This letter was sent to Tim@stornowaycanoes.

Dear SCA

We, the committee of Stirling Canoe Club, would like to bring to you attention some of the problems that our Club is currently facing due to the recent changes in the coaching scheme.

We as a Club have always been able to provide at least two outdoor trips on river or Loch every month but since the summer we have been unable to set up any coach led trips. The reason for this is a complete lack of coaches. All our aspirant coaches have decided against progressing with their coaching programmes. Most of our senior coaches have decided against providing coaching led trips for the Club and some of our most senior coaches have not renewed their SCA membership and are no longer eligible to coach. Some of our coaches have told us that the only reason they have renewed their membership with the SCA this year is to allow them to continue with the competitive aspects of the sport

Some of us on the committee have been involved with Stirling Canoe Club since it was formed and we are very concerned about the number of coaches who have stopped coaching and are unwilling to switch over to the new system. They have told us how completely dissatisfied they are with the new coaching scheme. Never in the 19 years history of our Club have we been so short of active coaches.

 We can see no future improvement so long as the present scheme remains unchanged.  It has been suggested that we will have to stop taking on junior members as we can no longer offer them any coaching and no one will be willing to accept responsibility for them.  We are aware that other Clubs who are competitively based will continue to introduce young people to the sport but this will be to the exclusion of the vast majority of paddlers who are non competitive and are only interested in the recreational aspect of the sport and who have previously joined Clubs like ours to get a grass roots start.

The future looks bleak for our Club and we are sure that we are not the only Scottish Club to be experiencing these problems. We think that it is time for the SCA to find out what problems other Clubs are experiencing and we suggest organising a meeting with Scottish Clubs and the SCA to find out what can be done to preserve what we have in Scotland before it is too late.

Yours faithfully,

Jean Campbell,  Wullie Gardiner, Drew Milroy,  Chris Redmond,  Gavin Shedden,  Chris Tickner, James Wardlaw and Niall Williamson

The Committee of Stirling Canoe Club.