St John's College boat club is challenging itself to row 500k in 40 hours to raise funds for a new 2nd VIII. Our current 2nd VIII boat has seen better days and desperately needs replacing so that the 2nd VIIIs and novice VIIIs can race competitively.

We will be taking on this challenge starting 7am in the morning of Tuesday 8th December, finishing before 11pm Wednesday 9th.

With club membership growing, we are finding ourselves stretched and sometimes unable to provide a full rowing experience to all our members. This will be a boat which will be used by the whole club, from the 1st VIII when they train in Durham, to the novice VIIIs when it comes to races. We need this boat to develop the club and unleash it's full competetive potential.

Our performances last year were impacted heavily by technical difficulties with our aged fleet of boats, with this new boat all members of the club would be able to race and train without problems and hopefully results will come.

The idea is to spend around £5000 pounds on a second hand VIII suitable for use by the whole club. The VIII would be meduim weight, robust and in good condition. There are boats such as this on the market all the time so once we have raised the money a purchase will be made.

This all means we will have a new 2nd VIII for the start of the epiphany term which can be used for preparation and racing in HORR, the regatta season and many years after.

Any surplus money raised will go towards refurbishment of our IVs, oars and will be kept for boat maintence in years to come.

Any donation, however big or small would be really appreciated by the whole club and it will make a huge difference to us.