Time for a radical rethink?

[Dee]

But do we really have that much more trouble attracting volunteers?

Back in the days of B&W, well early days of colour, we didn't have the timining team nor section judges for div 1s. I'm not suggesting that their prescence is a bad thing, far from it, but as a result we now need more volunteers than we did in the days of yore just to run the same race. This is probably exacerbated by expectations of speed and accuracy. I once calculated that, in order to run Sheppy div 1, I needed as many volunteers as I had paddlers (admittedly this was probably based on gate judges doing a single 1hr judging slot). It's not so much the lack of volunteers, but the sheer number that we need, especially if we are to avoid burn out of key volunteers.

I do believe that technology has resulted in the increased expectatations that has then added to the work load, or perhaps just moved it around! Perhaps though this will gradually start to change going forwards. In true tomorrows world fashion, I can envisage a time when we have smart gates and so no need for gate judges (but the set up might be down to a small number of people).

Going back futher (sepia?), I think that there used to be a lot of university clubs attending slalom and wwr enbloc; many of us weren't there to paddle but to cheer-on and support and as such were probably a source of volunteers. The 18-35 age group is now under-represented in slalom. (Polo & playboating are only a small part of the reason imho). I think this is the age group that we some how need to attract back in.

[JoS]

The first step in attracting 18-35 age group is to treat it like an actual age group and not the leftovers in between the real categories. I said this before on Facebook and was kind of kidding: if there were trophies for age category S, I'd have a mantelpiece full. But then Sheffield Canoe Club actually did have medals for best S, and I won it a couple of times and thought, hey, actually that felt pretty good, I don't normally get anything beyond seeing kids' happy faces when they beat me by 30 clear seconds. And if you look on the drop-down menu on the homepage, there are: J10 league, J12 league, J14 league, J16 league, J18 league, U23 league, ....nothing...., Masters' league.

[JimW]

One problem is that there aren't so many complete beginners in the 18-35 age group, some parents starting with kids but many of them are a bit older.
As it happens there are a few students that have joined our club and seem keen to start racing, a couple have already made it to div 2, I think that this is unusual though?

This means that we probably need to be attracting people that can already paddle whitewater to fill that gap. There are people who might be interested, but typically they are not going to be interested in div 4 or div 3 venues, probably not even div 2 venues, to engage their interest we would need to have races on the bigger venues (HPP, Teesside, LV etc.) but on a course suitable for people who haven't spent much time working on gates, to still have fun.
Such races would need to be open/non-ranking, at least at first, and it may be useful to add other boat sub-classes so that people could race in their normal creek boat or river runner and only be classified with others in similar boats. Probably splitting by length is the easiest way, if you try to define boat types there will be a bunch of boats that fit more than one category for people to argue about.
My thoughts are that if enough people do have a go, a few of them will actually decide to get ranked - I have no idea if it will work never mind what proportion might get ranked.

Is this radical enough?
Given the cost of running events at the premium venues there would be a lot of risk in trying it, so it would need to be well marketed to the target audience, bearing in mind that some of the relevant social media groups seem to be moderated by the kind of people who wouldn't give it a go and would ban/delete advertising about it.

[WindsorCC]

Couple of thoughts on this...

Firstly, I do think the age profile of the sport at the moment makes it difficult for adult beginners. Go do a Div 3 or Div 4 race and it's all juniors, mostly J14, with maybe a couple of adults. Obviously disheartening, and I suspect a little embarrassing for some to be taking it seriously when racing against a load of 'children' (who progress extremely quickly, especially on moving water where they have the advantage of light weight and no fear). I can't think of an answer to this, other than getting more adults involved will then encourage others. Maybe a separate league/prizes for seniors will help, but they will still be on the start-line, and the results, with all of the juniors.

Secondly, there might be a bit of PR piece involved with the whitewater boating community. When paddling at LV I'll often talk to the good whitewater paddlers and ask if they've thought about slalom, but the response most of the time is that they'll just break a slalom boat. Fair comment about those that are out of control, bouncing off blocks and swimming, but I get the same response from some that are actually really good paddlers. Ok, it's going to be a learning curve, but it wouldn't take them too long to adapt.

