Media mistakes Mosman Rowers as recipient of Sports Grant

There has been considerable publicity and confusion surrounding the $500,000 grant made to the Mosman Rowing Club (the sporting rowing club at Spit West) by Minister Bridget McKenzie in the lead up to last year’s Federal election. Mosman Rowing Club is a separate entity to Mosman Rowers, and we have not received any grant monies from the scheme highlighted in recent media coverage.

Specifically, on Saturday, 18th January, the Australian Financial Review mistakenly published a picture of our Mosman Rowers Clubhouse at Mosman Bay in an article in print. Other media outlets and persons online appear to have also made or compounded the same error.  

Because our Club, Mosman Rowers, is so well known, we have been inundated with enquiries from people as to how fortunate we were to have received such a grant, when in fact we received nothing. This is even more problematic given the many appeals we had to make to members and the local community to help us get our club out of administration in 2018.  Those appeals were essential and no grant money whatsoever was available to us to help keep the club alive when we needed it most.  

The implications for the Club are also serious as we presently have four applications for a variety of grants to support the Club where needed, for instance for upgrades to accessible toilets.

In addition, our Members Annual Fees are due on 1 April 2020 and it’s vital that we have a strong renewal season for the future of our community-based club.  

The Rowers Board has been active in endeavouring to have the AFR publish a correction which was published on Friday . We have also posted a statement online and made comment on radio, and we will continue to do all we can to remove confusion and/or concern about this.  

Thank you for your understanding and support. 

Let us know if you have any queries and, as always, we welcome your feedback.    

Kind regards

Kathrina Doran

President 

Mosman Rowers Limited