Does your canoe club have a junior section?
I am interested to know which canoe clubs are encouraging the development of junior paddlers so that we can provide some encouragement to these clubs to consider slalom if they aren't doing so already.
Those that already have an interest in slalom might also benefit from some additional support to encourage them to make the next step and provide some structure to their coaching sessions.
P.S. Can you please post a reply when you vote so that I know which clubs/individuals have responded to the poll?
Those that already have an interest in slalom might also benefit from some additional support to encourage them to make the next step and provide some structure to their coaching sessions.
P.S. Can you please post a reply when you vote so that I know which clubs/individuals have responded to the poll?
The above is the personal opinion of Mark Shaw and does not reflect the views of either the BCU or England Slalom Committees.
Difficult to cast a meaningful "vote" here. Yes we have lots of juniors, but they are mostly at the top end and we don't really do much for newcomers to kayaking as far as I can see (someone yell if they see it differently). To some extent I think we rely on a couple of other clubs to get the juniors started and then pick them up after they become self-sufficient paddlers. This is of course not necessarily a bad thing as not all clubs can doing everything.
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!
Baldock and District is an adults only club with a few juniors (who are the offspring of regular members). The offspring are getting into slalom.
I guess this is why the powers that be seem to show little interest in the club as efforts seem to be geared towards developing juniors rather than helping adults too (e.g. junior only canadian training sessions). I can see why to some extent but adults are needed in the sport and should get some encourragement too.
I guess this is why the powers that be seem to show little interest in the club as efforts seem to be geared towards developing juniors rather than helping adults too (e.g. junior only canadian training sessions). I can see why to some extent but adults are needed in the sport and should get some encourragement too.
We encourage the development of junior paddlers. This includes slalom training and participation in slalom competitions.
During our weekly summer club evenings we regularly have 50 paddlers on the water, mainly juniors, split into PaddlePower, Polo, General, and Slalom sessions. The most popular session is probably (the old-style) PaddlePower broadly 8 to 10 year olds. The challenge (and this has happened to some extent this year) is to instill in the paddlers (and maybe more importantly their parents) that they can’t stay in that group for ever, and that the natural progression is to the slalom group.
But I can have anything up to 14 in the slalom group. We have 10 flat water gates. We practice skills and have team races as well as paddling through the gates. Sometimes I have the luxury of someone helping me. Although I have done a L1 slalom course, which was great, it qualified me to assist someone else. It didn’t equip me to have an endless supply of ideas to organize and structure a training session for 14 juniors. Any suggestions or help in this area would be most welcome!
Our main challenges in getting juniors into competition, or at least other than local races, is firstly the distance to travel from Frome to other races, and secondly enough proper boats to progress.
John Kent
Frome Canoe Club
During our weekly summer club evenings we regularly have 50 paddlers on the water, mainly juniors, split into PaddlePower, Polo, General, and Slalom sessions. The most popular session is probably (the old-style) PaddlePower broadly 8 to 10 year olds. The challenge (and this has happened to some extent this year) is to instill in the paddlers (and maybe more importantly their parents) that they can’t stay in that group for ever, and that the natural progression is to the slalom group.
But I can have anything up to 14 in the slalom group. We have 10 flat water gates. We practice skills and have team races as well as paddling through the gates. Sometimes I have the luxury of someone helping me. Although I have done a L1 slalom course, which was great, it qualified me to assist someone else. It didn’t equip me to have an endless supply of ideas to organize and structure a training session for 14 juniors. Any suggestions or help in this area would be most welcome!
Our main challenges in getting juniors into competition, or at least other than local races, is firstly the distance to travel from Frome to other races, and secondly enough proper boats to progress.
John Kent
Frome Canoe Club
John Kent
Just to add to Munchkins post. Baldock and District was set up as an Adult only Club by a bunch of like minded friends who wanted to go away paddling. Seeing as the majority of trips usually ended up with an evening in the pub the direction was more adult orientated. Over the years the club has developed and members have stated families that they are keen to enjoy the sport. We have allowed a family membership for youngsters, provided a responsible adult attends with them. We didn't want to become a babysitting service and with the increased awareness, CRB checks etc we want to ensure that everyone who attends is safe and awre of their responsibilities. This has worked well for us and we now have a significant number of youngster who not only enjoy paddling, but are fast becoming keen slalom paddlers.