But, how many adult whitewater paddlers, with jobs, families etc, who are already able to paddle for pleasure, are going to want to get into a competitive discipline (especially with the development of boater cross)? They are going to end up coming into div 2 on water that's no challenge, even if they could go straight in at Div 1 (ignoring the issues with capacity and morale for those who've worked their way up) where the water will be more interesting, they are likely to struggle with more difficult gates until they've built up enough experience.

So, after all that, the only thing I can think of is encouraging adults to start slalom (never seen anything from CE/BC driving this), figuring out why the juniors don't stay on in the sport (cue comments about the focus on prem/team places, which I suspect is a major cause) and maybe letting whitewater paddlers try out slalom boats (who's going to take the risk/cost of broken boats?)

[jjayes]

Its great to see the passion this subject evokes in paddlers who obviously care about the sport. For many of us it has been a major factor in our lives for a long time and even when some paddlers have been away from the sport for many years it is obvious they still care deeply about its future. I think this simple fact is reassuring that the sport will continue in some form or other.

I do question a recurring subject that comes up and that is the assumption that paddlers at the top end of the sport are assumed somehow not to do it for fun. In my experience I am certain this is not the case. In order to be able to sustain the long hours of training, to some major extent it has to be fun, you only have to look at someone like Bolt to see that.

Another assumption that is often made is that if somebody is aspiring to make it to the Olympics or indeed to win a Gold Medal, is if they fail to do so this is seen by some as a total failure. How many people in their careers have achieved all they set out to achieve, I bet not many and that is in a sphere that for most is far less competitive than the Olympic stage. To make it to the top athletes have to set goals and what is often learnt when not making those goals is that its just life. It does not always pan out as we plan, but often great things are learnt and achieved along the way.

Slalom in the UK has gone thorough a lot of changes over the years and especially since the re inclusion in the Olympics since 1992. On the positive side, how many people in the Uk now know what Slalom actually is? In the 70,s you had to explain to virtually everybody you met what it was you did.

As many have stated there was a time when the first boat most people paddled was a slalom boat and it was obvious what you often went on to do. With the advent of plastic boats it changed all that and this is why numbers have declined. It is not that the sport has done something dramatically wrong in any way, so it may be time to stop pointing the blaming those who have been in charge of it or at the Olympic programmes. The fact is the money came into the sport from lottery funding and generally those who play may see Olympic funding as a good thing. Its a bit questionable that they would also be so forthcoming so adults in particular could just go and play with such funding. Every body who paddles at white water courses that were helped to be built with lottery funding has obviously gained from the inclusion of slalom in the Olympics.

For many the Olympics has a magic that can make things happen in so many ways and facilities for all is a great one. For somebody to have a dream of some day racing at a games is magic because that dream will infect the enthusiasm of so many who come in touch with that dream, right down from their first instructor to the nation that will cheer them on win or loose.

If anybody fancies a go at getting a Olympic Medal, let me know? I may be able to help you, its really not that hard..

[davebrads]

Although Jim makes a lot of sense in his post above I must take exception to the 5th paragraph. Slalom has had a lot of money pumped into it from lottery funding but it has been spent on focusing on the elite when it could have been better spent on increasing participation. So we can place the blame on those who decide how the money is spent. A huge opportunity has been missed, let's at least ensure that the four years that Joe Clarke's gold medal has bought us are used more wisely.

ps. We've already lost a year

[jjayes]

I totally agree Dave that there could be more money at grass roots to help increase participation. This could in turn increase overall performance of the nation if managed well and this could be the only justification I could see for such performance funding going into this. Personally I think a increase in numbers at the base of the sport would lead to better results at the top.

As I said before the decrease in numbers participating is down to the introduction of plastic boats that replaced slalom boats, I can see no link that this downturn is related to the introduction of performance funding, indeed I do wonder where the sport would be at now if performance funding had not been given to slalom 20 years ago.

A lot has already been done since the start of the World Class Programs to increase the number of athletes on funded programs and this now extend to quite a wide spectrum. The problem is the funding is not bottomless and at some point decisions have to obviously be made as to where this money is best spent to produce the best athletes.

At this moment in the UK there are more professionally coached and funded athletes than ever before and this funding is entirely due to the performance of the top British athletes, it would be entirely counter productive, even if could be done, to take support from the top athletes at the expense of their performance to spread it more widely, as any lack or decrease in results would lead to less funding overall.

