[Paddlewise] Club Safety

In following the posts on this topic it came to me in one of those blinding
flashes of over simplification that the way to avoid problems in a club is
to properly define the purpose of the club.

For instance, suppose the Sink or Swim Kayak Club was formed to provide
social events for kayakers, serve as an introduction service for paddling
partners and a source of paddling information. It would do no formal
instruction and set no paddling rules other than no adult member would be
allowed to molest the young boys or girls at a club sponsored nude swimming
party.  Club trips would not exist. Rather, the newsletter would announce
that;

"Jackie Fenton will be paddling to Hawaii tomorrow afternoon and welcomes
company".

Or

Richard Culpeper is going to practice his rolls next month at the week
Waterloo Sewage Lagoon and welcomes fellow paddlers for a fun day.

These are clearly individual activities. If the club has no safety rules
and makes it clear that it is only there for social events and to advertise
member activities it surely cannot be held responsible for anything outside
its mandate.


Club dynamics vary from club to club but it seems that the reason so many
people don't join clubs is not because the membership is a clique or even
bureaucratic and overly regulated but because there simply isn't any need
(on an individual basis) to belong or participate in club activities. The
boats are portable, the clubs usually have no facility for social
gatherings, and the only thing that might tie them together - paddling -
does not require a club membership to do. Contrast the sea kayaker with the
sprint racer. Can't be done without the clubs organising things and
training requires coaches, facilities etc.. That the clubs become a centre
of social activity as well also nurtures growth. In Britain the clubs are
rather strong because they have strong social ties as well a powerful
influence on paddling through the BCU. Whether one likes the model or not
is not a determination of its success.

Personally I found Dennis Adams post a trifle patronising and offensive. To
base any assumptions about what Canadians are like on the "few Canadians"
he knows is just a bit much and to suggest that  working co-operatively to
reach a goal is in any way sheep like is fatuous. If one does not want to
offend one needs to choose words more carefully.

 Everything that Dennis says about small headed club type can also be said
about rugged individualists that don't belong to clubs. Some are so small
headed that clubs won't even have them. Clubs have no monopoly on jerks. As
for cliques, by definition those who paddle with the same people all the
time form a clique and there is no law that cliques must belong to clubs.
Perhaps Dennis has confused the visibility of clubs with omnipresence. It
is odd that a clique within a club is considered in a negative light but a
clique outside the club is just a bunch of friends having a good time
together.

Actually I don't see all that much difference between what the WCA does and
the  Rocky Mountain Canoe Club - except that there might be more of us. We
also have members who are much like Dennis. Skilled. eager to share their
knowledge, fun to be with, active in club activities, people who believe in
instruction but also believe in learning by doing etc.. etc..

I, of course, am not one of them possibly because I hold dual citizenship
and simply can't decide whether I am an individual asshole or a collective
one.

Cheers,
John Winters
Redwing Designs
Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft
http://home.ican.net/~735769/

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