Hood River, Oregon
‘I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member,’ Groucho Marx said. Well, I don’t want to be a member of any club that DOESN’T want me as a member. Like the Leander Club of Henley, ‘the world’s oldest and most renowned rowing club.’
From a recent correspondence…
“At the last meeting of the Committee of Leander we again considered the nomination for Ordinary Membership of your candidate Miss REA Savage together with your letter of the 8 November 2006. Unfortunately the Committee is of the opinion that Miss Savage fails to meet the criteria we use in assessing ‘proficiency pf oarsmanship’, which is a measure of excellence rather than endurance.
However Miss Savage would be very welcome as an Associate Member, should she wish to pursue this option. Perhaps you could let me know.
Kind regards
etc etc”
So obviously my two half-blues for representing Oxford in the women’s boat races against Cambridge aren’t enough, even though their website blurb says, ‘Many of our ordinary members have raced in the Boat Race [i.e. the men’s Oxford/Cambridge race] or competed in a Henley Final or an event of similar standing.’
So go figure. The men’s Boat Race counts. The women’s races don’t.
So they can take their trademark hippos and pink socks and, erm, keep them. Pah! 🙂