2021 Season is Over
We can’t quite believe it; after only running two events this year, our season is over. We’d like to thank all of you that attended these events and those of you that helped us along the way. It was the busiest consecutive event’s we’ve ever run with around 130 people on the site across the two events. We’ve had some amazing feedback.
“It has been over ten years since I last kayaked and my partner has never been. We were both slightly worried about our ability to stay upright, let alone paddle. Every single person at KEW made us feel at ease and helped us through everything, from picking the correct equipment to the correct positioning. We both thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and picked up some great kayaking skills. Andy's family SUP business was also there and everyone was able to have a go at paddle boarding; Which was amazing!
Not only did KEW offer fantastic water sports fun but we had: great food served but very nice people (catering for all allergies), a quiz to get us all thinking and a wonderful bonfire, with even more food!
It was a wonderful weekend filled with amazing activities and fantastic people, who I now consider friends!
I can't wait to go again!
Thank you KEW!”
— Shannen
“The weekend had been advertised to me by a good friend and I felt it was a very good deal considering how cheap it was for everything that was included. Everyone was really nice and welcoming and the food was delicious and really diverse to cater for everyone's dietary requirements...well even if I had to take the walk if shame for being French and not liking cheese 😜. There was enough freedom to socialise outside of planned activities and the activities themselves were well organised and the monitors were really encouraging..a particular thank you to Mark who stayed with me at my slow pace and kept on saying "it's not about how fast you go, it's about how much you enjoying yourself" and I think that this is what this weekend is all about. Different people, coming from different backgrounds and different levels of expertise all coming together to learn and have fun kayaking and SUPing”
— Sarah
All the pictures from these events can be found on our Facebook page but here’s a couple of highlights.
A special thanks go to Fotheringhay Castle Farm for finding space for us at short notice, we’ll be back! Andy’s Courses and Family SUP for taking time out to help us experience all the fun that’s possible on a SUP. Andy and Family SUP will be back for three of our events next year, we cannot wait! Keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks for 2022 event dates.
She Paddles 2021
#ShePaddles is an initiative that aims to get more women and girls into paddlesport and to keep them progressing to where they want to be - whether that's paddling with family, volunteering as a coach at a local club, becoming an instructor or competing at a national level.
We’d like to take the opportunity to congratulate one of our younger paddlers, Lara Wyse. For becoming a #shepaddles ambassador. This is a huge achievement for her and we are so proud to have been part of her paddling development!
Lara is enthusiastic to become a #ShePaddles Ambassador and is looking forward to using this platform to encourage more young women and girls to find a passion in kayaking. Lara hopes her experiences will inspire young women to want to get involved, learn and enjoy kayaking for many years.
Interesting fact – Lara did kayaking as part of her Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award which involved Lara doing the FSRT course. Lara continues to grasp many paddling experiences, from white water kayaking to sea kayaking in Wales.
If you want to see who else is involved with #shepaddles this year take a look here.
What’s going on over the winter?
We’ll be working on website booking improvements, several of you discovered bypasses in the form filling functions without even realizing it and we have some plans to just make lots of minor adjustments to improve your experience. If you have any opinions on changes to be made please comment on this post and we’ll look into the implementation of them.
We’re also in talks with a new kayaking group startup in Stamford, this would make our equipment more accessible to others to use between our events and give us secure storage facilities closer to our events making logistics of trailer transport much easier.
For those that have all their own gear we do get out and about over the winter months, these are posted on the Kayaking When & Where WhatsApp group but have no affiliation to any groups, it is purely for personal/pier paddling.
How to support us
You can still support us over winter by purchasing the remaining T-Shirts we have. Once these have all gone we will be looking into hoodies next, we may even set up a pre-order in the new year to gauge interest.