So I am back in the coaching game, albeit in a limited and distributed way. Edith and I had some chats about ways to bring more people into our club, so over the winter she and her partner Cory developed a new club website and facebook page. We formalized the club programmings, especially on Wednesday nights where we now have a structured  sessions with learning objectives and mentors paired with new folks.
This is a bit of a departure for me, having come from flatwater kayak which has a professional coaching culture, and athletes are used to being told what to do by folks who know in a structured setting. God bless Mike Vincent who explained this difference to me in my first months doing marathon “you might be used to that, but get used to figuring it out for yourself now, this is a mentoring culture”. We have advertised the new structure and the first Wednesday night session last week (single digit temperatures) had 8 boats out.  I think that is as many as we had out in July last year!  Here’s hoping we can grow these new folks into keen paddlers and maybe next year they can be the mentors.  🙂
recruiting
That’s so cool – I wish I could swing by for one of those sessions. When it is T-shirt time mind you 🙂