Welcome to the
Autumn Issue of Canoe Focus
MAKE ALL
TRAILS YOUR
PLAYGROUND
THE NEW SPEEDCROSS 4
How else could I start this introduction
to Autumn Canoe Focus, than by offering
a huge congratulations to Team GB and
our sprint and slalom teams? A special
mention must go to gold medal winners
Joe Clarke K1 and Liam Heath K1 200m
and silver medallists David Florence and
Richard Hounslow C2 and Liam Heath and
Jon Schofield K2 200m. The Rio success
story is featured from page 28. Our six
Paralympians are now raring to go and we
will be loudly cheering them on too, when
their events start on 14 September.
There have been other great successes too during the past
few months and these are featured in our round up section
from page 20; look out for the feature on Hannah Brown,
who became the Wild Water Racing World Champion in the
K1 Women’s Sprint.
Behind any successful athlete there are always a number of
others who contribute to making the success possible. There
will be an immediate team of coaches, support staff, parents
and teammates. Beyond this are those in the clubs who
helped start the journey and other participants in domestic
competitions who provided rivalry and motivation for
improvement. For these domestic competitions to happen
there are a multitude of event organisers and technical
officials who all volunteer their time to British Canoeing.
So, behind every success there is a large team and it is this
sense of team that we need to keep developing to bring even
greater success to British Canoeing.
Of course this success will come in many forms and not
simply be about more medals. We have just released the 2nd
consultation draft of our new strategy for British Canoeing
2017-2021. Visit our web site to take a look and share your
views. The strategy sets out a clear Purpose and Vision for
British Canoeing to inspire a passion for paddlesport, to
strive for excellence in all areas of delivery, to be listening
and responsive, joined up and well organised and to drive
partnerships that can help to deliver and develop the sport in
all its various forms.
15% DISCOUNT *
FOR BRITISH CANOEING MEMBERS
membership growth with better member engagement
and membership services, improving access and places to
paddle, supporting clubs to improve their offer to members,
improving coaching and support to volunteers and much
more. This is a plan for the whole of British Canoeing and I
urge you to take a look.
This issue of Focus superbly illustrates the breadth of our
sport and the many different interests and motivations of
those who paddle. Our ambitious new strategy recognises
this diversity and seeks to create a host of improvements
right across the sport.
It is a strategy based on team - Team British Canoeing. To
deliver our ambitions will require many parts of our sport
(clubs, centres, regions, disciplines, committees, coaches,
volunteers, staff, board to name but a few) to share and
really own the ambitions, to work together towards agreed
action plans, agree roles and responsibilities and to unite to
find those continuous improvements which will lead to a
really great British Canoeing.
I’ve been incredibly heartened by the support for the
emerging strategy; by the enthusiasm of many to embrace
this way of working and the belief that we can make real
progress in so many areas over the next 4 years.
These are exciting times within
British Canoeing.
David Joy
Chief Executive
Sonja Jones
Circumnavigates
Menorca
Read more on page 52
The Youngsters
Targeting Tokyo
and Beyond
Read more on page 62
The strategy is far reaching and sets out 11 challenging
ambitions in areas such as; increasing participation, achieving
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www.britishcanoeing.org.uk
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Only valid on production of your British Canoeing membership card in store or use of discount code online. Offer expires 31.12.16.
Canoe Focus Autumn 2016
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