Bri
Bri
VKC has a large junior section. Furthermore, the Club has recently made links with 3 local schools and I along with other volunteer coaches and BCU coach Helen reeves have attended weekday sessions with groups of up to 20 at a time to undertake an introduction to slalom. We have also met in a school indoor pool and coached there. (Helen and I even demo-ed a short pool slalom and although we both claim not to have been racing I think we were and she just pipped me! grrr!) Sadly Helen has now left the BCU and we are waiting to see if the BCU will replace her as we have paddlers who want to race! The schools link has been set up to get a regular flow of paddlers in at the bottom to give the Club more strength in all divisions over time. And obviously to continue to produce Premsters as VKC has always managed to do ![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Peter Parker - 12 gate courses are plenty long enough!
Hi Peter,
I emailed Andy Goodsell following the news about Helen Reeves resigning her position as club coach. He is currently looking at running some short term projects in the areas/clubs which Helen covered and then fully assessing the overall situation at the end of September.
Now is probably a good time to get together with the other clubs that Helen had benefited so much to make your views known as to the impact the coaching was having.
I am very keen to see the club coach scheme for slalom extended across all the English regions and so will be pushing to make certain that a replacement is found for Helen (although she will be a tough act to follow).
Mark
I emailed Andy Goodsell following the news about Helen Reeves resigning her position as club coach. He is currently looking at running some short term projects in the areas/clubs which Helen covered and then fully assessing the overall situation at the end of September.
Now is probably a good time to get together with the other clubs that Helen had benefited so much to make your views known as to the impact the coaching was having.
I am very keen to see the club coach scheme for slalom extended across all the English regions and so will be pushing to make certain that a replacement is found for Helen (although she will be a tough act to follow).
Mark
The above is the personal opinion of Mark Shaw and does not reflect the views of either the BCU or England Slalom Committees.
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The problem with this would be that the BCU would have to put up the money, whereas at present the scheme is funded by County Sports Partnerships, and therefore the Coaches - across all sports, this is not just a Canoeing initiative - are only meant to work with Clubs within the areas of the CSP's which have nominated Canoeing - thus Nottinghamshire but not Derbyshire, South and West Yorkshire but not North or East Yorkshire.
It is also worth mentioning that the aim of the Club and Coach Scheme nationally are quite specific - not just to provide coaching, but to work with specified Clubs in order to strengthen their coaching structures in the long term. So at the end of the three years NGB's will be expected to be able to list the Clubs whose coaching structures have been thus strengthened. The danger of just sending in coaches is that doing so could hypothetically weaken clubs if their existing volunteer coaches are simply sidelined.
How do I know that? Well, as part of my day-job I was part of the CSP operation to vet National Governing Body bids for Nottinghamshire .....
It is also worth mentioning that the aim of the Club and Coach Scheme nationally are quite specific - not just to provide coaching, but to work with specified Clubs in order to strengthen their coaching structures in the long term. So at the end of the three years NGB's will be expected to be able to list the Clubs whose coaching structures have been thus strengthened. The danger of just sending in coaches is that doing so could hypothetically weaken clubs if their existing volunteer coaches are simply sidelined.
How do I know that? Well, as part of my day-job I was part of the CSP operation to vet National Governing Body bids for Nottinghamshire .....
It would be nice for sessions to be non-club specific as there are a lot of people who would benefit from the sessions but belong to other clubs that have not been targeted. St Alban's kindly opened their sessions to others but unfortunately Helen only made about 3 of them before moving on. If the money to pay for the coach is coming out of a central funds this seems a fair way of doing things.Mark Shaw wrote:I emailed Andy Goodsell following the news about Helen Reeves resigning her position as club coach. He is currently looking at running some short term projects in the areas/clubs which Helen covered and then fully assessing the overall situation at the end of September.
I am very keen to see the club coach scheme for slalom extended across all the English regions and so will be pushing to make certain that a replacement is found for Helen (although she will be a tough act to follow).
[quote] St Alban's kindly opened their sessions to others but unfortunately Helen only made about 3 of them before moving on.
We still hold the training sessions on a Wednesday evening between 7pm and about 8:30 pm, so if you would like to try it then you are welcome to come along (and its free). pm me if interested. Now that the evenings are drawing in and winter is on its way i am sure the numbers may dwindle.
We still hold the training sessions on a Wednesday evening between 7pm and about 8:30 pm, so if you would like to try it then you are welcome to come along (and its free). pm me if interested. Now that the evenings are drawing in and winter is on its way i am sure the numbers may dwindle.