Help Monasterevin Blueway Kayaking Club

***** Please support us to help ensure the continued growth of our club *****

Hello,

we are Monasterevin Blueway Kayaking Club.

We aim to be an inclusive kayaking club for the entire community of Monasterevin and immediate surrounds.

We were formed in 2019 to take advantage of our fantastic water amenities here in the town and since then a core group have been busy building the club for the benefit of the local community with the aim of opening up general membership. We've put a lot of work in to get to this point. As well as building up our kayaking skills we have undertaken courses such as child safeguarding, inclusivity training, river safety rescue, rescue emergency care level 3 and others. Much of this was funded out of our own pockets but we're all happy enough with that as it will be worth it in the end.

COVID19 put a big dent in our plans but it's all happening now. We have a number of that original core group training as new instructors and in just the last few weeks we have taken delivery of 2 containers and a number of starter kayaks, paddles, wetsuits, helmets, buoyancy aids etc (a big thankyou to our donors, particularly Kildare Sports Partnership and Waterways Ireland, for their support). We have finally been able, with what equipment we have, to run some taster sessions for the community over the last few weeks and they were very well received by all. We really enjoyed taking these people out on the water, most of whom had never kayaked before. I think it's fair to say that the taster sessions were enjoyed by all and we will probably have a good lot of future members from that cohort.

At the moment we are limited by ratios of instructors to students, so unfortunately not everybody who wanted to come out on a taster session could, and it also means we can't take on as many members as we would like, but we are training up instructors so that we can take even more people out, and in time hopefully some of those people may become instructors themselves and they will train more people etc.  We want the club to be self-sustaining, run by local people for the benefit of local people.

We need to kit out our containers with racking to ensure our new equipment is stored in a safe way (proper restraints for boats so they don't fall over on anyone), proper racking for wetsuits so they last well, install proper ventilation to avoid damp in the container, purchase various necessary pieces of kit for the boats e.g. footrests, bungs (screw holes to let water out for beginners etc). We also want to install proper flooring in the containers, add a decking area between them, maybe a shelter between them etc.  We would like to purchase some river boats for when new members advance past still water.  And as numbers increase we also need some more safety equipment for the club and for new instructors to ensure everyone has an enjoyable and safe paddle.  

With your help we will get there. If you can at all, please support us. We understand that people already have many financial demands on them, but we can promise that any money donated will be spent wisely and for the benefit of all future members.

Finally, we thought it would be appropriate to undertake some specific task in return for your support, so on the 18th of September we set out to paddle from Monasterevin to Athy which is a distance by water of about 24km. For anyone who did the recent taster sessions you will understand how long this distance is in a kayak. We are please that we successfully completed it.  It took us just over 5 hours of solid paddling and our arms were quite tired afterwards! But we were happy to do it to show you that we mean business and that we really do appreciate your support.

Thankyou,

Monasterevin Blueway Kayaking Club
https://www.facebook.com/MonasterevinBluewayKayakingClub