Whitewater Leadership starter course

**Trip is weather and leader availability dependent**

*Number of participants is limited based on instructor availability*

This is the first of our internal whitewater training courses as outlined in the draft 'Little book of paddling'.

The rough plan for the trip is to drive up to the campground on Friday evening after work, train on the Goulburn all day Saturday, then finish up anything needed at the Goulburn Sunday morning before returning to Melbourne via a Warrandyte run on Sunday afternoon. It will probably cost around $80-100

The intent of this course is to train attendees to be able to organise, assist leading, and guide rafts or kayaking safely and competently on grade 2 rivers. If you want to lead whitewater kayaking trips then you will also need to complete the kayaking leader starter course to ensure that you have that knowledge.

This course will teach you the technical skills required to do so, with a successful completion meaning that you will be able to start being an assisstant leader on trips.

However, after completing this course you will then need to organise/lead on several trips in order to show that you can properly implement the skills you have learnt, have gained sufficient experience and shown appropriate decision making and group and risk management skills across a range of conditions in order to be checked off to be a Trip Leader, and this be able to start running and leading your own trips.

To attend this course you will need to have some previous paddling experience, ideally at least 3 trips, including one in whitewater. The number of participants is limited depending on how many leaders we have to instruct. Preference will be given to participants who have been on more club trips and have more experience.

You will also need to have attended the whitewater safety theory session and one of the throwbagging sessions or have equivalent knowledge.

This course is the first step in the whitewater leader progression system. After being checked off, you will be eligible to attend further training, and go on more technically challenging trips. Some of the skills that will be covered in this course includes (but is not limited to):

• Self rescue swimming
• Throwbag rescues in a grade 2 rapid
• Wading (individual and group)
• Using and handling different types of whitewater boats
• Guiding and managing a raft crew
• Teaching basic whitewater paddling techniques (ferry gliding, breaking in and out of eddies etc.)

Prepayment is partially required as we will be staying at a caravan park (yay for warm showers at the end of Saturday), and the remaining cost will be sorted at the end of the trip as per normal. This deposit will be the $40 for the accommodation, with another 30-60 for the usual trip costs depending on car pool etc.

In terms of gear - this is a leader training trip so I won't be detailing all the gear, as you should be capable of recognising what gear is needed and organising it for yourself. A rough breakdown of gear would be:

• camping gear
• personal paddling gear including PPE
• appropriate clothing and layers (note we will be spending a lot of time in the water, so be prepared for that)
• food and drinks etc (the plan will be to go to the Corner Hotel in Alexandra for tea saturday night)
• kayak and kayaking gear (let me know what boat you need and I will organise transport centrally, together with the rafts and rafting gear)
• any whitewater rescue gear you have (I will bring a supply of throwbags to be used)

If you have any queries then please get in touch.
Cheers
Michael