Slalom decision

Registered Company No 2612775

Halifax Canoe Club has been running slalom events at its club site for over 25 years.

These events have become a regular fixture in the slalom events calendar and have been very successful both in promoting slalom within our club and promoting our club within the region. The events also raise significant funds that support the running of the club and the purchase of equipment etc. They take up a considerable amount of volunteer time and many, many club members and their families have helped to organise and run these events over the years.

The committee would like to express their gratitude to everyone who has given up their free time to make these slaloms so successful.

Over recent years the events have become increasingly difficult to run at the present site, and concerns have been expressed by various members of the committee over the past year about whether our site is still an appropriate site from which to run such events. One of the main concerns has been the lack of space to accommodate both the needs of the residents of the mill complex and those of the visiting paddlers. We have no parking facilities at the site, and very little room to store the 100 plus boats that come to each event. With this in mind, and after much discussion, the committee has decided our club site is no longer a site at which it is viable to continue running these events. And so, the Sowerby Bridge Slalom competitions will be discontinued until such a time as a suitable alternative site can be located or improvements have been made to our facilities on the river. Slalom training will continue, supported by Les and Sarah on a Wednesday evening.

However, on a positive note, in not running these events we are now left with a great deal of volunteer time that can be used for other events and activities, and discussions are currently afoot about how we can make the best use of this time , kindly supplied by club members, that makes the club such a success.

Already ideas have been put forward such as:- running an event at the river Washburn, including the possibility of hiring a white water raft; moving the enrolment day to earlier in the year so we can increase the length of the summer courses; organising more river trips in the summer to support beginners and improving paddlers.

There are a number of ideas that are currently being considered and if you have any thoughts or suggestions please feel free to contact any member of the committee to discuss them.

Many thanks,

Peter Face, Keith O’Hara, Mandy Spry, Les Ford, Sarah Ford, Simon Spencer, Rob Acheson, Jess Acheson, Damien Coll (Dig), Lois Young, Craig Jowett, Victoria Bradford, Cliff Speight, Roger Blanchard