"Christmas came early!" exclaimed one of my friends on Facebook yesterday, sharing a post from Henley Royal Regatta (HRR) announcing the introduction of three new women's events to their programme. From next year there will be an equal number of men's and women's events at the top or 'open' level of the regatta, with both genders able to compete in eights, quads, fours, pairs, doubles and singles.

The reaction among my friends was almost universally celebratory, as was the reaction on Twitter, although some have expressed some disappointment that all the new events are at open level. This allows any female rower to enter, no matter what their achievements, which means that the ordinary club rower will still find it hard to qualify.

HRR also announced the election of four new Stewards - the people who run the regatta. In continued gender equality two (Miriam Luke and Lady Elizabeth Redgrave ) were female, thus increasing by a third the number of female Stewards from six to eight. Miriam Luke is also chairman of HWR, so that may help the integration between the two regattas.

The developments in tandem feel like a major step forward and go some way towards addressing some of the issues I wrote about in June after Henley Women's Regatta (HWR). But not all of them.

As a few people have noted, HWR exists already and provides a lot of events for women. Adding events to HRR arguably gives some women a chance to race at Henley twice in a fortnight, although practically I expect that HRR will attract a number of international and under-23 international crews, and there will remain only a small overlap between the best of the HWR elite entries and those who qualify for HRR.

But maybe there needs to be a greater overhaul of both regattas. HRR attracts vast numbers of entries and a lot of men's crews don't get to race because they're simply too slow. The gap between the fastest and slowest non-qualifying crews in the Thames Challenge Cup (club eights) this year was 50 seconds; there's a huge breadth of quality there.

So here's my thought, which I know others share: if HRR also introduced intermediate events for women, perhaps fours and doubles, and reduced the number of possible entries in its club events, and HWR scrapped its elite category entirely, there could be scope to introduce 'club' (or in HWR parlance, intermediate) events for men at HWR. There'd still be pressure on numbers, I hope, to make both regattas aspirational. But HRR would be the aspiration for the top end of clubs and HWR,or 'Henley Intermediate Regatta' the aspiration for the lower end.

In many ways arguing this is difficult. For over 25 years some of the UK's leading female rowers have fought to make HWR popular, successful and aspirational and there's no doubt they've managed all of that. A reduction in the top events at HWR could detract from that work. However it remains undeniable that HRR is the big regatta, the culmination of the season, and I strongly believe more women should be able to compete there and race the full distance. The Stewards' decisions have moved us a good step in that direction, but in Henley terms, I don't think we've got much beyond the top of Temple Island yet in terms of the distance taken towards proper equality in our sport.