Rowing Leadership Program

Camp purchases are fully refundable minus transaction fees until March 1 for summer camps.

• We strongly recommend you purchase travel protection with cancel for any reason coverage.
  • We offer these plans from Travel Insured International during the check-out process for our four and five day camps and during final balance payment for deposit-based multi-week camps.
  • Learn more about travel protection here
    
    
• If you withdraw after the above dates, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever (including, but not limited to: voluntary withdraw, illness or injury, summer school, security concerns or other reasons).
  
  
• If your camper leaves camp after it starts, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to: voluntary withdrawal, illness or injury, dismissal by Sparks (due to discipline, behavior, lack of fitness or motivation, etc.) security concerns, or any other reason. Any costs incurred by Sparks as a result of an early departure are the sole responsibility of the parents.
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• In the unlikely case a camp does not proceed, we'll work to notify you by March 1. You'll be offered a different program or a refund. In some cases, we may extend the 'go, no-go' date. We recommend buying your flight after March 1 or later, if we advise.

We offer discounted prices for "early bird" registrations prior to January 31.

Regarding Scholarships:

Please see this link to our NCAA Compliance webpage.

Maturity, thoughtfulness, and a prior connection with the sport are precursors to success in New Zealand. Experience levels vary, but average around 2.5 years. Erg score and rowing experience matters as pertains to safely participating in university practices and enabling the cohort to train together - however, we look at the whole person on a case by case basis in our admissions process.

We believe you can go fast, obtain great race results, and get recruited without growing much as a person. The program has produced results in the classic sense, including one Harvard coach and a huge number of Division I recruits. However: there are far less demanding ways to put a blue chip on your recruiting resume.  

The goal of this camp is for you to utilize your relationship with the sport to grow. As a result: we seek thoughtful, courageous individuals who desire challenge in their relationship with rowing performance in order to grow as athletes and people.

Sparks maintains the most in depth camp admissions process in rowing. We thoughtfully consider each athlete on a case by case basis.

We are selective in our admissions process for this program - for the good of each athlete, the cohort, and the university team we partner with to provide this experience. The official 2K guideline is sub-7 for males and sub-8 for females.

That said: we encourage you to apply if everything above calls to you. First and foremost, New Zealand requires the desire to grow in your relationship with performance as a rowing athlete. If the program doesn't seem to be a good fit as we go through the application process, we will suggest alternatives in our camp network or refund your deposit.  

Admissions occurs on a rolling basis, and it generally takes 2-3 weeks for a decision after deposit is made if you submit your essay and schedule your video conference promptly.

We welcome your questions either via phone or in the chat box in the right hand corner.

We are the only camp in rowing with a full-time staff that has academic and professional backgrounds in experiential education. We also have a summer operations staff (many are returners that teach during the school year) who buy into the idea of personal growth at camp not just for campers - but for themselves as well.

The result is a culture sincerely committed to the power of rowing as a personally transformative experience built on vulnerability, thoughtfulness, responsibility, and initiative. These qualities along with our values of growth, kaizen, and plus one stroke dictate the culture our camp community forms around. Our focus is on utilizing rowing to create the self-awareness necessary to master one's relationship with performance.

New Zealand is a unique camp in that intense growth occurs as a byproduct of a one of a kind experience in arguably the top rowing culture in the world. It is one of our capstone camps, and alumni have returned to staff Sparks camps all over the world.

First, we can tell there are easier ways to become a blue chip collegiate recruit. Ones that don't require as much growth - so much as just pure, raw speed on the ergometer. You can even do it in your garage!

More seriously: the program has produced a huge number of Division I - III recruits, including athletes at the most selective programs in the United States. Alumni include a Harvard coach. Athletes have even been sent to New Zealand after their initial year in college by coaching staff given the training load and trust in the kiwis to do athlete development right. Collegiate recruiters like New Zealand given the independence, rowing IQ, commitment, and maturity it indicates to come halfway around the world to train at Otago.

However: we see collegiate recruiting as a byproduct of a larger process of growth on the part of each athlete in New Zealand - not a means to an end.

For the majority of the program, Campers lodge in a 19th century Victorian house, located on the main shopping street of Dunedin. They take meals at one the University of Otago's dining halls, University College, and are easily able to make the 2K (there's a little irony ;) )walk to Otago University Rowing Club. They also sleep in rustic lodges the second and last night of the program and utilize a backpackers' in Twizel during the third weekend.

At Sparks camps, we have two staffs: a coaching staff and an operations staff. Our operations staff is responsible for the experiential education and pastoral care at camp. The staff lives amongst the student athletes, and has oversight 24 hours a day. Unhealthy substances and/or behaviors are strictly prohibited. Our ratio is 1:6 for operations staff and 1:6 for coaching staff, making the overall ratio 1:3.

Sparks Leadership programs are smaller with excellent staffing ratios to focus on community and growth. The New Zealand cohort is 12 students.

Beyond core operations and coaching staff (1:3 staff:athlete ratio), the group is also supported by a Dunedin based performance psychologist, nutritionist, physical therapist, and weight trainer who also tend to work with elite athletes at the high performance sport centre based in Dunedin.

This program seeks to maintain a 1:6 operations staff to athlete ratio and a 1:6 coach to athlete ratio. Overall, this makes our staff to athlete ratio 1:3. 2023 staffing has not been decided - however, here are examples of key players:

Malcolm McIntyre coached our New Zealand group for 8 years. He is also a coach at Christ College in Canterbury, which one of the most competitive secondary school programs in New Zealand. He possesses international (national team) coaching experience, but true to kiwi form, is a retired juvenile police officer. He was recently selected to coach the New Zealand Men's Under 23 national team.

Glen Sinclair manages program logstics and has also coached the program.  He has been head coach of Otago University Rowing since 2003 and the Otago high performance squad from 2006 to 2008. He has been president of New Zealand University Rowing since 1999 and manager of New Zealand University teams. He has played a key role in integrating university rowing into the fold of New Zealand rowing, and was elected to the board of Rowing New Zealand in 2010 and frequently travels abroad to represent Otago and New Zealand.

Travel to and from New Zealand is a not a small affair. Sparks provides roundtrip routings to Queenstown from major US hubs for campers who would like to undertake the journey together.

The classic route is direct to Auckland via LAX on Air New Zealand - though Air New Zealand now also flies direct to Auckland from a number of cities in the middle of the US. In Auckland, students clear Kiwi customs then catch a direct domestic flight to Queenstown. The Auckland airport is easily navigable and small compared to many major US hubs.

The journey itself is part of the camp experience. This camp invites athletes to take a personal journey with the sport at its center. The time and maturity required in getting to and from New Zealand enforces a sense of distance and accomplishment in itself. Our Program Director (already on the ground in New Zealand as students depart) tracks student travel into Queenstown, where they are picked up from the airport.

Needless to say: you will fill out a travel form after registration that enables our staff to make sure your camper arrives and departs safely. If you have questions, we're happy to answer them in the box in the lower right side, or you can schedule a call with us.

TWe employ safety and risk management practices from the adventure education industry, where some risk is inherent but must be quantified insofar as educational value. These practices are initially employed in program design and we work hard to train operations staff to seek to maintain an awareness of specific risks at all times. No outdoors programming can guarantee safety, however professional management of risk is key to the art of providing consistently excellent experiential education programming.

Please also see our essential eligibility criteria here.  

Certainly - we completely understand your need to connect about this commitment!

We just ask you schedule a call with us (click here) given we're a very small office.

Camp forms are issued at least six weeks prior to camp on our site via your dashboard.