Re: [Paddlewise] Club Safety

Jackie-

I guess what I was trying to get at, not very successfully, was this:

if a club has organizers/coordinators rather than trip leaders, in part
because the club doesn't want to be responsible or liable in the same
ways that a commercial guiding company would be, how much control does the
club have over what goes on in trips?  Are there basic safety guidelines
that all trips must meet?  If a club has guidelines at all, does that
imply some responsibility?  Sorry for beating this to death but we have a
meeting coming up on this very subject in two days.

> It would be interesting to read how other clubs view club-sponsored
> events as well as handle club member events where the club does not
> want to be considered official sponsor for whatever reasons.  

I agree, and hope that any other club members that are out there will put
their $0.02-worth in. 

Sarah


> > Thanks for your response, and great ascii art as usual.  One situation
> > that we may be faced with as our club grows is beginners who would like to
> > lead trips that are beyond their abilities as individual paddlers, let
> > alone as leaders.  Does your club have a way to deal with this?  This
> > possibility was raised by a member of another sea kayaking club in the
> > area who did have this problem come up last year...  
> 
> What did the other club do?  How was it a problem?
> 
> The club of which I was a member did not have leaders.  This might
> seem picky, but for a reason, we referred to trip hosts as coordinators.
> I was elected official club trip coordinator after only about four 
> months of membership.  I'm not saying that how my club went about 
> its business should be the accepted practice.  It just happened to be 
> what we did and it worked for us.  I wanted to paddle... *bad*. Not 
> enough club trips were scheduled.  So to get to paddle with experienced 
> paddlers where I could learn more, I offered to host trips.  This is 
> how I became club trip coordinator, someone who made campground 
> reservations, set up a date and time to meet, made sure there were 
> enough shuttle vehicles, someone to collect camping and/or food fees,
> gather and distribute directions, and basically, someone who just 
> started the ball rolling for a group of people to get together to 
> paddle.  As I said, we were an informal lot. :-)  But gosh did we 
> have fun!  
> 
> As the club grew and we were joined by an ACA officer who wanted a 
> more rigid structuring of club events and began to warn us about 
> liability and tell us how much we needed insurance and we should join
> ACA so we would be covered, much began to change.  We realized there 
> were topics of which we weren't aware and being aware was probably a 
> good thing. The more we became aware, the more the focus of the 
> club began to change from strictly social to more of instructional 
> and safety awareness.  Also, more trips were scheduled outside the 
> club. Talk of liability does seem to have its impact, even though we 
> knew of no cases whatsoever of paddling clubs being or having been 
> sued.  I still don't (I feel a need to say this often :-).
> 
> Trip hosts/coordinators are hard to come by.  It would be a shame
> to discourage someone who is eager to put together a trip.  Even 
> with almost no experience under my paddle, the trips I hosted turned 
> out to be great fun (great company). We used our heads, did a lot of 
> scouting, always had someone more experienced along and learned 
> a lot. Some clubs announce non-club sponsored trips in a separate 
> section of the club newsletter along with a disclaimer. 
> 
> This might seem to contradict all the safety speech, but I don't
> think so.  While they can't hold everyone's hands at all times, clubs
> can go a long way in offering safety awareness training and 
> instruction when beginners come knocking at the door.  As well as
> offer a few old-timers (that would like to learn) new technique and 
> an opportunity to find more paddling partners.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jackie
> 
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> 
> 
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