After two years hard work by the Sea Kayak Award Review Group with support from the Canoeing Ireland Training and Development Unit, we are delighted to bring you news of the upcoming launch of the updated Canoeing Ireland Sea Skills awards.
Phase one includes important and welcome repositioning of the Level 1 to 4 Sea Skills awards. These will come into effect this May Bank Holiday weekend. In advance of this we are hosting a series of free nationwide workshops. These “Focussed Professional Development” weekends are a great way for Sea Kayaking Instructors to gain support in how best to teach and utilise the new and updated awards. The first of these takes place this weekend in Roundstone, Co. Galway.
There two more weekends scheduled in Cork and Dublin in April and May, details of which can be found here –
Chairperson of the Sea Kayak Award Review Group, Jon Hynes, commented on the imminent launch
“We are thrilled to arrive at this point, my fellow group members have worked tirelessly to create a series of awards that we believe will serve the needs of Irish Sea Kayakers. In particular the modularised approach to the teaching and assessing of the Level 1 Discovery, Level 2 Peer, Level 3 Explorer and Level 4 Adventure Sea Skills awards will appeal to many paddlers.”
Our aim is that the empowerment of Level 2 & 3 Sea Kayak Instructors to teach and assess Level 1 Discovery and Level 2 Peer Sea Skills awards will create much stronger entry points to the sport.
Work on Phase 2 is well underway, and this will focus on 3 elements – A new and updated Level 5 Horizon Sea Skills award, a Sea Kayak Club Leader system of awards, and finally updates to Sea Kayak instructor awards.
We wish everyone great success with these welcome updates to enhance the enjoyment of these vibrant awards and have no doubt it will create an even safer experience for paddlers on the water.
A special thank you to the members of the Sea Kayak Award Review Group who have brought this work together, their voluntary work to create this updated scheme is greatly appreciated by Canoeing Ireland and its members. The group consists of Sue Honan, Craig Keyworth, Mick Carroll, Shane McElligott and Jon Hynes.
