ACA River Kayak Committee

Welcome David Herpy from Ohio-Penn Division!

Larry Ausley — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:41:36 +0000

The River Kayak Committee welcomes David Herpy, Outdoor Adventure Coordinator for Kent State University as the ACA Ohio-Penn Division’s appointment to the committee.

History note: Venue changes for L3 and L4 skills classes

Larry Ausley — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:25:14 +0000

Just as a history note, at its October 31, 2008 meeting, the SEIC approved a motion (SEIC #102008f) to change the venue of of L3 River Kayaking courses to sections of rivers rated up to class I-II (previously up to class I) and to change the venue of L4 Whitewater Kayaking courses to sections of rivers rated up to class II-III (previously up to class II). The ACA Board of Directors approved these changes 2 days later on November 2, 2008 with motion #09-05.

Keep up with events significant to instructors by watching your email for the monthly SEI Focus newsletter from ACA.

Appointments of Division members invited

Larry Ausley — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:09:43 +0000

The River Kayak Committee has invited ACA Division chairs to make appointments of River Kayak instructors/ITs/ITEs to be Division representatives as allowed by the River Kayak Committee charter. We’ll update our roster as appointments are made. These appointments will be effective until November 1. Representatives may be changed or renewed by their respective Division Chairs at that time.

If there are any Division Chairs we have not yet reached, please contact us with any appointments you’d like to make. We like involvement!

River Kayak Committee commenting on BSA merit badges

Larry Ausley — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:07:31 +0000

The River Kayak Committee has been asked by ACA and the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to comment on and contribute to a review of the BSA Canoeing and Whitewater merit badges by ACA. Preliminary comments will be going to the BSA this week.

River Kayak Report to SEIC March, 2012 meeting

Larry Ausley — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:09:05 +0000

The River Kayak Committee has submitted its committee report to SEIC for the upcoming SEIC meeting in Fredericksburg, VA on Friday, March 9, 2012. All ACA instructors are welcome to attend. See the notice in this month’s SEI Focus newsletter.

In this report, the committee is suggesting draft changes to the committee’s charter that would increase the maximum allowable number of voting members on the committee and subsequently a possible increase in the required voting quorum for voting on business issues of the committee. We believe having at least the ability to maximize instructor participation on the committee strengthens the work and validity of the committee and we are committed to ever enhancing member-instructor participation.

Other ACA discipline committees have proposed similar draft changes to their charters that we will be taking before SEIC in hopes of making all of the discipline charters more consistent. We want River Kayak instructors to play an active role in ACA education and always invite any comments, suggestions or ideas for our future direction.

IT/ITE lists and maps

Larry Ausley — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:11:43 +0000

Kelsey Bracewell with ACA’s SEI office today notified the SEIC that there are now .pdf lists available on the ACA website that should help locate ITs and ITEs in every ACA discipline. Two files, one sorted by Discipline and one sorted by US State, are available on the ACA website and can be selected from this search page by instructors or the general public.

Kelsey indicated that the SEI office is also preparing similar files that will include all ACA instructors, making it that much easier for the public to find paddlesports education near them. We’ll add a new post here when those additional files are available.

To help River Kayak instructors, we have subsampled the ACA .pdf documents and prepared an Excel spreadsheet containing only River Kayak ITs and ITEs. That file can be downloaded here.

In order to visualize that data, we prepared a Google map of River Kayak ITs and ITEs to give a visual overview of where folks are located. The live map can be accessed here.

Let us know if there are additional or different tools that would be useful or if you find any errors in the information presented.

Update: 2/3/12: ACA has added a .pdf list of all international (non-US) ACA instructors, ITs and ITEs in all disciplines. Check it out here.

Update: 2/24/12: ACA has added a .pdf list of all ACA kayak instructors to its website. Download it here. There are .pdfs of other disciplines’ instructors available on this page. River Kayak is also working with the list of kayak instructors to parse out and map the River Kayak instructors. Stay tuned for those maps to be available soon.

Cross-Pollination of Teaching Methods

Larry Ausley — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:16:46 +0000

I spoke recently with a couple of L4 and L5 River kayak instructors about how our local paddling clubs could increase opportunities for their instructors to “cross-pollinate” ideas, teaching styles and methods with other IT/ITEs and instructors outside of our own instructor corps. I think it’s a pretty common occurrence for a group of instructors to develop within some geographic area, mentored by one, or at best a few IT/ITEs and in many cases go for years in an update cycle within that group.

In the past, one club has hired in external ITs from outside of the area to get some new ideas and perspectives. We have also discussed mechanisms of just getting our instructors together for the expressed purpose of brainstorming teaching ideas and techniques. Suggestions like a weekend instructors-only land and on-river workshop have been brought forward.

I doubt that this problem is endemic to our clubs or our area. It’s also unlikely that it’s a club-only issue. Even commercial instructors frequently learn the ropes within their own organization and rarely get a peak outside of it to bring in new ideas. It’s likely that whatever solutions we could develop would benefit commercial and volunteer instructors alike, and thereby, our sport as a whole.

Jump in on this conversation with successes you’ve had with cross-pollination like this or make a few suggestions here. What can instructors do themselves? What can clubs or businesses do? How could ACA itself, at the national or Division levels do to get more involved with this?

River Safety and Rescue Crossover Certification

Larry Ausley — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 01:58:16 +0000

In March 2011, the SEIC and ACA Board of Directors approved a one-day crossover curriculum (ICE) to allow current L4+ River Kayak (or River Canoe) instructors to achieve L3 River Safety and Rescue Instructor certification after successful completion of this more »

Flatwater Kayak Safety and Rescue

Larry Ausley — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:02:33 +0000

In October 2011 SEIC and the ACA Board of Directors approved a change in curriculum now allowing L2 and higher River or Coastal Kayak instructors to teach the Flatwater Kayak Safety and Rescue course.

Unresponsive paddler and “Hand-of-god” criteria

Larry Ausley — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:57:32 +0000

In October 2011, the SEIC and ACA Board of Directors changed the wording of L2 and higher instructor criteria to reflect a change in the interpretation of basic rescue techniques. Where previously “Hand-of-god” had been a requirement, the criteria now reflect the need for instructors and instructor candidates to perform an “Unresponsive paddler rescue” with Hand-of-god offered as an example of such. See L2-L5 River Kayak instructor criteria for specific language.