Hope you’re all ok and enjoying your paddling. Just a quick update on some latest club news.

Firstly I’d like to say welcome to all the new members that have joined us over the last few months, great to have you on board, please ask any coach or committee member, if you need any help or info about anything at all. HCC membership is now at 135.

As you all must have noticed, it’s been a very busy few months. The lake sessions have been going really well, with plenty of coaching courses and social paddling going on. This season stand up paddle boarding has been really popular, which has been helped by HCC buying 2 new SUPs, so we now have a total of 4 boards.

Away from the lake we have had all sorts of river trips, weekends away and events going on, Including touring, WW, canoeing, sea kayaking, courses etc. HCC hammerheads polo teams are still going strong, with a few tournaments and games planned, training sessions are on a Sunday evening if anyone else would like to get involved.

A big well done to all the members who have achieved qualifications over the last few months, these have included, 1,2,3 and 4 star awards, paddlepower, coaching qualifications, FSRT, first aid, WW safety and rescue.

Recently HCC have achieved British canoeing quality mark recognition, and have renewed our Sport England “clubmark” award, this is now in a brand new format (we are the first club in the region to do this) and is valid for 3 years. A big thank you to Hayley Clarke and all involved in helping us achieve this.

Well done, and very well deserved to Hayley Clarke, who is our paddlesport development officer on the committee.(along with lots of other things). She has just been awarded the British canoeing East Midlands Region Volunteer’s award, and is now being put through to the national awards.

Earlier on in the year HCC applied for a Sport England grant. The grant was to enable us, as a club, to promote paddlesport, and encourage and help 14 to 24 year olds get into the sport. We have recently been informed that we have been awarded the full £10000. This is great news for the club. We are buying a selection of new kit, including some polo kit, and also funding some coach development, (further details to follow). This will help the build the club for all members and help us accommodate some new members. Thank you to Sara Wright, Laura Southerland and all involved with this application.

Lots of trips, courses, and events planned, so as I always say, keep an eye on the Website calendar and Facebook page for more info.

Dave Clarke

The winter pool sessions were very busy, it was great to see so many members progress with rolling and general paddling skills.

The lake sessions have already started and the first lot of star courses are now in progress, along with paddle power, family paddling, beginners and improver’s groups and social paddling.

We now have the third container in use at the lake, this is great and has given us a lot more storage space this year. As soon as it is properly sited, we will be racking it out and hopefully creating a bit more outside racking as well.

We now have 3 new UKCC level 1 coaches in the club, well done to Wendy Kendell, Aylwyn Barton and Phil Riley. During April there have also been four 3 star weekend courses/assessments, 2 WW kayak, 1 open canoe, and 1 touring (canoe and kayak). Everyone who completed the course’s passed. We had 2 have to drop out due to injury, so hope you 2 are on the mend. Well done to all you new 3 star paddlers and well deserved.

As always keep your eyes on the website calendar and facebook page for all the trips and events. We have plenty to keep everyone busy and now you can book them online too!

If you are not aware, it is membership renewal time, all the info is on the website, please ask if you need any help.

See you on the water

Dave

Wow. What a busy year it’s been. Since this time last year HCC has grown by 31%, from 117 to 153 members, we have had more river trips, weekends away, events and coaching than ever before.

Last year we have had some great site and equipment improvement’s, and hopefully even more in the coming year.

Also we have seen quite a bit of diversity in the club, including, stand up paddle boarding, sea kayaking, kayak surfing and its great so see open canoeing getting a lot more popular. We have seen the introduction of the HCC Hammerheads polo team to the club. This is going really well and hopefully will continue to grow.

For all the committee members, trip leaders and coaches, it really is great, to see all the members being so keen and getting involved in everything offered to them. As we all know enthusiasm will help the club grow even more.

Lastly and most importantly, I’d like to say a really big thank you to all the committee, the coaches, the trip leaders and the helpers, who have put so much work in over the year to make it such a fun, busy and successful year for everyone.

Dave Clarke

Hi All Just a quick update on a few things that have been going on since the new year.

