Category Archives

We hope everyone has been getting down to the club in this warm weather, please find the below update from your committee covering the following things:

• COVID-19
• Using the club
• Volunteering
• Upcoming courses

COVID-19

We have carefully considered the current restrictions and it being clear that cases are rising rapidly once again. As a committee we discussed this at our most recent meeting last Monday, our decisions on what procedures/limitations would remain, and what could be lifted, depended on risk of transmission vs general safety and convenience; with the knowledge that the highest risk of transmission is still through aerosol spread in confined spaces. Please see the very simple, short and easy to remember list below:

1.      The changing rooms will remain generally unavailable for changing & showering purposes, although the toilets will of course continue to be open for use. Please continue with the thorough 20 second hand washing regime after using them. We view the changing rooms as the most likely place for the virus to spread. It is a minor inconvenience to continue to change from the back of a car with a towel robe, or to arrive dressed to paddle. This situation will be reassessed in the Autumn as the weather begins to deteriorate.

2.      Please continue with the sensible measures inside other enclosed spaces: Not entering the equipment sheds when there are other people inside; Consider wearing a mask before entering the club hut or better still wait until other people have vacated it. Be considerate of other people’s personal space.

3.      Please continue to use your track & trace QR codes with the app on your phone should you have it installed.

As of Monday (19th), it is no longer necessary to clean equipment with soapy water. Virus transmission is less effective through surface contact than it is through the air in confined spaces. Please put the equipment away securely and tidily though!!!

Using the club

This summer we’ve welcomed lots of new members to the club and so we thought it was worth reminding everyone of what we have all signed up for when we join.

We’re a community club so if we look after the site and the equipment it will make sure it can be enjoyed by everyone.

We try to keep rules simple to follow as we want people to concentrate on enjoying themselves on the water. They are:
if you open it, lock it up – this includes storage sheds, gates and the front access when youre not using it. Please double check just before you leave 

• If you use it, put it away
• Equipment is expensive to replace, so once it is gone it is gone. Please return all equipment to where you got, in the same condition you found it.
• You are responsible for everyone in your group – if you have brought children or guests along with you then your are responsible for making sure their equipment is put away properly and anything they opened is locked up.
• Do not share access codes with anyone other than your membership group, if someone asks you for the codes and you’re not sure on whether they are a member or not, please ask them to email [email protected]
• If you spot something is broken then email [email protected]

Volunteering

We’re always looking for help – whether it’s cutting the grass, maintaining the equipment or welcoming new members. If you’d like to help out in any way, we’d love to chat to you. Speak to one of the coaches or someone from the committee, alternatively post a post on our facebook group and someone should point you in the right direction.

Upcoming events

We’ve arranged a number of events across the rest of the year. You’ll find the latest calendar here.

Upcoming courses

With so many new members our wonderful volunteering coaches wanted to run some extra courses for you over the coming weeks. They’ll teach you some extra paddling skills and how to be safe on the water.

Details about the courses:

• Please find the course calendar here
• All courses will be in the evening & will run approximately from 6pm through to 8pm including time to get on & off the water.
• You should get about 1.5 hours on the water time.- Ideally participants would attend a full block of 3 sessions to get the most out of the course, however with it being the summer holidays in some cases that might not be possible.
• Therefore each session for adults & over 12s will be £3 per person per session.- There are also some sessions for under 12s (& over 7s), these are sessions focusing on learning through fun & games, & are £2 per session.

How to book:

Drop us an email to [email protected]ham-scc.com with your preferred dates. We will then send you a payment request which you should be able to pay by card.

Happy paddling!

We hope that everyone has been getting out on the water when its not been raining, snowing or hailing as it has been recently (or braving the weather)! We’ve been busy behind the scenes getting ready for another slightly unconventional year, in this update you will find a few of the things that we are currently working on and us asking for your thoughts on what we can improve!

• Kit checks – Annually we have to do checks on all of our equipment, these have now been done in the gap between opening the club to members, and folks wanting to use club kit last month.
• Increased storage – we are looking at expanding both club and private storage for Kayaks, Canoes & SUP’s
• The club calendar for the year – We’re busy drafting up a calendar for the year of club organised events. These are set to include a couple of the most popular items from the membership form which was a BBQ and Camping weekend.
• Wild swimming – We’re investigating the possibility of this being officially supported as an activity down at the club. If anyone knows of any good contacts for this or wants to help get it up and running please reach out via our contact page.
• Whilst this isn’t anything that will change your experience down at the club, we have launched an Instagram account (@chippenhamscc) so that when you’re away from the water you can keep up to date with what other members are doing on the water!

What do you want to see out of your club?

Following on from the question on your membership form (if you’re a member) please let us know if there is anything else you want to see from us! The 3 items top came up a lot were: wild swimming, a BBQ Social and a camping weekend so we hope to bring you more info around these soon.

There was also some demand for Trips, however these are a bit more difficult to organise with the club at the moment due to the current social distancing rules. If any members want to organise anything among them selves before we’re able to run any club trips, please put a post up on the Facebook group and I’m sure people will want to come along.

If we haven’t mentioned an item that you suggested please don’t think that it has been ignored, we’ve just called out the top 3 items. We value the feedback that we get from our members and encourage you to give as much as possible as to how we can improve our club, equally if you have an idea that you are passionate about please get in reach out to us to help organise it or put a post on the Facebook group.

For those getting this email or reading this on our website that aren’t members, if you’re on the edge about getting a taster session or renewing your membership please get in touch, we’ll happily take you out on the water for a taster session or show you round the club before you commit to anything.

Courses

We have had a lot of questions surrounding courses, we are not currently in a position to give out any concrete updates surrounding this, however we have had some discussions around offering shorter 3/4 week courses around June/July time. Stay tuned for more updates! Please let us know what type of courses you would like, whether its SUP, kayak or canoe and what you want to learn!

If any of our members have any relevant British Canoeing Coaching qualifications or think they have enough experience to do one, please do reach out to us. All of our coaches, like our committee and other volunteers around the club, do so in their spare time so it helps if we have a bigger pool to give everyone a break.

Apologies if we mentioned about getting in contact a few times, we are keen to make our club as good as can be and to suit all of our members needs.

We look forward to seeing you out on the water!