Two years ago I attended my first Whitewater Symposium at ASCI in Maryland.  There were many firsts that weekend, primarily:  a first fore into the public eye for World Kayak, my first symposium and my first artificial park.  All three firsts played a significant role in my view of the current status of the WW community.  We had a profoundly worried feel back then, numbers shown at presentations all seemed negative, the ‘how do we pull ourselves out of this hole’ discussions happened across the board.  But what really stuck with me was the metaphor that the whitewater center in ASCI portrayed… winds of change, new opportunity.  World Kayak was that other new element… eyes turned, interests became conversation … but no one really knew what to expect.  I told myself, and others, that the next symposium will be a good marker for how far World Kayak progresses.

The good news is that, thanks to all who have joined us in our programs and efforts, we have seen huge effect.  This year’s symposium showed just how much.  Symposium gave, as promised, World Kayak and all of the participants that opportunity to step back and see what their efforts produced.  Through that exercise the Symposium was an amazing center of positive overview and encouragement to the future.  One you all should not miss next time round. 

So.  What was World Kayaks position going in after two years?  Check it…

The importance of POSITIVE
For the past 2 years World Kayak has endeavoured to make a POSITIVE impact on communities.  Our studies recently showed that 70% of new paddlers surveyed came into our sport via a friend, relative or workmate.  That’s HUGE!  This means… what WE think of our sport as WW paddlers is what sells our sport.  If we are bummed about our whitewater lifestyle, negative or not ‘enthusiastic’, we portray that clearly to non-paddlers. 

• In the past few months we have seen very negative leading articles in Outside, Canoe/Kayak and Rapid… the ‘poor us’ approach is bumming us out… lets stop feeling sorry for ourselves!
• We continue to see brutal flame wars at the boaterboards… typically you can find a flame on every page (try it… cool challenge for ya). Blogs and facebook tend to be 100% positive…
• There continues to be heat amongst our disciplines (playboaters vs river runners etc.).  That’s changing with our throwdowns/slalom survivors etc.
• some events are having difficulty for any number of reasons… volunteer core diminishing, comps are too complex etc.

In a nutshell, many of our regions seemed to be bummed.  When ‘Joe from accounting’ goes to work on Monday morning the question I ask is “is Joe portraying POSITIVE in regards to his whitewater community’?  If not, who in their right mind would want to be a part of that community.  If Joe from accounting returns to work Monday morning bragging about how much fun he had that weekend on the river that would certainly garner more attention from his non-paddling buddies.  More importantly, Joe from accounting is trusted.  No matter what images of whitewater his non-paddling workmates have (waterfalls etc.), you will find them saying “if Joe can do it, so can I…:”  There is a certain trust built up that allows Joe to walk people into whitewater more effectively than media, kayak school marketing and any other form of gateway to our sport.

Our goal then needs to be ensuring that ALL our whitewater communities are POSITIVE and active!  That has been World Kayak’s goal for 2 years now.

Making Communities Positive
There are many things we can do to make things positive.  Positive is actually easy to attain.  The difficulty is pushing the postive into regions with history of negative.  Every region is different and with the help of World Kayak Ambassadors, we get to peek into each region and gauge what is needed to make things more groovy for the paddler.  Many times throwing in a Hometown Throwdown or Slalom Survivor set up and an invitation for everyone to participate does wonders.  We’ve seen ages old kayak school owners finally come to the same event and play on a wave or run a slalom race together.  We’ve seen families joining boaters supporting them as they work towards their first blunt.  Our NO WINNERS / prizes for participating only mentality has encouraged the barriers between local ‘pro’ boaters and rec boaters to come down in a crash.  On top of that, 3 or 4 average Joe boater events on a wave in the region makes that one pro event easier to take for us rec paddlers.  Tag on some video premieres, great photo and video coverage of the region’s events and we’re getting together as a community much more.  This year some of our ambassadors tacked on a ‘Give Back’ program where funds were raised for a local charity or a river clean up was staged.  This proved to gel the communities together even more. 

On the web we saw HUGE traffic watching our Throwdowns and the Pro events we covered.  RODEO IS NOT DEAD… we had over 1 million visitors to our coverage posts this summer.  Our blog approach, alongside kayakmind.com kinda facebook approach leads to more responsible discussions on the web.  When you post, it stays with you… so no one is posting negative rants or insults at all.  More importantly the boater is showing all their non-boating friends some great positive content on the web… instead of negative stuff like we see at some forums, Joe the accountant is talking about positive stuff at work, home etc.

Now we’re not saying these things heal all wounds, but with our ambassadors building the events and inviting EVERYONE without exception, positive web coverage of our sport we get to play Switzerland and be that catalyst for fun, positive community activity. 

The POSITIVE influence at this year’s Symposium
There were a number of great metaphors for positive action at this year’s symposium… all of them inspired and are leaders by example.  I can’t name them all one by one, but I’d like to highlite some who stood out for me.

