I was going to finish off a draft I'd started on my mobile Ecency app but then found I'd started another post when dropping into the web app. I must have started this one quite awhile ago, so let's publish it!!!
We are on something of a recruitment drive for the club at the moment not because we are losing nunbers but we’ve got room to take on more members and promote the sport. People come and go, so clubs like ours tend to swell and shrink over the course of time.
Our base is at the Aldershot Lido boathouse, yes a Lido with a boathouse, it is unusual but the pool is more of a medium sized man-made lake in size. There are two sections, the shallow, easy to wade through part until you get to the middle where the water comes up to your chest or shoulders, depending on how tall you are and a deeper pool that you can dive into. The bigger area is used for boats (kayaks, canoes and sit-on-tops) and the deeper pool for the paddleboards, as it's better to fall into!
We use the Lido between late May (when it opens to the public) and the very end of summer, we are getting out of the pool as the sun sets at around 8:45. Times vary throughout the year, in the summer we generally meet around 7 for a good hour and a half on the water.
In the winter months we use an indoor pool in Yateley, Hampshire and the meeting times change, so that it fits in with most peoples' work/school days.
We pretty much meet every Wednesday throughout the year, normally for five weeks at a time, then take a week or two break. This is normally to give the instructors and volunteers a little respite and to move the boats from one venue to another, so that all the kit we need is on location and just stays there until we move back to the Lido in the summer.
We have a spring and autumn schedule too and that is when we go out on the canal (Basingstoke) and our fellow club The Basingstoke Canal Canoe club lends us their equipment, which is handy as it's right on the bank.
Asides from the pools we use, which are great for practicing capsizes, rescues and all of the strokes safely without worrying about river flow, environmental hazards and so forth, we do go on trips. These excursions take us all over the country and have pre-covid, pre-Tina-and-myself joining the club (we started in 2021) even gone abroad to Slovenia etc. There is something for everyone.
Whitewater paddling is popular (I've not done any of these), tours of rivers, sea trips, freestyle competitions and even some camping trips along routes have taken place in the past. The club is split into two, the main section as just described and a Polo team who have their own dedicated pool in Bordon, Hampshire.
Membership is just over £30 per year and you "pay-as-you-paddle" which is normally £6 per session.
You can use your own kit but the club does have plenty of boats, lifejackets, helmets,floats, paddles, spraydecks, cags and all sorts of other equipment that can be used at sessions or even hired out.
So there you have it, my ode to BVCC!!!