Benefactors

Cambridge University Boat Club is honoured to receive support from a generous and growing community of benefactors. Our gratitude is beyond measure and we are delighted to give a high level of recognition to our supporters. 

Each year we are privileged to provide a Donor Impact Report to our supporters, sharing the many things they make possible. It is also a chance to share a bit more about the Club’s structure, our sources of revenue, how we allocate resources and the ways we work with key partners such as the University. After reading this report, if you have any questions or would like to get involved, please do get in touch.

We are also extremely grateful to those donors who supported the building of the Ely Boathouse. Thanks to our community, more than 7 years on from the opening of the boathouse in Ely, our athletes have had incredible success on the water. The ‘7 Years On: Report to Ely Boathouse Donors’ shares what donors made possible.

We would like to recognise the incredible generosity of the group of founding donors of The CUBC Rowing Charitable Fund, an endowment fund created to hold major philanthropic gifts to the Club in perpetuity. Many thanks to Stephen Peel, David Cassidy, Jim Garman, Siobhan & Adrian Cassidy, Matt Brittin, Sam Brooks and Malcolm Baker. We are also deeply grateful to those who have committed to the endowment anonymously.

Stephen Peel

Stephen Peel started rowing at King’s School Chester, before coming up in 1984 to Downing College, where he is now a Wilkins Fellow. He rowed in the Blue Boat for all 3 years of his undergraduate degree, winning in 1986, and serving as CUBC President in 1987.  He rowed in the GB national team from 1985 to 1988, competing in three world championships, the Commonwealth Games (winning a silver medal) and the 1988 Olympics in Seoul (finishing 4^th in the coxless 4s).  He also won the Grand and Stewards Cups at Henley.  He now competes in masters rowing with Crabtree BC. He has also founded the Infinity Boat Club in Teesside, which aims to deliver a competitive rowing program to less privileged school children in the area.

Stephen says:

“Experiences and learnings from rowing at school and university have been instrumental to almost everything I have done since.  I consider the sport to be unique in the life skills it can build in young people. It is important to me that the scholar-athlete tradition associated with the Boat Race and Cambridge rowing continues for generations to come. I hope many others who have enjoyed and benefited from the experience of rowing with the CUBC will share this ambition and support the club financially.”

Malcolm Baker

Malcolm, a professor at Harvard Business School, came to Cambridge, St. Edmund’s College, in 1992 after four years of rowing at Brown University and three summers with the US National Team, culminating in the 1992 Olympic Games, where he competed in the 8+. He was in the victorious Men’s Blue Boat in 1993 – the first year all 6 crews swept Oxford and a photo was taken outside the Hawks’ Club to commemorate the occasion. Malcolm continues to row with friends and can sometimes be found making his way down the Charles in a single with his wife, Christina, kids, or friends. 

Malcolm says:

“Rowing and Cambridge are never far from the centre of my life. I shared my Boat Race year with Christina in Cambridge, where she was a psychology researcher, and we married two years later. As our children have taken up the sport in recent years, we have become involved with Community Rowing in Boston, whose mission is to increase access to rowing in Boston and elsewhere, so that people from all backgrounds have the opportunity to benefit from the transformative experience of rowing.

I hope that a new generation of Cambridge rowers has the same opportunity that I had thirty years ago, to find the best in themselves and to bring out the best in their teammates and their competition, in a way that propels another group of scholar-athletes from Camrbidge and Oxford to make a positive difference in the world.”

David Cassidy

David Cassidy came up to Trinity Hall to read Medicine between 1995 and 2000, having learnt to row at Shrewsbury School. He was a winning Blue in 1997 and rowed in the Goldie in 1996 and 1998. In 1998, he led a successful Boat Race campaign when he was CUBC President.  David won further Blues in Golf in 1999 and 2000 and was President of the Hawks’ Club from 1999 to 2000.

David is currently the Chief Executive of Proman, a global leader in natural gas derived products and the energy transition. 

David says:

“Through my time at Cambridge, and in particular CUBC, I learnt about the importance of personal sacrifice and resilience under pressure in order to achieve collective goals within any team or organisation. It is the recognition of the values learnt and indeed gifted to me by CUBC that I believe should be preserved and passed onto future generations. That gift was granted by the more than 1000 people who helped create the values and ethos of CUBC before I joined the Club and, therefore, it is imperative to give back to the Club.”

For that reason, David believes donations to CUBC are essential and it is one of his priorities to maintain and indeed raise the level of high-performance rowing at Cambridge for future generations.

The following members of our community have partnered with CUBC, financially supporting the Club’s vision. Their gifts are improving the experiences of current and future student-athletes on and off the water, ensuring that every crew is as well-prepared as possible to beat Oxford. The donors listed below made a gift or gifts to CUBC between 1 August 2022 – 31 July 2023, in line with the academic and the Club’s fiscal year. We deeply appreciate their involvement. We would also like to extend thanks again to donors of previous fundraising campaigns.

Legacy gifts and commitments

A legacy gift to CUBC is a gift to tomorrow – one that ensures future student-athletes will benefit from the transformational experience of rowing for Cambridge. The following individuals have generously included CUBC in plans for their estate.

Mr Stephen Berger (Men’s Blue Boat 1983, 1984)
Mr Charlie Green (Goldie 1986)
Mr Donald Legget (Men’s Blue Boat 1963, 1964)
Mr David Tait (Men’s Lightweight 1998, 1999)
Ms Sarah Winckless MBE OLY (Women’s Blue Boat 1995,1996, 1997)
The estate of Lindsay Henderson
We would also like to thank those wishing to remain anonymous.

Team Hosts, Volunteers and Gifts In Kind

To the members of our community who host student-athletes in their homes, we want to thank you for your generosity. The success of our crews would be impossible without you, and your ongoing hospitality is sincerely appreciated.

We would also like to thank those donors who supported the Club with gifts in kind of goods and services, particularly our volunteer coaches.

Adrian Cassidy
James Cracknell
Matthew Griffiths
Mike Taylor

“It would be impossible to train the way we do without the generous support of our donors. From funded transport to and from training, to amazing facilities, funded kit and fantastic volunteer coaches as well as our wonderful London hosts, our CUBC experience truly would not be the same without them.”
Carys-Ann Earl Blondie 2023 | Caius