Sam Drevo- Well, Sam is up to his proverbial ying yang in positive action.  His efforts in Portland participating in and recording the demolitions of dams, his activity with 350.org and Andrew Maser’s RiverofAction.com, his setting up a Team Riverrunner satellite in Portland all show his initiative and drive to be a positive influence on his community.  His efforts have brought great pride to the whitewater boaters in the region and that pride translates to positive attention to our sport… and growth

Team Riverrunner- Speaking of enthusiasm, listening to Lucas, a Iraq Vet, speak of his miraculous recovery, positive energy in retrofitting a paddle blade for his damaged arm, his crossing into our sport and the sheer glee (yes, glee) he gets out of kayaking is infectious!  Joe Mornini, Kim Johnson and Sam Drevo are onto something absolutely amazing here.  Their invitation for all kayak clubs, schools and instructors to help set something similar up in their region NEEDS to be listened to!  Remember that satisfaction you felt teaching your first roll… when that student rolled up with that look of ‘I DID IT!’ on their faces… that feeling Joe, Kim and Sam get CONTINUALLY…. super positive!

Joe Jacobi – Being Canadian I remember Joe from the Olympics probably because he beat one of my buds, but as a kayak school owner etc, I kept hearing of him though the years pretty consistently.  Joe has found a niche as a voice of today’s American whitewater TV exposure… and its a GREAT thing he is!  This past week I found out why.  Positive.  Joe quite simply doesn’t want the negative.  He surrounds himself with friend after friend … all of whom are super positivein action and character.  That’s the way Joe likes it, that what motivates him and the end result is one AMAZINGLY positivewhitewater figurehead and leader!  As he wanders our mainstream media’s airwaves his positivism (new word) makes our sport attractive to everyone who watches and listens to him.  I truly enjoyed the beer Joe… cheers.

Jesse Stone- Take many of the elements described above, toss them onto the table and combine it with a huge smile and you have Jesse Stone.  Being an international destination kinda guy, Jesse’s work in Uganda was on my radar already, but the depth of what she does in NY and elsewhere is truely impressive.  At every step of her life she askes one question ‘How can I give back?’ What can you say more… positive! Remember every day we align our sport with charitable initiative the more we grow as individuals and the more our sport grows as a positive role model.  We can all learn from Jesse by keeping the goal of giving back in mind in everything we do.

Rob Terry – Rob is a relative new comer to our merry band of industry mover’s and shakers… but a key one in my opinion.  Hes a long time instructor, but, more importantly, he’s been studying EDUCATION and educational theory for years!  For many generations we have been teaching ‘what’ to teach on the river.  Very little effort has been paid towards ‘how’ to teach.  If you think about it, many of us kayak instructors, canoe instructors take a couple of years of instruction to ‘get’ the nuances of teaching.  Tricks in what to say, how to present skills to students, recognizing the barriers that come to certain students and how to ease students around those stopping points etc… Rob teaches JUST that… so when you or your teaching staff get on the river, you have a full armery of teaching skills that help you across the barriers of instruction.  His stuff is amazing and can get you and your staff immediately to higher success rate… super important because the more effective you are in converting a non-boater to a boater the better.  AKA… if you’re a kayak school… hire Rob for your next instructor training session!!!!!

Eric Jackson- Quick question:  How many of you came back from Symposium this year high-fiving and saying “AWESOME!”?  I know I did.  The positive influence on my life I think is obvious, mostly to my friends and family.  For the last 3 years it’s due to hanging with EJ, Kristine, the JK family and my buddy Colin Kemp. But at symposium he had everyone grinning and enthused! His feedback and discussion always started with his trademarked and sincere ”that’s awesome what your doing” and ended in constructive input.  I think we’re all starting to get why his first logo is a smilie face.  EJ and I put an exclamation point on the weekend with stupidity in a Dynamic Duo having a blast … slamming into immovable pillow rocks, rock spinning and boofing (with paddle twirls) down the Zoar Gap.  His positive is infectious… and it was on high beam all weekend.  Cheers EJ…. er… sorry bout the photo Heather ;-|

Bob Campbell, Bruce Lessels, Kent Ford- “We know that it will only get better” is pretty much why these guys push for a Symposium year after year.  The amount of positiveenergy that has to be employed to do a symposium is daunting… even for a positive guy like me.  EJ said it best in a recent email… “getting all of us together year after year is like herding cats”.  On top of that, logistics etc. were a proverbial nightmare.  Bruce and Janet had the amazing Zoar Outdoor staff smiling the whole way through as they set up everything from a trade show to on-water logistics for many groups at a time.  World Kayak has promised to help in a big way next year and we will… but it is your positive spirit that is and will always be behind this key event for our industry.

Attracting Non-paddlers to our Positive Communities
Once we have more and more fun going on, our community members return to their work places and homes etc. and naturally chat up a storm.  That gateway continues to be key.  But World Kayak and many others at the symposium this year have noted that there are many other gateways we can count on to grow our sport that are not being full deployed.  This is GREAT news!  It means the sky’s the limit!

