Lightweight boats for developing young athletes.

Aim

To buy two new boats for our developing junior paddlers and train more coaches to help us deliver beginner courses and improve our athletes

Who are we?

We are both a welcoming family-orientated club and one of the top racing clubs in the UK.  We are based on the Oxford Canal in Cropredy and welcome people of all ages and abilities to enjoy the pleasure of paddling. 

Why are we crowdfunding?

We want to develop promising and potential young paddlers with new youth-specific boats suitable for racing but also lightweight and robust enough for safe and easy portaging. The canal near the club has a number of locks that make frequent portaging necessary. In addition we want to increase our coaching numbers. Each year we provide beginner courses for the community introducing new people to paddlesport, we want to develop more experienced and newer paddlers into coaching to pass skills down to new generations. 

We have been awarded a grant by Sport England that will help us towards our total once we have sufficient support through Crowdfunder

How we’ll spend the money raised

We will buy two new lightweight two-man kayaks (K2s) suitable for our promising juniors.  We will provide coaching courses and their prerequisites (First Aid, Safeguarding, Safety and Rescue) delivered by outside providers approved by our governing body Paddle UK.

Community impact

We provide beginner courses and access to sport to improve the physical and mental well-being of local families and other individuals by involving them activity in the natural environment.  We find that many adults and families come to us looking for an inclusive activity having not done any sporting activity for many years. Families in particular enjoy doing a sport together. Once they have learnt the basics most are keen to learn more and develop fitness and speed both for recreation and to participate in regional competitions.   

How you can play your part

There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success.

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us. The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out.

4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made