Ian Flounders, of Woodlodge Products, is taking part in the Celtic Challenge Rowing Race in May to raise money for charity, including Greenfingers... 

Ian is a member of Crannog Rowing Club (www.crannogrowingclub.co.uk), a sea rowing club based in Llangrannog, Ceredigion in West Wales. Members of the club row in Celtic long boats, a modern day craft with four rowers and a cox.

The club is mad up of all ages and it meets regularly on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday morning, from March until the end of September – during the winter months it meets on Sunday mornings, weather and tide permitting.

"We are a small but dedicated club of around 18 members," said Ian's partner Rhian Evans. "We race in various regattas hosted by rowing clubs along the  beautiful Welsh coastline, where we enter ladies, mens and mixed teams.

"There are several categories and last year we won our first piece of silverware ever in the Super-vets Mixed Team (qualifying criteria combined age of all four rowers being 200 or over!)

"We decided to undertake the Celtic Challenge, rowing from Ireland to Wales, to challenge ourselves and also to raise money for charity. 

"We have chosen Greenfingers as one of our charities, due to the great work that they do providing magical and inspiring gardens for the children, siblings and families who use hospices around the UK to enjoy. Also several members of our rowing club have employment based around the garden industry.

"Along with Ian, who works with Woodlodge, one member has his own worm compost business and a couple of other members have their own gardening rounds, and all came to the unanimous decision that Greenfingers was a charity they wished to support."

The Celtic Challenge (www.celtic-challenge.org.uk) is the world’s longest true rowing race where teams race from Arklow in County Wicklow, Ireland, to Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast, a distance of about 90 nautical miles.

Celtic and Pembrokeshire longboats take part (and occasionally other similar boats also join in) – each boat is about 24 feet (8m) long and has four fixed seats and one cox. Each team doing the Celtic Challenge consists of 12 people who take it in turns to row, spending the time in between on a support boat. A small inflatable is generally used to transfer people between the support boat and the rowing boat.

"It is indeed a tough challenge, a test of endurance and we are training hard at the moment," added Rhian.

"We have kept training all winter, on the sea when the conditions allow, and on the river at other times. During one October training session on the river, we rowed up river to the glorious view of the sun setting and then rowed back down river, in the moonlight! It was very magical."