Dear Paddler
Well the warm weather has arrived and we have been delighted to see so many of you out on the water recently.
We have had some real successes over the last few weeks.
Liam Brown our Slalom Trustee and his team have put on taster slalom sessions for 130 young people from local schools, many of whom have come back and undertaken a 4 week trial session, and some have come along to the Saturday morning slalom sessions.
As a result our membership is now at the highest number ever with over 370 club members.
From broadening our reach into the local community we have also had success at national level with the following club paddlers being selected for GB Junior and Under 23 GB Squads.
Congratulations to: Louise Fernie – Junior C1 Women, Macy Kang and Louise Fernie – Junior K1 Women, Edward McDonald and Gabriel Keen – Junior C1 Men. Nikita Setchell – U23 Women K1, Ben Haylett – U23 K1 Men
We have also seen success with three club members successfully completing their paddlesport Instructor qualifications: Congratulations to: Angela Rafferty, Luke Peacock and Tim Webster.
Thanks go to Woody Snapper and Beth Kirby who organised the first of our very successful litter picks along the Trent with considerable rubbish being removed. Look out on the website for more dates for the litter picks.
We also celebrated getting back into the outdoors with a hugely successful club trip to the River Wye last weekend. 30 paddlers, and families, gathered (socially distanced) down on the River Wye and enjoyed two fantastic days of paddling. With Stand up Paddleboards, Open canoes, WW Kayaks and touring kayaks all journeying together we enjoyed the beautiful weather, scenery and fantastic company.
We are receiving an unprecedented number of enquiries about paddling and joining the club so thanks to Ian Law for sorting all of these out and offering such good advice to all our potential new members.
Many thanks also to the coaches who are giving up their time each week to run so many sessions, and to support our new and existing paddlers.
As we are now operating at full capacity could we please ask anyone who has kit out on loan to return it as soon as possible as we need every boat and buoyancy aid that we have in the club for our sessions.
Once we can restart Thursday night sessions then we will let you know. At present the centre is still closing quite early making evening sessions very difficult.
We look forward to seeing you on the water shortly.
Kind regards Dawn
Dawn Scott Chair of Trustees chair@hppcc.co.uk <mailto:chair@hppcc.co.uk>