I am absolutely certain that for every international medalist that comes through there were others that could have made it as well given similar opportunities, unfortunately this will always be the case. One problem is that any initial funding that comes on at junior level is often related to the athletes performance at a specific chronological age. To a certain event those athletes that could have developed later sometimes miss out on support and the effect of that lack of support can be hard to reverse later on.

To a certain extent I think good junior competition results are biased to the early developers. Often this early performance is gained through early strength and endurance development and some times at the expense of good technique. This early progression starts to even out in a athletes late teens to early twenties and those with the superior technique often then coming out on top.

I think a late physical developer who has great technique (because they have to at junior level to compete well) has a greater chance become the better senior athlete.

One final point, a lot is made about the need for athletes to be well funded, but its probably good to remember the the GB team was not so bad prior to 1997 when there was little or no outside assistance given to even our top athletes. Those athletes still found ways to train, medal and win at World level to a similar standard to what they do now. A little hunger is a great motivator to help you chase and catch your prey! For those ambitious athletes who are not on funding, focus on training and the rest will follow if you use the assets you do have.

[pebrey]

From a personal point of view, the BCU need to get to grips with the crazy age limits on getting in a boat these days. Even their own much publicised come and try it sessions over the summer - the minimum age was 8 for some sessions, but most were 12+. That's simply crazy - most kids will be well into alternative sports by the time they are 12, not trying something for the first time. If you've missed the intake, you've also missed a good chunk of the talent pool.
I've tried & tried to get mine two in the water in s controlled environment, but there's nothing. No clubs will allow it (good ole insurance). In the end I have to take them on my own, which I'm happy to do, but I'd be a lot happier if there were other bodies around too. No point talking about what discipline they could get into before they are allowed to step into a boat...

[Jeff]

the minimum age was 8 for some sessions

I was under the impression that the age of 8 is a rough guideline, certainly my club has (Family) members aged 6. We take people on their abilities, not just age.

[WindsorCC]

I imagine the age limit for clubs are children who aren't accompanied on the water. We have children out in single boats from about 7-8 but parents have to be on the water with them, so usually we get the parent trained up first so they are able to then take their children out safely.

Our limit is actually 14 for children to be on the water without their parent/guardian on the water with them, but the parent still needs to be a paddling member of the club.

Regarding the funding discussion, I used to help with the GB junior team back in the Pat Stebings days, when all the coaches and staff were volunteers and funding was really limited, but we still had good results with medals most year from the likes of Helen (then) Reeves, Laura Blakeman, Etienne, Fiona, David Florence etc (recognise any of those names?).

That's not to say that nowadays you'd get the same results from volunteer coaches, some weekend training camps at HPP/Tully/Matlock over the winter and then a couple of weeks away in the summer. There's clearly been a funding arms race across the world over the years, so there's no choice but to continue to set-up and compete every year for more professional coaching and support, more time on better water etc.

As I've mentioned in the future of C2 thread, what's a shame is that international race places aren't being taken up even on an unfunded basis.

[davebrads]

I imagine the age limit for clubs are children who aren't accompanied on the water. We have children out in single boats from about 7-8 but parents have to be on the water with them, so usually we get the parent trained up first so they are able to then take their children out safely

That is sad. I have coached children as young as 8 whose parents never had any intention of getting in a boat. Some of these kids have grown up loving our wonderful sport and are now passing on their experience to a new generation. We are not operating in a particularly dangerous environment, we should be able to coach children. I have never seen any guidance that prevents us from coaching children, it sounds as if some clubs are making their own rules up out of fear of recriminations.

[WindsorCC]

Sorry Dave, getting a bit off topic but I should clarify... For coached courses we'll take under 14s without their parents being on the water (although they do still need to join as we're conscious that when they have completed their course, they need someone to be able to take them out paddling). It's just unsupervised where we don't let them on the water alone under 14.

[frognrose]

I am a grandmother who is bringing up my grandson, he started paddling at 10 and loves it, I do not paddle but I am always there at the side of the river or canal or pool. If there had been a rule that the parent had to paddle as well then my grandson, who was 14 this summer, would not have made it to Div 1. Clubs need to support those kids who want to paddle even if parents or guardians don't want to.