The Big Paddle

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Chris McDaid
Posts: 169
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:35 pm

The Big Paddle

Post by Chris McDaid » Wed May 08, 2019 9:41 pm

All,

A message from the organisers of The Big Paddle............

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: It is with regret that our Organising Committee have come to the decision to postpone The Big Paddle until next summer 2020. This decision was not taken likely as we know that a lot of people have invested massive time, energy and enthusiasm into the project.

From the inception of this project, our primary aim has been to bring together the Irish Sea Kayaking Community and to create something that would leave a positive legacy. We believe firmly that can still happen.

No stone was left unturned in our effort to secure insurance at an acceptable and workable price. While we did not manage get insurance in place for our scheduled date in August, we do sincerely believe that it is achievable. It will take movement, compromise and creative thinking to get the insurance across the line. We have two major parties that do want to insure the event but they have both placed stipulations on us that are not workable to make this years timeline and we need to get them both to work together with us in the coming months and negotiate a more palatable outcome for the Big Paddle.

Thankfully the work completed to date will not be lost. The safety, risk management and operating procedures will all be in place for next year. The website design and construction while not launched is there ready to go. Our decisions on sponsorship and nominated charities will stand for next year too. The networking and the establishment of regional teams and committed paddlers we hope will hold through to next year and that the hundreds of sea kayakers will remain onboard for 2020.

We want to apologize to all those who scheduled their Summer and annual leave around the Big Paddle. People traveling home from abroad for the Big Paddle will no doubt be disappointed. Or those turning down opportunities on the understanding that they would clash with the Big Paddle will feel somewhat disappointed too. To everyone, we apologize for letting them down for now.

Our committee and Regional Organisational Officers sincerely hope that all paddlers will maintain the support and confidence in the project and us.

The Big Paddle is postponed but definitely not cancelled!

As a committee, we will need to keep our network together and work collectively to spread this message. Hopefully at some stage over the summer we will manage to meet up and ensure that a bigger and better event will evolve. Our aim is to have the insurance issue resolved by September at the latest so that we can present a definitive package for the event to everyone at the ISKA Symposium and to make use of winter training opportunities

The Big Paddle will happen in 2020.

Thank you for your support

The Big Paddle Team

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