As the clocked ticked down to just 200 days to the starting gun, this May have been our busiest month… Most importantly we completed our line up and welcomed Poppy to team Status Row!
The Boat
- Let’s start with the big news- we bought a boat! We had our first Status Road trip as we headed down to Justin Adkins’ yard in Devon to see Poppy, the boat rowed by the Atlantic Ladies when they became the first female trio to row the Atlantic in February. She’s a fantastic boat, crafted by one of the top boat builders. We’re honoured to become her guardians as we take over the female trio ocean rowing mantle from Di, Sharon and Elaine.
Sponsors and Fundraising
- The Ministry of Start-ups – which has more than 10 different coworking spaces in London & Lisbon, providing space for freelancers, startups and small businesses – kindly agreed to donate the proceeds of its Elder St snack honesty box to the row. That should be at least bronze sponsorship – although we’re hoping a lot of chocolate will be consumed in the next 6 months!
- Water-to-go, travel bottles that allow you to filter your own water, joined us as a product sponsor.
- 7 people joined the 100 club making it our best month yet – our boat will be covered in the names of our fantastic support-oars!
Events
- May day bank holiday weekend took us to Caroline’s home village for the Kimpton May Festival. Well done to Lewis Howard and Emma Rouse for winning our rowing competition and thanks to everyone who took part in that and our raffle. It was also lovely to see Shelchouk of our sponsors Rainbow Brands who popped by to say hello.
- We went south of the river for our very own, sell out screening of A Plastic Ocean at the Whirled Cinema– the feature length documentary that inspired us to join the fight against plastic pollution. Thanks to everyone who came and keep showing off your Status Row tote bags! A huge thank you to Loving Earth and Snact for providing the treats in the plastic-free goodie bags, and to Eco to Go, Leon and SodaStream for donating the raffle prizes.
- Suze shared the Status Row mission with the Chelmsford Explorers who all made pledges to cut their own plastic use.
Training
- We were incredibly lucky to have an afternoon coaching in Henley, from Guin Batten, Olympic medallist and Atlantic rowing record holder. Legs, back, arms… arms, back, legs- repeat! Keep that back straight Suze!
- More pushing and pulling, squats and hinging in the gym, and hours rowing on the indoor rower as we rack up the kilograms and kilometres needed to get us in ocean rowing shape.
Press and social media
- We hit 7500 twitter followers!
- We had our first cover story as we were featured in Green, the National Audit Office magazine!
- We’ve been taking part in interviews from London to Mumbai so watch out for the stories as they go to press in June.
We now have our boat so yes, we are serious about rowing the Atlantic!! But we need a lot more funds to get our boat to that start line – please help us to be in La Gomera by donating at www.statusrow.com/support or connecting us with potential corporate sponsors. Thank you!