Community matters to Newbury Canoe Club
- jubsiejr
- Jun 3
- 2 min read
NCC offers a diversity of ways to paddle and whilst some favour competitive racing in the K1/2 boats, there is also a community that prefer the more leisure and adventure paddling. As the Waterside series is now a distant memory for this year, the spring brings its NCC members into the community in other ways and having a lot of fun!
Over the last couple of weekends you will have seen them supporting both the Newbury Duck race, doing their bit in helping keep the Kennet and Avon free from litter, and teaching people how to paddle safely with their summer courses.
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Lions Club Duck Race
Wednesday nights you will find a group of plastic paddlers enjoying the mid-week longer daylight hours and on Sunday 25th May they were assisting the Lions club in their annual duck race in rounding up the hoards and rescuing any lost ducklings. No ducks were harmed in the process of this race!
A huge thank you to you and your fellow Canoe Club members for the Duck Race support yesterday, the event was a total success with all tickets sold to enable more requests for charitable donations to be supported. Kind Regards, Drew
It was really quite fascinating how the swans gathered together in response. The ducks naturally found themselves caught where the flow is the slowest and the swans normally hang out, and took the kayakers to encourage them along.
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Big Paddle Clean-up
Last week the local Newbury Canoe Club held a canal cleanup as part of the Big Paddle Cleanup (sponsored by Paddle UK), held nationally. 10 members of the club paddled eastwards along the canal from the club house as far as Bull’s Swing Bridge. It was a gorgeous day to be out on the water and paddling alongside the banks seeing so many damselflies out as well as young ducklings.
They managed to find:
3 yellow tennis balls
1 wooden spatula
A plastic chilly bin with lid
1 mop bucket
Wine bottles
Beer cans
A large soggy tent with metal frame
A thermarest
1.5m twisted Iron bar
1 yellow traffic cone
1 semi drowned mouse that hopefully will survive...
About 2 small bin bags of rubbish
One member, Blake Ludwig, had this to say:
“These clean-ups are a vital part of preserving our River and Canal's health and not only helps the water to flow more freely - it also helps remove any possible contaminants to the water and wildlife.”
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Paddle course's
Our course season is now under way. If anyody is interested in giving SUPS or kayaks a go visit the home page of our website where you can sign up for a course. As a club we endorse safe paddling and anybody who wants to get on the water in the summer months should really consider the safety of themselves and others by learning how to handle their craft and understanding the potential hazards the waters can bring.
