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A Compassionate Plea for the White Water Paddler

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Simon R.:
Our trip on the Annamoe yesterday raised an issue which I feel needs to be addressed urgently regarding the clubs gear lending policy.

At jacksons, to adhere to the rules currently being enforced, the freshers were forced to swap equipment. As luck would have it what was swapped in the end was relatively small pieces of gear. However it did approach a situation that one of the freshers would have to swap into a boat they were unfamiliar with, with paddles they were unfamiliar with to run the hardest rapid on the river to adhere to club policy. This situation is madness and dangerous.

The celtic tiger is dead and the vast sums of money required to get into this sport are prohibitively expensive for some. They were, even in the celtic tiger, prohibitively expensive for me. I had the good fortune to be facilitated in my early kayaking days of using club gear on private trips. This I did for a number of years only being able to afford my own boat in recent years.

When I started there was a rich culture of older members bringing younger members on private trips. This meant for me that I had run the Dargle, Glenmacnass, Shankhill, Upper Liffey, Middle Roughty, the Glens among a host of others by the time I reached the end of my second year in the club. In my opinion when this culture disappeared the standard of club paddler dipped noticably. Not because people didn't have the potential, but because they hadn't the opportunity to run these rivers.

If this culture is be encouraged again then, in my opinion, the club lending policy needs to be updated to facilitate people getting out with other members on other things apart from club trips. To be honest i think that we can all recognise that the club has long focused itself as an entry point for new kayakers. Second years upwards run the same rivers with instruction focused on the new members. If we are to facilitate the development of our 2nd,3rd,4th years then they need to be getting out on things like the upper Liffey and glens which are the easiest 4s in the country. We also need to support them if they haven't the financial capacity to buy their own stuff.

Does this mean I suggest we ride the club gear down the flesk every christmas? Not at all. We experimented with club creek boats and they were misused and abused by a small number thereby making the experiment a resounding failure.

What I prepose is that we all collectively take a look at what can be done to make a better working club lending policy for the betterment of our club paddlers. This policy I might add is self imposed (as far as i'm aware) and is not a requirement of UCD. Therefore it is ours to improve!

With the club on an upward curve once again, now is the time to seize the opportunity to foster a culture and level of participation from members past and present that I remember from long ago which yesterday I had a taste of once again.

kmck:
The club should act like I would lending my gear:
1. You break it, you've bought it.
2. I won't lend gear to people I don't know or haven't paddled with
3. I won't lend someone gear who I think won't be able to do the river they want to do This is the problem area, I'm making a judegement choice. So if something goes wrong I've a degree of responsiblilty because I deemed that person capable.
4. It has to be returned to me on time and in good condition

1,2 and 4 are easy it is number 3 that causes the problem for the college and the committee, figure out someway to deal with that issue.

Also the era of the stealth mission with club members has also disappeared, not just due to lending requirements of the club.

kmck:
Just had an idea, let's say in the next few months I buy a replacement for my mamba. I then store my mamba in the club boathouse on the understanding that it could be lent to paddlers at my discretion? If we had 4 such boats not donated to the club but stored by the club lent by their owners to people who want to get out on the water to run the dargle, glenmac and the clare glens. Would that be a solution?

DervM:
That would be a good solution - until we get down to smaller things, like BAs and cags. In my family anything we replace gets brought home and reused. At the same time, I might be able to store a helmet, a bad cag and a club-style BA?

Matt:
I think it's a bit much to expect to be able to bring club gear on a grade 4 river. It might have happened in the past, but the times they are becoming quite different. Rules and regulations are far stricter, and since the college essentially owns all of our club boats, from an insurance point of view the college/committee are responsible if anything goes wrong.

So whatever the club's lending policy is, I can't see the college being willing to allow club gear to be used on anything above grade 3.

Borrowing private gear is an option. Then all the responsibility is with the individuals and not the club or college.

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