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105th NWIRA Championship Regatta

The 105th NWIRA Championship Regatta is only 10 weeks away. It is scheduled for July 25 and 26 at Rabbit Lake in Kenora, Ontario, Canada and Kenora Rowing Club is hosting the championship regatta. The information packet for the championship regatta will be distributed in late May or early June. Key dates to remember (1) Entries will be due on July 16th, (2) Changes in names and scratches without fees will be taken until July 21st, and (3) Heats draws will be posted by July 23rd.

While waiting for the packet, the association clubs can take one step now to prepare for the championship regatta. That step is to purchase Regatta Master 2007, the Rowing Club and Regatta Management software, from Regatta Master. Visit their website http://www.regattamaster.com for more details. The latest version is Version 3.1 and the cost of the software is $249 (US Dollars) per club. However, if we can get at least five clubs interested in purchasing the software, the software can be purchase at $200 (US Dollars) per club. The software is licensed to the organization, so each organization can have as many copies installed as they need for their own club operations.

During the 2007 NWIRA Annual General Membership meeting in November 2007, the association voted to require the NWRIA association clubs use Regatta Master instead of RegattaCentral.com to submit their entries for the NWIRA Championship Regatta. This requirement becomes effective for the 2008 NWIRA championship regatta and every year thereafter. As of May 2008, three NWIRA clubs now have licensed copy of the software - Minnesota Boat Club, Duluth Rowing Club, and Regina Rowing Club. Thus, I strongly encourage association club that does not have a licensed copy of the software to purchase one. Please reply back to me as soon as possible if your club wants to participate in the discount purchase. I will coordinate a group purchase for the software.

Shown below are answers to questions that you may have regarding Regatta Master software.

Q1 For clubs that do not have licensed copy of Regatta Master, can they buddy up with another club that do have a licensed copy to submit entries on their behalf to the NWIRA Championship Regatta? For example, Winnipeg would take entries from Kenora and Pinawa and enter them into Winnipeg's Regatta Master and export it as a single file.

A1 The software is not designed to do this. Also, the licensing does not allow it.

Q2 For the clubs that still have the evaluation/trial copy or an old version of RM, can they still use these versions to make their entries and export them to a RM file format? Would the new version accept these imports?

A2 Versions need to be the same (3.0 to 3.0, 3.1 to 3.1). Technically, they could use the evaluation/trial copy to organize and export their entries, they just could not print the reports. However, clubs should see the benefit of the software and support its continued development by licensing their copy. In turn, Regatta Master would be able to provide them technical support, and respond to requests for enhancements or additional features.

Let me know if you have any general questions about Regatta Master.

Thank you.

Charlie Stockwell
NWIRA Secretary