Did that Really happen?

Booking for our weekends went live on the 1st of May with the news that restrictions would continue to ease. Surprisingly to us, we sold out the August event in five days! We can’t actually remember that last time we ran a weekend at full capacity of sixty people. It’s definitely going to be a chaotic weekend but we’re so glad that after eighteen months by the time we get to August you’re ready to jump back in with us. Keep an eye out for an email coming your way soon for those that booked on the August event, it’ll have all the final details of locations, getting through the fields and where to park etc...

Don’t forget we have Andy’s Courses coming down for the entire weekend with his Family SUPs; we can’t wait!

What’s happening at the September event?

Unfortunately, we won’t be running our usual challenge weekend with the inflatable assault course. Instead, we are currently talking with several people to try and get one of the following fleets down for the weekend. Open Canoes, Surf Ski Kayaks, Slalom Kayaks. If you have a preference on which you’d like, comment below! Also, if you have a contact that may be able to help sort this, let us know.

This weekend event is already starting to fill up, So don’t leave it too long before you book with us. We know some of you missed out on August and would hate for that to happen to you for this event.

We’re currently short of volunteers for this event due to holidays finally not being cancelled. If any has any scout camp cooking experience and could help in the kitchen, please raise your hand and come forward; we would really appreciate the help!

We’ve stopped buying replacement kit.

After selling ten kayaks last year, we’ve completed buying replacements for now as the funds from those sales have depleted. We managed to get six replacement kayaks in total. You might be wondering if that’s enough. Right now, it is as two of the kayaks we sold had been stored in a barn and hadn’t been used for several years, so we won’t particularly miss them. However, next year if we continue to sell out our events, we will be back on track towards purchasing more. The KEW fund cycle works like this; we build up funds, and every four years or so, all of it apart from a small reserve replaces kit. All of you booking on our weekends is the only way we can continue this. The big part of our funds for replacing marquess actually came from your donations; August is the first time we’ll finally use them, so bare with us. We might be slower getting the site setup!

As we mentioned in previous blogs, we will be selling a few more kayaks and most of our paddles. When we get a spare five minutes, we’ll finally get around to putting these on the website for people to view and purchase. The sale of these will help us purchase newer paddles.

So, you probably want to know the actual details of what we sold and bought? We sold all of our Perception Dancers, most of our Perception Mirages and our beloved Ocean Kayaks sea kayak (Big Red). They were all ancient, and the ocean kayak required repairs to bulkheads, new seals etc.… for the age, it wasn’t worth our time.

We spent hours browsing eBay and Facebook marketplace looking for gems that would crop up in between the crazy covid kayak prices. We finally settled with four Perception Sparcs, One Perception Whip-lash & two Dagger Dynamo’s, more junior kayaks you’ll be pleased to hear! We also purchased fourteen TNP 200mm adult paddles from Desperate Measures, four of these left-handed.

prep mode!

We’re now getting back into full preparation mode, you hopefully noticed the booking process has changed a little along with other areas of the website. Making the changes to the website means it takes you a little longer to complete the booking process for two or more people but it allows us to process more efficiently. Given we’re all volunteers it’s a bonus for us! It also makes sure we don’t make any hiccups with food requirements.

The risk assessments are being looked at and updated along with the other boring but necessary paperwork requirements that go hand in hand with these events. We’ve been visiting the two site for this year, the weir is in need of repair and we need to clear trees from it, we’ll be looking at this in June to make sure the environment agency are on it. We’re hopeful it can be repaired before September but if it’s not we know it’s still safe to paddle as we’ve tested it already.

We’ve got a new coach lined up, John who has been paddling and helping us in various capacities over the past five years has recently completed his Paddlesport Instructor Course. The rest of us are breaking out some of the skills we haven’t used in a while and getting out on the water as much as possible to make sure we’re up to scratch for you all. Trip overviews will be released in the blog in June.

COVID AND NEEDING YOUR HELP

We are on the lookout for some coaches to attend our events, a covid officer and welfare officer. We’d also really like to get a content creator on board to help push along our socials, weekend photography, and maybe if we’re lucky, get some video and drone footage.

As with all volunteering roles, it’s a big commitment to give your time for free; we fully recognise being in the same position. We do, however, try to give something for your time. Weekend events are free to volunteers; we’ll use all our social platforms to promote any business, personal or professional, and run private weekends where all volunteers get to have fun without the chaos of looking after people. We also allow people to make use of our marquees for garden events when needed, though they do need to be looked after and returned in one piece.

Please get in touch if you could help and want to get involved; we need it now more than ever!

KEW T-SHIRTS

A reminder that we have t-shirts available to purchase through the shop. We’ll also have them available on our weekends. Lots went during your bookings for our events, lets see you out and about in them!