Club Chairman: William Saunders
William Saunders was appointed Club Chairman in April 2009.
William writes, “My first contact with Thames was in the early 1970s when my college crew used to come down to the Club to be coached by Freddie Page before Trinity Term. Although based in Oxford, we still managed to compete in Putney Town Regatta and ithe Head of the River. I subsequently lost touch with the Club for 20 years until the late 1990s when Wilf Stephenson suggested that in the interests of fitness I join the Vets and Casuals (then run by John Stephenson). Though it is debatable that it has had the slightest effect on my fitness, I have happily remained with that group ever since, and have rowed with them with success at events ranging from the Head of the Charles to Richmond Amateur Regatta (still my favourite!).
“Early in 2001, I began to think that the Club needed to do something about its training facilities. I was advised that if one wanted to get anything done at the Club, you must do it yourself. So I got talking to John Robson, Pauline Rayner and others and eventually we started to organise fund-raising and planning for a new building that in due course became known as the Burrough Building. After an immense amount of work on everyone’s part, that was completed in the Spring of 2005. I swore never to do anything like it again, but somehow found myself on the Committee assisting in the role of Deputy Chairman in 2006. Despite my best intentions, we are now planning a further refurbishment of the old clubhouse for completion in 2011.”
