remember me as we only met once and I was a bit quieter on the forum back then, but great to see an FS Return. Look forward to seeing how you progress as someonelse who is starting back after a break.

- Iain

Welcome back, Seb

Machine wrote: ↑Fri May 05, 2023 2:49 pm
I echo what others have said and thank you Stan for all you have done over the years and also wish you well in your continuing health improvements.
I also congratulate and wish Peter well as we move forward (and the changeover email certainly brought it back to forefront of mind.

Seb

Hear, hear

A bit late, but wanted to say congrats to Stan on the weight loss and thanks for all the years as captain!
Also, welcome to Captain Peter!

Thank yiu everybody for your good wishes!

I apologise for not being active lately, neither on the erg nor on the forum, the reason being a nasty cold (sinusitis to be precise), which has been bugging me for the past three weeks. I‘m still on antibiotics but hope to be back at some point next week.