Ian Toll
Chris WOODHAM has just celebrated 27 years active membership.
Chris WOODHAM was enticed to the sport of rowing when he took his son 13 year old son Ben down to the Como Boathouse in 1986 to compete as a coxswain for the Club crews.
He grew up in the neighbouring Suburb of Oatley with his brother Ross who used to row at School and introduced Chris to the sport.
Showing parental support, Chris used to follow the St George crews in the coach’s tinnie during the “Jenny Clark era”!
After 2 years of being ‘a Club parent’, Club member Sara Voorthuis suggested that – “you are always here Chris – why don’t you go for a row in a single?”
Thus started Chris as a St George Club novice rower in 1988.
He recalls that he “spent more time in Scylla Bay than in the boat” when he first started & son Ben was also learning to row at the time.
Chris remembers that Jon Tourle was a mentor and gave him encouragement to continue as did Ray Brown!
Ray Brown, the legendary Club Captain, then entered him into regattas & the rest is history.
Chris has never been reluctant to train and he set himself for the 1990 Veterans State Championships at Grafton on the Clarence River.
It was a disappointing introduction to Veterans Rowing as Chris recalls – “on the return journey to Sydney on the Club bus, I quickly realised that I was the ONLY person on the bus who didn’t win a medal”!!
Chris then decided to “take a rest from rowing and concentrate on Family life”.
Chris & wife Yvonne built their home in Oyster Bay (“it’s only 10 minutes from the Club”) and ‘gardening, Yvonne & Ben were his main focus’!
In the Year 2000 Chris decided that he would like to “give the rowing another shot” and returned to the Club.
After hard training, Chris entered he 1x in the “FOSTERS Regatta” at the SIRC which had just been completed in readiness for the Olympic Games.
He won a silver medal and thus his “interest in the sport was rekindled”
Chris wants it noted that it was the St George Rowing Club who conducted the “first ever Club Regatta” at the SIRC when there was “no centre Island and all boating was down from the south side of the course over large round rocks which hurt when you stood on them”
Being a sculler and training by himself “was boring for Chris”.
When Harry Battam, Graeme Thorburn, John Rowell, Graham Williams & Ian Toll included him in “crew training & racing”
Chris had a new lease of life!
“Crew rowing was exactly what I was looking for in my rowing”,
Chris is a valuable member of the Club “Super Masters squad”and has been enjoying great success in Masters racing in all forms of boat – small & large!
The trip to Melbourne last November for the Head of the Yarra 2014 was another highlight of his lengthy Club membership.
Chris is famous for his navigational skills along the Georges River and knows the River in all its moods! The Masters squad call him “Marco Polo” as he controls steering from the bow seat around and in between many river obstacles!
There is a small Island of mangroves up near Lugarno that we all call “the Chris Woodham Island” as he rows around it at high tide. Apart from that, it is secreted away and not noticed by river users as they move by.
Asked what he likes about rowing, Chris answers confidently –
“The people involved – they are so strange like me because they enjoy moving backwards on water to progress forward”!!
Chris Woodham is “Mr Nice Guy” of the St George Rowing Club, well respected by all Club members and ever ready to assist those who may need a hand! A valuable active Club member!
Footnote: Chris has retired from the NSW Government as a aerial surveyor (Photogrammetry Department) and enjoys time spent with his wife Yvonne travelling Australia & the World inspecting classic home display gardens.
