The Porirua Rowing Club Boatshed.

The current rowing club building was built on years of volunteer work. Delivering yellow pages, cake sales, labouring and so on until the Club had enough money to buy the current building, in kit set form. Members worked to save $40,000 in 1990, to buy the kitset. A big thanks to past (and some current!) members for their efforts and paying-it-forward.

Gym renovations – 2022

2021. The photos below show the old gym – which was in the former kitchen. We were using a dangerous bench press and squat rack that needed people spotting and watching. It was hard to re-rack and there were no safety bars to catch the weights if someone lost control.

The rowing ergs (not shown) were also stored under the boats in the bays, and water would drip onto and damage the ergs.

2021. The former “committee room” had been used by another club for many years, when returned the room was left in need of repair. Some of the panels of gib were like tissue paper and needed to be replaced, holes patched and plastered. We decided to wait until the season had finished and fix this in 2022. About 200 hours of labour were needed to renovate and paint the room. Plywood and gib in the attic were used to reduce renovation costs. You can see the development in the photos below.. 

Winter 2022. Over about 3 months we followed the traditions of the past and got a team of volunteers together to get the room back to a healthy state.

The finished gym!

All members now have access to a great training room. Future plans include finishing the flooring, making a trophy cabinet in the alcove, and getting more gym equipment, including weights and spin cycles. There are some bits and peices to do, and we’ll chip away as time and money allow. Thanks to all the volunteers who helped!