Our Team

Pete Lowe - Past Chairman

I joined Oxford Poly in 1987 and left in 1993. Looking back through rose tinted glasses, I loved my time- mostly spent trying to fit in studies around rowing! In 1992 I brought in a new coaching team including Richard Spratley. The results speak for themselves!

James Symington and I designed the Poly/Brookes blazer putting us on the blazer map at Henley today. I had many near misses at HRR including a canvass loss to IC in the 1990 Temple Challenge Cup semi final, broken seat in our great crew of ‘92 and hitting the booms in the semi in ‘97! Hence, no HRR win, but I continue to challenge myself even up to the present day. In 1997 I rowed across the Atlantic in the first ever race, completing the crossing in 61 days. I’ve run a couple of London marathons, competed in the Devizes to Westminster kayak race and swum the length of Lake Windermere. In 2018 I swam front crawl across the English Channel non-stop solo, non wetsuit, in 13hrs and 52 minutes.

Apart from ridiculous challenges, I have an amazing wife and three kids all still at school who I love to support whenever I can on the sports pitch. Oh, and I run my own commercial property business!

I have been chairman for more than 20 years, but this year (‘22), I decided to step down & hand over the reins. I am pleased to stay involved, support the enthusiasm of the team and encourage new ideas. We are excited about the future of the club and we aim to attract new members and build our contacts to support the vision of growing the Taurus family.

Simon Speirs - Treasurer

I attended Oxford Brookes to study Business Studies from 1987 - 1991 and started rowing in my 2nd year as a novice with Alex Gandon as a coach. I’m now a Senior Director managing the European division at a firm that runs Business Process Outsourcing deals for Accounting activities.

During my time at Brookes we were the best crew ever never to bloody win anything! We did achieve a 156th spot in the HORR with a prevailing wind and nice route. I went onto do nothing after leaving the Poly until I hit 40 when I discovered I could run and have tackled local ParkRuns to ultraMarathons.  I managed to knock out a 2hr 45 Marathon at London 2012 and also became Captain of a local running club for the past 8 years. In 2013, I discovered cycling, so have done a range of multi-stage races in the Alps. Never right at the pointy end of the pack, but decent enough for the amount of training permitted with the job and the 3 kids.

I’ve been involved with the committee Since 1996 as membership secretary and have held the Treasury position since around 2001 (I lose track). Between me and Pete Lowe we’ve probably held every role required at various times - especially in the wilderness years when it seemed just me and him were holding the fort for TBC.  I’ll continue to do the Treasury role for now!

James Symington - Vice Chairman

I rowed at Oxford Poly from 1987 - 1992. Starting as a novice & ending with a Henley semi-final in the Visitors. I can’t really remember what I studied… I had the pleasure of having Richard Spratley as my coach for his first & my final year.

He brought plenty of hard weekends training at Shiplake over the winter & the first ever rowing camp at Wimbleball lake.

I went to row at Imperial for a year in 1993, for a final year of fun, then moved into the hospitality industry in 1994, where I have been working ever since. I am now organising parties and run my own company, The White Label.

I lived, breathed & dreamt rowing whilst at Oxford Brookes, & have masses of amazing memories of the good times I had.

My role within Taurus is to support the chairman and help re-establish this alumni club as a stepping stone for current Brookes athletes. We would like our members to stay connected to Brookes and at the same time get valuable careers advice from alumni in a whole range of industries.

James Forrester - Crew Captain

I studied Real Estate at Brookes from 2013-2017. I learnt to row at City of Oxford Rowing Club then joined the novice programme at Brookes where I progressed onto the senior squad in my second year.

Standout memories of Brookes Rowing centre around character building sessions at Wimbleball lake setting 1500m camp records and being swapped between boats multiple times a session. We would then return to the infamous digs before they were lavishly refurbished as they are now, where we refuelled on premium nutrition of sausage rolls and Exmoor Beast.

After leaving Brookes I even managed a trip down the course in the Ladies Plate at Henley in a beer boat which was quite the week. I then moved to London to begin a career in commercial property, passing my exams to become a Chartered Surveyor.

Tamsin Bryant - Chairman

In 2004 I came to study at the Oxford School of Architecture, and joined Oxford Brookes Boat Club that September. I look back on my time at Brookes with great fondness, not only did I meet my husband on my first 3 bridges run, I also made lifelong friendships, and memories.

To start Brookes wasn’t exactly what I had expected, despite Carla Devlin (nee Ashford) winning the Remenham Challenge Cup in a composite crew the summer before I arrived, by start of the season there were no returning women’s squad members. Brookes hadn’t been able to enter a women’s crew at WEHORR for some years, so we started at 419. In my final year we finished 2nd, one of my biggest achievements at Brookes, poignant that for five years we literally raced our way to the top and it is great to see that since then we haven’t missed a top 5 finish - round of applause to the girls who have raced to secure that starting place for the following years crew!

In 2008 my HRR Remenham Challenge Cup crew had just lost out in the semi-finals to the women’s GB team (I believe it to have been the first time we had qualified a Brookes crew in the event). The Poly Boys invited us to the Taurus BBQ which in those days was hosted out of Pete Lowe’s car parked behind the boat tents. Suspecting my rowing career had come to end and looking for new challenges I took up Pete’s offer to come to a Taurus AGM, and was signed up…although to my surprise I found out this summer that I had never officially been voted in… 

My involvement in Taurus is really my way of giving back to Brookes to ensure that everyone has the same positive experience that I did. Whether that is support on or off the water - we are all part of the Brookes Rowing programme, which in turn makes us Taurus.