A typically-named Scottish ‘hurricane’ named Bawbag – in other words, fairly strong winds which the media, as ever, have over-hyped - has brought lots of rain and combined with a load of snow melt.

Where’s the Water shows all the main rivers in Scotland to be running, many pumping…once I’ve got my neck seal gaffer taped, I’m hoping for a weekend of excellent paddling!

Well, today I attended Inverness Canoe Club’s first annual coaches development day.

I didn’t know quite what to expect from the event, but it was well worth braving the snow for and I was pleasantly surprised! There was a good mix of river, sea and open boat coaches present and some really encouraging discussion for improving coaching within the club and reaching out to the membership.

The day was split up into sessions/workshops, with a number of coaches taking a lead on a variety of topics, including my good self who ran a session on the new(ish) UKCC Level 1 and Level 2 coaching awards.

Matt, Margaret and Ron also covered Level 3, remits/terms of reference and club governance respectively; while in the afternoon we escape the cold sports hall venue and headed to the pool to focus on methods for teaching rolling, support strokes and moving sideways.

I, for one, learnt a great deal from the development day and I am really looking forward to this becoming an established annual event. Above all else, it provided an excellent opportunity for coaches from across all of the disciplines within the club to meet, share thoughts, knowledge and experience and to get to know each other better.

As part of my session, I prepared a written introduction to the Level 1 and 2 courses for folk to take away, read and share. It’s aimed as a guide to UKCC coaching scheme from the perspective of a recent graduate, and while it’s only a compilation of my personal opinions/observations, you can download a copy by clicking here.

You should, however, always refer to the official course documents for comprehensive, up-to-date and undisputable guidance…

As some of you eagle-eyed Scottish paddlers may have noticed, a new bilingual logo has appeared on the Scottish Canoe Association website this week: www.canoescotland.org

The SCA, like many organisations, has now adopted a bilingual logo in order to reflect the increasing use and visibility of Gaelic in Scotland and the fact that the language is intrinsically linked to the paddling world – you only have to look at the names of so many places, lochs, rivers and falls that we paddle in, under, past, over and around!

For someone like me, who’s a Gaelic learner, this is a very welcome and positive move; as they say in Gaelic, tha e math dhà-rìribh!


> An comharra ùr aig an Comann Curach na h-Alba.