London Youth Rowing (LYR) is a name synonymous with our sport in the UK. Founded by Jim Downing in 2004, the hope was that young people across London would gain access to an otherwise traditionally niche sport and in turn help the rowing community become a more diverse, more inclusive environment.
Originally named, ‘Row East London’, their first employee was hired in 2005. LYR went on to launch the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships in 2007 and officially received charitable status in 2008. Today, LYR employs 10 full-time coaches, multiple part-time coaches and office staff to accommodate working with around 10,000 young people in schools, youth clubs and rowing clubs across London each year.
Matt Rostron, CEO at LYR, spoke to JRN as the business turned 18.
First of all, how does it feel for LYR to be 18 years old?
It is sort of mad to be honest. The charity was formed in 2004 and officially launched in 2005 so it is actually 20 years since it was first thought of by our founder, Jim Downing. I joined in 2006 from Hollingworth Lake and it bears no resemblance now to the vision that Jim and I had for the charity back then but that is a really good thing. We have come a long way and have been able to adapt at every stage too which has been great fun!
What brought you into the sport of rowing initially?
I started rowing late; I was 26 and was looking for a new sport and something that would fill some of my spare time. Little did I know then that rowing would not only fill every moment of my spare time but become my job and the thing that has become so important to me.
What was the trigger to start LYR and, when it first began, what was the mission statement?
It was started by Jim Downing who realised just how important organised sport can be, especially rowing. His son benefited enormously from getting involved in the sport as a junior and Jim could see that the skills that he was learning in and out of the boat were those that would look after him for the rest of his life. We took this and developed LYR as a charity to provide this for others too, especially those that did not have the same level of familial and financial support. We could see that there was something very special about being with a group of like-minded others, who set goals and targets as a group and worked to achieve them as individuals and as the whole group. We learnt how rowing was able to do that in an almost unique way; everyone had to put in the same effort and work at the same rate as everyone else.
Over the years, LYR has played a role in getting thousands of people out onto the water in London. What has been the highlight?
There have been so many to be honest. I am really proud of how the charity has developed over the years. I love that we are able to try new things, attempt different projects and programmes and how we are open to disrupting the sport if we think that is needed along the way.
NJIRC is a great example. It was set up because there was not a specific junior indoor rowing competition and we felt that it was crucial to have one. It is now one of the biggest indoor rowing events on the planet with over 2700 taking part on one day, over two locations in 2023 and the 2024 event looks like it could be even larger. I think if we are to be remembered for anything it should be for NJIRC, for introducing many thousands of young people to the sport, often for the first time and for many who will represent their school for the only time this year.
How challenging is it to maintain a non-profit organisation in a world of macroeconomic difficulty?
It is tough and getting tougher to be honest. We are a limited company with charitable status, and we work incredibly hard to ensure that we raise the funds we need to do the work that we do.
We have a team of around 22 full-time amazing staff and coaches that are changing lives every day, helped and supported by a band of some of the most extraordinary session coaches and volunteers.
We receive fantastic support from stalwarts of the rowing community such as Henley Royal Regatta Charitable Trust and British Rowing as well as Sport England and we could not do what we do without them.
We also work incredibly hard at diversifying our income, so we are not reliant on our great funders and partners all of the time. We run a series of fundraising and corporate team-building events too, such as the extremely popular ‘Race the Thames Live and Virtual’ as well as ‘Oarsome Challenge’ where teams row through the centre of London, in fancy dress, raising money for us and many many other charities along the way.
LYR is keen to develop a social enterprise income stream too and this is something that we want to explore in 2024. It would help us become more sustainable as an organisation and allow us to do more of what we do for years to come.
What do you believe rowing needs to change – radically or otherwise – to remain relevant in the next 20 years?
I think there is a belief amongst rowers that a) everyone will love rowing and if you simply ‘build it, they will come’ – that is just not true – and b) everyone who walks through the door of a rowing club should / has to go racing ASAP. Many people actually do not want that, and it excludes so many more than it attracts in my opinion.
If rowing as a sport examined the barriers to participation and concluded that we all have to work together to make it more appealing, rowing would look very different in the future. If we allow people to join our wider community and enjoy the feeling of being part of a group of like-minded people (sound familiar?) whilst providing different ways of doing that (varied types of boats, new types of memberships, innovative forms of rowing and exciting locations to do that without being tied to ‘your club’) then the sport would grow enormously.
It would be a giant leap for most but we must do things differently if we want the sport to grow. We must find new ways of engaging with people that may not immediately ‘love’ the sport as we do, who may want to row recreationally, learn at different speeds, intersperse it with other sports and who just love being out on the water in their own way.
In your experience, how do young people receive rowing as a sport and what is the biggest challenge to getting more people into the sport?
The young people who we work with have been amazing over the years. They have listened to us as we have excitedly encouraged them to go rowing on the water on a wet and dark evening in February, to take part in NJIRC when they know they are not going to win and have got back in the boat when they have fallen out of a fine shell, the kayak or off the SUP. They have done that because they see that we are excited about it too. Young people who are not used to the sport can be pretty unsure as to what to expect so we spend a lot of time working with them to remove any of those mental and physical barriers. There is something incredibly special about being on the water, even if it is just ten feet from the bank. We need to ensure that everyone has the chance to put down their phone and try it just once.
What is the focus for LYR over the next few years?
Since the pandemic, we have expanded out of London to Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Nottingham and Kent plus a brand-new location opening up soon in Bristol. We have taken what we learned from our time in London and used it to determine what we need to do differently in proceeding locations.
We also want to further diversify our income streams – as mentioned above – so that we can collaborate with new partners, but to also urge funders to develop longer term thinking and programming.
How can the UK rowing community best support you and your team?
Funding, funding, funding! We are working with over 6,000 young people every year and bringing huge and evidenced financial and societal benefits to the local communities where we work, and we want to do more. We are not a wealthy charity or organisation as lots of people assume. We raise every penny we spend, and we work incredibly hard to make sure that we are able to keep going. It would be amazing to have the UK rowing community support what we do, for there to be a group of funders and partners that came together to donate into a large pot that supported us, and the other organisations like us. Finally and principally, it is crucial that we are welcoming more and more people to this mad and beautiful sport of ours.
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