An update on sessions

With the indoor pool season having come to an end we just wanted to provide some quick updates on what the Club has planned over the next couple of months.

Canal sessions

Our first canal session is on Wednesday next week (5th April), paddling from the Basingstoke Canal Centre. Basingstoke Canal Canoe Club have kindly allowed us to make use of their boat store for these sessions, so equipment will be available on-site (or you can bring your own).

Due to the limited daylight available please aim to arrive at about 6:30 pm, as we will be aiming to have everyone on the water before 7 pm. If you wish to attend these sessions then please sign up on the website, so that we can send you the code required to open the barrier at the canal centre car park prior to the session.

You can sign up for our canal sessions can on the events page of the club website.

Whitewater sessions

We have now finalised our whitewater calendar up until the start of the summer season. These sessions are run every other weekend, typically on a Sunday (with the exception of the 15th April). The planned schedule is as follows:

02/04/2023 – Shepperton Weir
15/04/2023 – Weir (location TBD based on conditions)
30/04/2023 – Nene Whitewater Centre
14/05/2023 – Lee Valley Whitewater Centre
No session on weekend of 27th / 28th
11/06/2023 – Lee Valley Whitewater Centre
25/06/2023 – Coxes lock (Moving Water Taster Session)

All these sessions are now on the club website events page.

Volunteering events

BVCC will be supporting a couple of kayaking based events in the local community in the coming months. We always greatly appreciate any help that our members are able to give for these events (you don’t need to be a regular club volunteer in order to help out).

On the 22nd April the club will be continuing its long standing support of the Farnham Scouts Family Camp. We will be running kayaking taster sessions for the scouts and their family members throughout the day, in the river that runs alongside the campsite. This is always a very rewarding and enjoyable day for the volunteers; we typically see 200 – 250 people on the water over the course of the day (split over 30 minute sessions) and receive lots of positive feedback from the local Scout groups.

We are looking for volunteers both in the water (helping people with paddling, dealing with capsizes, etc.) and on the bank (signing people in, helping with equipment, etc.). The Scout kitchen will provide a free hot lunch, as well as hot / cold drinks during the day for our volunteers. We will also need people to help move equipment to the campsite before the day and return equipment to the Lido afterwards (details of this will be confirmed a little closer to the time). You can see a write-up and photos of last year’s camp on our website. You can sign-up as a volunteer here.

We are also anticipating being asked to help at Aldershot Lido’s opening day on Saturday 27th May, as we have done for the last several years. On the opening day we run free kayaking taster sessions which anyone at the Lido can attend. More details will be announced closer to the time.

Club trips

Our club volunteers are currently working on a schedule for club trips for the rest of the year (we’re aiming for one a month), if you have any suggestions for trips you would like to do then please let us know by speaking to one of our volunteers at a session or dropping us an email.

Club Facebook group

Many of you will already be aware, but for the benefit of our newer members we just wanted to say that you are welcome to join our club’s Facebook group. We post more frequent club updates there, as we tend to reserve emails for important announcements to avoid clogging up people’s inboxes. We also have a club Facebook page.

If you have any questions about anything in this email then please do not hesitate to contact me.