Below is our 2024 Annual Report which will provide details about our funding, expenses, and the state of our club. We are grateful to the support from our community which has enabled us to be on sound and solid footing.
Board Meeting Minutes
Report from Board Secretary, Drew Story on September 2, 2024:
Nationals & Competition
We had a very successful trip to Lake Lanier for Nationals last week, with the club earning roughly 18 medals in all. Gus Peterson, a Masters athlete and Ventura club member from the 70s and 80s, came to race with us traveling from San Jose by himself and was our high point winner with at least 4 gold medals to his credit.
Our U14 athlete had his first Nationals and earned a bronze medal in the K4 with athletes from Washington Canoe Club, San Diego Canoe and Kayak Team, and Seattle Canoe Club. The U14 / Bantam men’s kayak had about 30 competitors at the regatta and our athlete was clearly one of the more successful ones. He had a couple of other close races with two 4th places and a 6th place in the 1000m single. More importantly, he learned a great deal and had a positive race experience. We’re very proud of his hard work and improvement and hope he will be able to make the Olympic Hopes Regatta team next year.
All three coaches raced and performed well, each completing the 5k distance races too despite temperatures at or near 100 degrees. We shared space (and boats) with the Washington Canoe Club who were extremely welcoming and helpful. We hope to provide them with similar creature comforts and hospitality when the races are on the west coast next August.
WCC also offered us a double canoe (C2) that is in good condition and of a modern design for only $1000. This was an offer made to our club only and was an exceptionally good price. I jumped on this opportunity and the boat is being trailered to the Seattle area now and will go from there to either Petaluma or San Diego with whichever club from these California locales can make room for it. I expect to pay about another $300 for trailer fees which should be no problem given the club’s bank account still has a healthy $5,000+ in funds.
The club will be racing in Newport Beach on October 19th for “The Off Da Couch Race” and hope to get every club member to come and race. It’s a good race experience and the Newport Aquatic Center gives everyone an idea of what a real boathouse and aquatic center can be like.
Club Membership / Health of the Program
Our overall membership is about the same as it was a year ago. We have added two adults, and at three additional youth paddlers. All are 14 or younger, athletic, and coachable; nice kids with supportive parents. One of our 2nd year paddlers has been out injured all summer with a shoulder issue, and now a broken wrist, and I doubt we will have him return. Without more experienced paddlers to paddle in a larger group, it’s hard to safely have a larger number of beginners given we don’t have a coaching boat and need to keep the entire club together.
Honestly, it’s difficult to know what more I could do to get youth involved. Adults have been easier to attract but are far more difficult to train — they show up with less consistency and take longer to learn to balance our boats. They are in many ways permanent beginners. Adults are also less interested in competition, which is an important part of the club’s mission. As such, I’ve started turning away adults where I already have strong doubts about their success or understanding of what’s involved. (For example, 70+ year olds who have never paddled but want to come “give it a try.”) After speaking to every PE class at Cabrillo, we got one paddler to come down for a week of classes, and then only ghost us.
There are only a few clubs with boat houses, good equipment, and coaches in the United States. Two of these, Oklahoma River Sport and Lanier Canoe & Kayak, still struggle to get their programs going. Lanier’s coaching staff have nearly all resigned after they managed to win the high point trophy at the Nationals this summer, and ORS could barely field a team at all this summer. It’s pretty clear that sprint paddling is a sport that requires a certain type of athlete; ones that want something that is difficult and challenging. Without a critical mass of friends to interact with, and with no local competitions to spark interest, I’m not sure if our club will ever be more than a handful of athletes.
Paying for Facebook and Instagram ads has been the largest source of interest and success for membership, which is not ideal really as Meta isn’t where our target audience is likely found. The Parks and Rec Department showed a bit of interest but really only wanted us to be a sampler of water sports, and with a huge time investment; it wasn’t a good fit. The Boy Scouts were similar and after watching what they do already, I was worried our club equipment might not survive their involvement. Bill Bragg built the club by being a PE teacher and was able to exploit the use of the Balboa locker rooms for many of us to use after morning practices. He had many other gifts and made many sacrifices that would be hard to replicate. I’m not giving up, just recognizing the challenges we face.
One thing that may help the club is that I am planning to retire fully in January. My work at Patagonia has helped get the club on a good financial footing with matching funds for donations, but hopefully I can devote more time and energy to building the club once I’m no longer spending 30 hours a week (often more) working for Patagonia. When I have more time to work on building the club, hopefully I can find ways to recruit more youth athletes to our club.
Equipment & Finances
The C2 purchased from Washington Canoe Club is now at my home getting some repairs and improvements; it needed some gel coat in places and a new floorboard system. I went to San Diego last Monday to pick it up as it was trailered from Atlanta to Seattle by the Seattle clubs, then picked up by San Diego and brought south. I’m glad we have a trailering network like this and I made some donations to each club that carried the boat and had Patagonia match my donations. Our new canvas covers are working well although we need better elastic ties and have purchased some marine elastic for this purpose. We have over $6000 in funds overall even after the recent equipment purchases.
Board Elections
You three have been our Board members since November of 2018, thank you, thank you, thank you! I never intended to ask you all to serve for six years, even with the pandemic hiatus, you all have been valued and important oversight for the start of this non-profit. I truly can’t thank you enough! We’ll have our club election in December and I’ve got two people who would like to work with the club as Board members — Mary Weathers, and Linda Ross from the Washington Canoe Club. Both have experience with non-profits and oversight. There’s a third person who has expressed some interest in the past in helping the club, but I don’t think this is a “yes” yet. Ed has agreed to stay on as Treasurer.
