Oriel College Boat Club Endowment Celebration
As part of Oriel’s 700th Anniversary, Oriel College Boat Club celebrated the Men’s 1st VIII regaining the Headship of the River, 40 years of women’s rowing, the Channel Crossing by 65 Orielenses, and the launch of the OCBC Endowment Appeal to secure permanent coaching and free access to rowing for every Oriel student.
To mark these achievements, former Oriel rowers and supporters are invited to join a special celebratory event.
3:30 pm Talks from an inspiring group of speakers, each bringing a different perspective on the wider world of rowing.
5:00pm Time to reconnect with friends and former crews, an ergometer competition, tours of 1:1 and 1:2, drinks in the bar and a raffle with the chance to win some superb prizes.
6:00pm Dinner in Hall
Dress code: Rowing blazers encouraged, lounge suits or equivalent
Our Speakers
Join the first and the current women’s Captains – Nell Butler (1985) and Emma Kate Price (2025) – to celebrate 40 years of women’s rowing at Oriel – “The Tortettes”!
A bodice-ripping history of Women’s Rowing at Oriel, including diary readings, bizarre anecdotes and genuine stats. How long does it take to turn feckless female undergraduates into mighty rowing Amazons? And who helped along the way?
Join Oriel’s first Women’s Captain Nell Butler, speaking alongside the 2026/27 Women’s Captain Emma Kate Price to celebrate forty years of fun, frolics and fanatical OCBC commitment.
Ben Hunt-Davis won Olympic Gold in the GB Men’s Eight at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Success did not come easily. Just two years earlier, his crew was consistently finishing seventh or eighth in the world.
The breakthrough wasn’t greater talent or harder work—it was a change in mindset. The crew aligned behind one simple question: “Will it make the boat go faster?” That question transformed how they trained, made decisions and worked together.
Ben co-authored the bestselling book Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?, which shares the philosophy that has since helped individuals, teams and leaders improve performance around the world.
Oriel rowers will also remember Ben as the coach who guided the Men’s 1st VIII to retain the Headship in 1994.
Will O’Connell (2024) came to Oxford to read for an MBA. He was a member of Oriel College and rowed in the 2025 Men’s Blue Boat, as well as in Summer Eights for Oriel — where a broken rudder cost Oriel the headship.
Having left the sport before Covid, Will returned to find something close to unrecognisable: telemetry systems, dynamic ergometers, splits and heart-rate training zones. Rowing had moved on, reshaped by technology.
Will will take a deep dive into the technical side of rowing training — how boat-mounted sensors and force-curve analysis have changed what a coach can actually see, how physiological testing and zone-based programming have restructured the training week, and how athletes now meet the demands of a sport that asks for endurance and raw power in equal measure.
Whether you rowed for one season or many, this will be a wonderful opportunity to renew old friendships, celebrate our shared history, and help us complete the Endowment Appeal by the end of 2026. To book, please use the form below:
The personal data you provided on this form will be used to fulfil Oriel College’s contractual obligation to you as an event registrant, and to meet our legitimate interests of alumni and supporter engagement, fundraising and stewardship. You can opt out of communications at any time by contacting development.office@oriel.ox.ac.uk. For information on how we treat your information, including your rights, please visit: https://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/privacy-policy/