Happy New Year and Welcome to the 2008 Rowing Season! If you were an OAR member in 2007, a punchcard for 3 coached rowing sessions is available for you to try out a coached program in 2008.

To encourage you to have a balanced life - a little yin for your yang - sweeps for your scull, every 2007 OAR member will find a punchcard IN YOUR NAME worth THREE COACHED ROWS in the Punchcard Box in the OAR Boathouse.

OAR is introducing the punchcard as an alternative to seasonal coach fees. Once you use up your 3-punch introductory card, you may purchase $25 five-punch cards to allow you to participate in coached programs for which you have not paid seasonal fees. Punchcards, at $5 per row, run higher in per-practice cost than season coach fees. The punchcard is intended to promote more participation.

A punchcard may be the way to take part in a coached program. Designed for:

• scullers who wish to enter a sweeps event at a regatta, and get in practices to prepare;
• someone who generally rows their single but wants to enter a team boat for one regatta;
• sweep rowers who want to scull (or vice versa), but don’t have enough time in the week to hit so many practices;
• rowers joining a coached program well into a season;
• intermittent participants who like to have flexibility.