News

Calling Rafters for Future Volunteer Leaders!

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British Canoeing are recruiting the second wave of paddlers to join the British Canoeing Future Leaders programme!

They are looking for passionate, enthusiastic, creative people who have an aspiration to take on a club, event, regional or national committee roles within the next 2-3 years and who have ideas on how events, regional and national committees should grow and improve canoeing.

It doesn’t matter what type of paddling you do, or how good you are, just as long as you want to help make a difference to the sport and have both commitment and passion for the sport. In summary, the programme content will give:

  • Build influencing and networking skills
  • Learn how to build successful teams and running high quality meetings
  • Learn about British Canoeing and understand how volunteer committees work
  • Get a mentor to support and guide you
  • Have an opportunity to sit on one of the British Canoeing key committees and undertake a project (topics might include, access, environment, competitions, paddle-ability, international, event production, coaching, talent support, journalism…. The list is endless …the only limit will be the time it takes and convincing a national or regional committee to adopt your project)

The programme is for over 18’s and as it’s Sport England funded you will need to be based in England!

There are 2 weekends in Nottingham (16th/17th November 2019 & 8th/9th February 2020), mentoring and project placements with committees. Expenses are included.

The closing date is Tuesday 27th August – so get your application in now!

https://www.britishcanoeing.org.uk/guidance-resources/volunteering/young-volunteers

2019 AGM

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The 2019 British Rafting Annual General Meeting will be held at British Canoeing offices on Saturday, 01st June from 16:00.
All British Canoeing and British Rafting members are welcome to attend.

The current committee will provide reports on the work over the last twelve months and propose plans for the next two years. At this meeting, the new Committee will be elected (see details below for nominations). Also at this meeting the membership will be asked to accept changes proposed to the British Rafting Constitution (see summary below).

 

Constitution changes:

Constitution changes are now in consultation. Consultation runs from 16th April until 23:00 on Sunday, 12th May. Full copy of the draft constitution can be found here.
All questions or queries can be sent to consultation@britishrafting.com

Summary changes to constitution:

  • Constitution will become Terms of Reference to reflect that the Committee is the Rafting Discipline Committee of British Canoeing
  • Clarify the accountability of the Committee to British Canoeing and the members
  • The current constitution requires all Committee members to stand down at AGM and all positions become vacant. Proposed changes will mean that Committee members serve for two years in their posts to ensure continuity. The requirement is a third of Committee members must stand down at each AGM to ensure that there is opportunity for new Committee members (details of how this will work for this AGM are detailed below under Committee member nominations)
  • Clarification over matter of business at the AGM including order of business and voting rights – this aligns rafting to other British Canoeing discipline committees
  • Confirm payment authorisations and align to other British Canoeing discipline committees

 

Nomination of Committee members:

Due to the proposed changes to the constitution, the changes to the constitution will be voted on before the election of committee officers. As such, due to the proposed changes to the constitution and ensuring that all business matters are conducted within remit of the current and proposed changes, the nomination to committee positions will be as follows:

  • All committee positions will become vacant at the meeting – as such, nominations to all posts can be made by any British Rafting member
  • Should the proposed changes to the constitution be accepted by the membership, the nominations to all posts will become invalid as not all committee posts will become vacant. The proposed committee positions up for re-election this year are (people stepping down to either be re-nominated or to not stand for election again):
    • Chair
    • Treasurer
    • Secretary
    • Safety Officer
    • Events Officer
    • Communications Officer
  • Roles and explanations of each role can be found in the Constitution and Committee Handbook here
  • If you would like to be nominated for a Committee position, you will need a nominator and a seconder. Send an email to secretary@britishrafting.com and include all three people in the email detailing who is being nominated for which position and who the nominator and seconder are
  • Nominations must be received by 26th May @ 20:00 to secretary@britishrafting.com

One small step for paddlers, one giant step for teams

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On the weekend of the 18th/19th August, 14 rafters from across the country descended on the National Watersports Centre, Nottingham for a weekend of individual development and training. With a wide range of experience from everyone taking part, from 4+ years of international racing experience to only being in a raft for 3 months, it was lovely to see everyone bouncing ideas around and I think that everyone involved felt that they learnt something new over the course of the weekend.

The weekend started off bright and early on Saturday morning with a technical session on the flat water, looking at raft control and playing with new ideas on how best to control the corners whilst turning. After lunch, it was time to take the new skills learnt onto the white water with a session on how to take the dry line. This consisted on working on raft control to keep the boat tracking in the right direction as well as how to boof over the bigger features. The final session of the day was spent looking at how best to take eddies, working on taking them high and working out how to avoid sliding down the eddie.

After a well-deserved night’s sleep, everyone was up and ready to start again on the Sunday morning. The day started off with a session looking into how best to tacklemultiple downstream gates and working on setting your angle early. The weekend ended with a few fun head-to-head battles and an opportunity to work out how to surf across some of the more difficult waves on the course.

Overall it was an excellent weekend and I hope that was amazing to watch everyone learning something new and coming away with new techniques and ideas to go away and practice ready for the next set of races.

Beth Kirby, Development Weekend Director

British Rafting Constitution unanimously adopted

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Thank you to all who attended the British Rafting Annual General Meeting on Sunday, 17th September 2017 at the Lee Valley White Water Centre.

During the meeting, the membership unanimously agreed to adopt the proposed Constitution as previously published and consulted on. The final version of the British Rafting Constitution is now published here and forms the governing rules to which British Rafting shall be managed by.