In one of my presentations I coined a phrase:  “kick at the can”.  Skiing, swimming and many other sports have MANY kicks at the can to attract non-participants.  Whitewater typically has only one, maybe two.  Skiing as an example exposes non-skiers to their programming many times a lifetime:

1) Parents take kid skiing at age 5
2) Primary school ski day trip (including 1 hour lesson)
3) Highschool girlfriend/peer pressure may turn into another trip
4) Municipal run program, ski day, gets entire town skiing
5) University ski days, activities

All in all, skiing has many ‘kicks at the can’ to get us participating as an enthusiast.  Our municipal recreation magazines are full of opportunity… kayaking should become yet another mainstay opportunity at all levels of our society.

We need more kicks at the can in whitewater… and the good news is that there are MANY more opportunities to show off our sport… many more kicks at the can.  Here are some I mentioned in various presentations over last weekend:

• Municipal programs – getting into pools alongside swimming lessons
• Camp programs – not really hard to get WW kayaks into a kids camp
• Free – try a WW kayak day – all it takes is a beach/pool a hand full of instructors and some kayaks folks can try.  It’s hands on, super easy and doesn’t cost $500 and rentals.  Get butts in boats!
• School programs – we see more and more great scholastic programs that hook from gym class, to a family day, to a kayak lesson
• Boy/Girl scouts – working with regional, national and international scouting movement to get WW integrated fully (badges?)
• Cross marketing to other sports – ski pass includes a discounted weekend clinic, add WW kayak lessons to the swimming progressions (like diving) as a natural offshoot.
• Kayak polo as a segway – we saw one club go to 500 members in a year!
• Specialty programs – Team Riverrunner is a good example.

There are so many ways to get this growing but we need to present the opportunities we have to everyone.  World Kayak will be doing so in 2010 by doing the research and creating models of how you can grow our sport… as an individual, instructor, school or club.  Kayakeducation.com will host these great new models in 2010 as we launch our educational initiatives full boar.  We will be welcoming all instructors, schools and clubs to join in and participate in the building of these models for all to try world-wide.

Welcoming new Kayakers to our Sport
One thing skiing does is it ensures that all new skiers have the opportunity to learn the sport through formal education.  36% of our paddlers interviewed learned kayaking through a friend.  Only 33% learned through formal classes.  At first glance and with the bravado of a paddler, we shrug.  But in talking with the skiing world, they make sure that even on free school demo days, first time skiers get a lesson for free… why? Because if they go back and try again and they fail to stand up, most will say “damn, I should have gone for a full lesson”.  In whitewater, when our friends learn from us and have that bad experience they say “this isn’t the sport for me”.  This eliminates a full kick at the can.  We need to give our educators a chance to teach them right.  Having a demo day with an instructor will go a long way to ensuring that those new kayakers who fail the first try, try it again with a kayak school or qualified instructor.

To this end, 2010 will see an effort by WK to help encourage formal education.  We are doing this by showing kayak schools, clubs and instructors the best practice in all they do.  Our Kayakeducation.com portal will play host to a growing list of standards that offer suggested ways of running their business… based on models being tried successfully around the world.  This source will be chalk full of suggested best practice for admin, marketing, sales, customer support and course delivery… to name a few.  It will be built by the community as a whole who will be invited to join in on a blog-based conversation aimed at being one big global brainstorm for all us whitewater educators to benefit from.

Encouraging Skills Development and Further Enthusiasm
For the average paddler this process will also mean the introduction of a new World Kayak Grading system.  This system, much like the martial arts system of belts, will be set to gauge your levels at a number of disciplines in whitewater, specifically:

• river running skills
• playboating skills
• river safety and rescue skills
• community activity

This program is aimed at continual skills development and will encourage paddlers to try it all… river running, creek, playboating, slalom, C1 etc … you name it.  There is a LOT of fun to be had.  We hope to motivate you to try new things, new rivers and get your levels of fun super high as you do so.  World Kayak will be setting up a series of evaluation points through out the regions we are established in, inviting key instructors and schools to participate and getting as many badges out there in the summer of 2010 as possible. 

Letting the Positive Flow!
This symposium was key to all the above theoretical and practical results for World Kayak.  It was the catalyst for new thought in our organization and the confirmation that we’re on the right track.  I must have taled to each and every one of the participants this year and have enjoyed the fact that they all were positive about our future as a sport.  To keep your organization as positive as possible I strongly recommend you join us next time.  As you can tell I have walked away absolutely pumped about our sport and how my organization should go about its next phase… That HAS to be a perfect result for an event like this.  Your company should have had the same result… so … don’t miss it next year!

Congrats again to Bob, Bruce, Kent and all of those who lead this thing with positive attitudes. 

Cheers,

James.