Ah, January. Ice on the water, snow in the air, and rowers having retreated indoors to commune with their ergs, coaches hovering nearby checking watches. For many USRowing officials, the winter months are spent out of the weather, thinking about the upcoming season, helping to get spring events organized, planning schedules and travel, and learning something new -- which is where clinics come in.

The dictionary defines “clinic” as a conference or short course on a particular topic or subject. Clinics represent a key component of the initial and continuing education for USRowing referees. Each candidate referee must attend an introductory clinic on the Rules of Rowing before taking the examination to become an assistant referee. Once licensed, every referee must attend a clinic annually to retain his or her license.

Each year, there is an annual clinic “theme” established by the referee commission, covering four major sections of the Rules of Rowing on a rotating basis. The 2006 theme is “The Start.” Other themes include “Body of the Race,” “The Finish,” and “Protests and the Jury.” Although a presentation on that year’s theme is a feature of most clinics, clinics vary in length from a few hours to all day. In some regions, they’ve gotten ambitious enough to have retreats consuming most of a weekend.

What can these people possibly find to talk about for so much time, you might well ask? It’s true that over time we end up going over the same topics. But, our clinicians -- experienced referees who have undertaken additional training and development responsibilities -- have engaged in inventive ways to keep the old material fresh and relevant to our changing sport.

This brings us to the point of this article. One of the ways we’ve found to both keep our subject matter engaging, and to effectively learn from our experiences on the water, is to have non-referee participants attend and actively participate in the clinics. New faces bring different perspectives and effective learning results from examining these differences both critically and constructively.

In short, if you’re a coach, a cox, a rower, an LOC member, a parent, or just about anyone who’s involved in rowing who’s not a referee, then please think about “coming to the party” and attending a referee clinic. We’re pretty sure that you will learn something new that will help both you and the referee corps.

Like what, you might well ask? Well, most clinics focus to a great extent on some aspect of the Rules of Rowing. Referees are continually amazed that others don’t delve into the mysteries of the “Little White Book” as deeply as they do, so there’s an opportunity to learn something about the rule book that you didn’t know before: what it covers, why it’s there, how referees are likely to interpret it. In turn, referees -- many of whom may be newly-licensed and/or who have never rowed themselves -- may learn what advice coaches give to their crews and what’s important to keep in mind from a coach/team perspective. That may help with the interpretation of the sometimes, shall we say, inscrutable (is that polite enough?) behavior of some crews. (“No sir, I don’t know why; coach told me to raise my hand if we didn’t win...”).

Apart from the frank and fruitful exchange of views, clinic sessions also may provide information and skills that are broadly helpful, such as where and why referee launches will be positioned following a race, or first aid/CPR. And of course, we all have war stories that can be both instructive and very entertaining.

“OK,” you say. “I’m convinced, sounds like a good time, I’m there. But….where and when?” The USRowing web site contains a list of planned clinics, with points of contact, but this list is never exhaustive. Other sources of information on clinics are the six regional representatives on the referee commission, whose contact information also is listed on the Web site. Finally, individual referees associated with your club or team may be good sources of information. Try them all and ask if you can come to the party. In some rare instances and for some clinics, there may be particular reasons to restrict participation to licensed officials; but nine times out of 10, I predict your involvement will be both enthusiastically welcomed and greatly appreciated. Give it a try.