PADDLING COMMITTEE REPORT

Paddling Trips for 2007 – The NH AMC Paddlers offered over 100 trips. Several additional trips were only announced in our weekly e-mail messages to all paddlers. Most of the schedule was made up of day trips, however, we also offered multi day and multi week trips. Trips ranged from  touring on flat and moving water, class 2 thru class 4 whitewater-canoe, kayak & raft, and sea kayaking.

Membership – A recent ratings list has a total of 236 rated paddlers for whitewater from class II to class IV. We have a roster of 1800 interested paddlers that are both AMC members and non-AMC members who receive our weekly e-mail messages. 

Education – We are focused on encouraging and building up our leaders. We have scheduled  several leadership training classes in four areas of the state. Over the next year we are hoping to increase the number of rated trip leaders and the number of trips being offered.  We plan to do this with focused training sessions, training incentives, rewards and much appreciation.

We have scheduled a SOLO Wilderness First Aid Class and a CPR class.

We held a Basic Safety and Rescue workshop. This is a single day course targeted at paddlers with class II skills and above. It teaches paddlers how to rescue themselves and other paddlers during the most common problem situations that develop on whitewater rivers. 

We held an Advanced  Swiftwater Rescue Workshop drawing from our own ACA certified staff. This is a single day course targeted at paddlers with class III skills and above. It teaches paddlers  additional skills and techniques used in more difficult rescue or recovery situations.

Almost forty students completed our three-day introductory/class II whitewater school in April. Due to impending severe weather for Sunday, the river trip was postponed. We finished the training of the students on various scheduled trips later that Spring.

Communications – We published only one WrapAround newsletter so far this year. We distribute it online so as to defer the cost of printing and mailing.  Another one is being planned.

We send out weekly e-mail notices to all members with any announcements and trip schedules.

We held two semiannual pot luck supper (fall and spring) meetings for about 40 or so of our members at each event to share sub committee reports, get input and listings for trips and have folks have an opportunity to learn about and share information re their excursions, expeditions and their on going love for paddling.

We have begun to use the online trip listing offered on the AMC website and hope to eventually tie those posts to our own weekly emails and to the trip listings on the NH AMC Paddlers website.

We have created a business card for our group as well as a professionally designed and printed brochure to be given to people that we meet who show an interest in paddling.

Projects –Wednesday Evening Paddling Program spearheaded by Paul Berry with the help of other dedicated NH AMC Paddlers volunteers…With the purchase of new recreational kayaks  this year, we established a multi week program to provide a conduit for new members to experience paddling on lakes and mild rivers with the NH AMC.  Initially, a six week trial period was implemented. This soon expanded due to the obvious paddler interest. To date, about 140 people have participated as new or repeat  paddlers. Several more weeks have been added as of this writing.  We view this program as a huge success and expect to build on it for next year.    Note:  This same new equipment was used for Chapter Activities Day in May and was again very helpful in providing a way to get old and new members interested in paddling with our club.

Dragonfly Project - This year, when the Amoskeag Fishways sent out a call for help for canoe training, members of our club, as well as members of the Merrimack River Watershed Council, participated in the canoe paddling training of a group of girls from Girls Inc. of Manchester to help them in a scientific study of dragonflies along the shores of the Merrimack River. This was a multi week program in partnership with the Audubon Society.

Adaptive Paddling Program - For the next paddling season we are now looking into the feasibility of implementing an Adaptive Paddling Program for people with disabilities.  The focus of our efforts, initially, would be disabled American veterans. We would look for corporate sponsorship as well as within the AMC for help with this project.

John Jenkins and Julia Steed Mawson

Paddling Co-chairs