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This award is to be run by the OCA, it is BCU approved. Therefore as
long as all participants, trainers and students, remain members of the BCU they
will be covered by BCU insurance whilst participating in this scheme, assuming
they remain within the remit of the award. The central award to this scheme is
the first to be unveiled - the TRIP LEADERS Award. It will give the OCA Open
and Moving Water Leaders and will give those participating a benchmark against
which they may measure their abilities. Three levels are envisaged for the
scheme: that of Tripping Skills 1, The Trip Leaders Award and the Guide's
Award. Each will be progressive in development and will enable the paddler who
wishes to explore the open boat in context to develop a specific skill set that
will enable them to safely conduct unsupported wilderness trips either in the
UK or abroad within the parameters of the award.
For those who wish to compare the award to the BCU Star system each level may
be thought of as sitting in between a star level as follows:
Tripping Skills 1 - 3 Star Plus.
Trip Leaders Award (Tripping Skills 2) - 4 Star Plus.
Guide (Tripping Skills 3) - 5 Star Plus.
Students wishing to participate in the award will be expected to meet the
prerequisites prior to coming forward for assessment or to have undertaken the
appropriate training course. There will be training courses run for each level
of the award just as there are training courses run for each BCU award. No
training will take place during assessments and no students will be assessed by
the individual who conducted their training course. There will be a clear
separation of trainers and assessors to ensure fairness in assessment.
All award levels may be taken as solo or tandem awards. Some Students may not
wish to take the whole award and may feel that they only have an interest in
certain aspects of tripping. Thus they may feel that they only wish to progress
to a certain skill level but not to take the leadership award. This will not
debar them from either the training nor the assessment and they may take the
assessments in a modular fashion. However, any student who wishes to achieve
the leadership endorsement will have to take all sections of the award during a
single assessment regardless of whether they all ready hold log book
endorsements for individual sections of an award or not. The intention is for
paddlers to adopt a pick and mix approach to the award and to weave for
themselves a skill set that matches their abilities and interests, thus as
interests change so may individuals add to their skills. Some examples might
be:
Example A - A keen open water tripper who
wishes to lead on open water only
This paddler is only interested in low level white water but wishes to pursue
an interest in advanced open water conditions. S/he will receive the Tripping
Skills 1 Award and a log book endorsement for Tripping Skills 2 for Open Water
including the leadership endorsement for open water. They will not receive the
full award until they have completed the moving water skills assessment and
leadership assessment for moving water.
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Tripping Skills 1
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Trip Leader
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Guide
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Open water
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X
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X
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Moving water
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X
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Leadership
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N/A
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X
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Example B - A keen white water tripper
This paddler is a keen white water paddler and has the opposite skill set and
interests to Example A. The same conditions will apply to them as apply in
Example A.
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Tripping Skills 1
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Trip Leader
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Guide
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Open water
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Moving water
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X
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X
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Leadership
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N/A
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X
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Example C - The family paddler
This paddler may be termed the family paddler though equally viewed as someone
who simply wishes to develop their own individual skill sets but who has no
wish to take on any leadership responsibilities. They would therefore be
awarded Tripping Skills 1 and logbook endorsements for Tripping Skills 2 but
not the full award, as they have not completed the leadership phase of the
award.
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Tripping Skills 1
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Trip Leader
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Guide
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Open water
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X
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X
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Moving water
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X
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X
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Leadership
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N/A
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TRAINING AND ASSESSMENT PROGRAMME
The first provisional dates for training & assessment are: in 2002: Sep
21-22; Oct 12-13 & 21-22; Nov 9-10 & 16-17; Dec 7-8 & 14-15; in
2003: Jan 4-5 & 11-12. More will follow. To book onto either a training or
assessment course please contact me on 01264 781985 or e-mail
steve_white12000@yahoo.com Demand will dictate which courses are training &
which are assessment.
SUMMARY
This is a new set of awards and being new will almost certainly be subject to
growing pains. That is OK as it is the way of change. Our job as OCA members is
to contribute to this process and to help inform it so that we may take the
award, and ourselves, to where we want to go. We must ensure that we benefit in
the most positive way possible to build a structure that will inform and
provide for the development of canoeing in Britain. That having been said the
award structure will not change for at least the first year if not two - but
during that time it will be subject to review and a revised award will be
established. It is my hope that we never get to the stage where we can sit back
and say that it is finished for that will mean that our sport has stopped
developing and that will be a sad day indeed.
Happy Tripping, wherever your boat may take you.
Steve White
01264 781985
steve_white12000@yahoo.com
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