About the club

This club is based in a small town in the middle of Sweden. Over the years, the number of members has gone up and down. When we arrived, the club was in a really tough place. It didn’t have much structure, and there were very few people showing up to train. There were no coaches, no real training program, and the club was nearly forgotten in the community. People didn’t even know it was still running.

Problem

The biggest issue was that the club only had between 4 and 10 people training each week. They were trying to keep things alive, but it was clear that they had no system to grow. There was no one leading practices, no plan to attract new members, and no energy in the group. It felt like a club that was just slowly fading away.

Solution

We started by looking at the local university in town. We found that some of the students there had rowing experience. We talked to them, trained them, and turned them into beginner coaches. This gave the club a quick boost in leadership. Then we created a clear, simple rowing course and advertised it around town. We used posters, videos, social media and word of mouth to reach as many people as possible. The goal was to show that rowing could be fun, social, and something completely new to try.

Result

60 people signed up for the course. Out of those 60, half of them decided to continue after the course ended. That gave the club 30 new rowers, many of whom became full members and got involved in the daily life of the club. The student coaches also stayed and kept coaching, which gave the club a stable group of leaders for the first time in years. It was a huge shift. The club went from nearly disappearing to having energy, structure, and real momentum again.