As always there has been lots of trips. We have had a Matlock trip, a really good intermediate Vyrnwy trip, and a friends Nene WW trip. We have also had a Derwent/Trent trip,(trip report to follow) and an advanced Lake district weekend, these guys paddled the Kent and Leven, and the video’s are well worth watching.

The kit and equipment workshop that we had at Stanton went really well, Yannig from Leam Boat Centre kindly joined us to do a presentation about boats of all types and show us lots of different types of kit and clothing. This was very useful and informative, especially for the newer members/paddlers. Also Fraser organised a paint balling day for us, about 10 members went on this and most still have the scars to prove it.

The HCC Hammerheads polo training is still happening every Sunday and going really well, the team have their first friendly match this month, so good luck to all of you and enjoy.

As you all know the pool sessions start again this month and are nearly fully booked, keep your eye out on facebook as slots do sometimes become available.

We have lots of trips and events on the website calendar for everyone, including four, 3 star training/assessment weekends, this is a great opportunity for lots of you to progress your paddling to the next level, at a sensible price, with a friendly and very good coach. Please ask if you are unsure or need any more info about these courses.

After a lot of discussion we now have permission to site a third container in our area at Stanton lakes.This will give use more storage space for the boats we have and room for more as the club continues to grow. When this happens some help at a couple of working party’s would be appreciated.

One last thing, the last AGM reminder and Nomination form will be landing in your inbox very shortly.

See you on the river Dave Clarke

Wow what a busy month again, there has been a few river trips, including the Upper Avon, Usk, Nene W/W Centre, Soar and the annual Dart weekend. We hit a HCC record on the Avon trip with 33 paddlers (please keep your eye on the website for some trip reports for these trips). The polo has been very busy and I believe the Hammerheads have the first friendly game, coming up very soon. We had a great night at the Christmas meal. This was held at Stanton lakes, it was a sell out with lovely food and great entertainment from Maria, (Rowans partner) Wow what a voice!!!.

We have lots on the calendar for January and beyond, including an evening chat about kit/equipment, first aid course, pool sessions, polo, and not forgetting the annual AGM. Also for 2016, HCC have another Alps trip planned. Please keep looking on website, and the Facebook pinned post, for more info. Looking ahead the Stanton Lake sessions and coaching courses are already planned for the summer season.
Membership has risen again and we now have 150 members, it is great to see the club growing like this, and great to see so many members getting involved in helping out, or just getting out on the water.

Happy paddling, see you on the water.

Dave Clarke

Just a bit of an update on things that have been going on this Month.

If you did not see the Facebook post or read your email, we’ve had a slight change to communication methods. Due to a lack of interest in the newsletter (both reading it and contributions to it) we have now stopped sending it. Instead we are making more use of the website and have created a ‘Latest News’ section. All the new trip reports, articles etc and my chairman’s reports that go on website, will appear on this section first, so they are easy to find. The trips and events will still go onto the calendar as they always have and we’ll still be using Facebook too as most of the members are on this, and really like using it.

The Pool sessions have been a sell out again and are going really well at Desford, great to see everyone doing well, learning new skills and having fun. The HCC Hammerheads polo team is very popular too and we now have a lot of keen members on the team and the Sunday night training sessions are going great. Over time more kit will be available and I even think some friendly games with other clubs are on the cards. Thank you to all the coaches and helpers involved for both of these, we really could not to it without you.

We’ve had a few trips including the Nene W/W centre, River Avon, Full moon (Halloween) canal trip, Matlock introduction to white water for both canoe and kayak and a social night/get together. Please see trip reports for some of these on the website. We have also had the annual Crickhowell HCC Christmas weekend away. This was a great social weekend in a great bunkhouse, lovely food, good company and a bit of paddling and walking thrown in as well, hopefully some trips report will be out for this soon (any volunteers please??) Big thank you to Hayley Clarke for organising this great weekend.

Well done To Martin Stretton who has passed his 3 star open canoe assessment this month. and to Martin Aldridge who has completed his level 2 coach training.

We have now got quite a few new boats and one more SUP, all the details are on a website article if you want to see what the club has been buying.

Happy paddling and I look forward to seeing a lot of you at the Christmas meal

Dave Clarke