The most important year in Regatta history

The St. John’s Regatta of 1936 marked the most important year in Regatta history because it marked the beginning of the modern day era.

In the days prior to 1935, the decision as to whether a Regatta would be held or not rested in the hands of privatelyowned boat clubs. The Regatta Committee of the day was required to make all the arrangements for the event. Yet the reality was that after making all the arrangements for the first Wednesday in August, the boat clubs, in the last minutes, could lock up their boat houses and stop the races from going ahead.

In addition to owning the boat houses and sponsoring crews, each club raised its own money to purchase the boats and finance the crews.

The St. John’s Regatta had reached such a low in the mid 1930s that it was in genuine danger of disappearing from the life of St. John’s. Its organizational structure was just not working, and when combined with the depression of the ’30s, its days were numbered.

Few people felt the Regatta would survive. The Regatta Committee had the burden of making all the arrangements for Regatta Day without having control over the boat clubs. There were frequent conflicts between the boat owners and the committee.

Under the pre-1936 structure, the Committee depended entirely on the collections it solicited from city businesses and the general public. All costs involved in running the Regatta that were not the responsibility of the boat clubs were bore by the Committee.

Things needed to change for the Regatta to survive.

The first step towards reorganization involved establishing the committee on a firm basis. Previous to 1936, the committee was elected annually at a public meeting. It had no constitution, no continuity and most important was that committee members individually could be held libel for any debts they could not pay.

Jim Clancy, who recorded much of the history for that period, noted, “While it was unlikely, there was always the possibility that a public meeting could elect an entirely new committee, at any annual meeting and that new committee, though consisting of reputable citizens, might have no experience or knowledge of what was required in order to successfully conduct a Regatta. It must be obvious to all that under such conditions any financial undertakings for reorganization were doomed to failure from the start. No person would be prepared to do business with an organization that might be here and gone tomorrow.”

The needed re-organization of the structure began with the drafting of a constitution and registering the committee as a limited liability company under the Provident Societies Act.

This constitution provided for the first committee to be named by the Mayor of St. John’s and thereafter the number of members was to be limited and new members were to be admitted, providing they complied with certain set requirements.

The constitution also provided for financial responsibility and generally set up the committee on a sound business-like basis.

The next move saw the committee purchase all the boats and boathouses from the clubs and with that they also accepted responsibility for the costs of their operations.

The necessary finances had to be borrowed and bank notes were backed by a number of members of the committee.