Community
We pride ourselves on being a responsible part of both the local community and the paddlesports community, both at home and across the world. We regularly host club nights with local canoe clubs and universities, and we work closely with these clubs to help out where we can. For example, we provided all the new gate lines for the Matlock CC slalom course which was destroyed in the November 19 flooding. We have also awarded up and coming young paddlers with state of the art kayaking equipment to help them on their way, such as Kate Lyndon from Midland CC in Derby and the Kayak Drina school expedition team.
We work closely with our partners at British Canoeing, and have supplied the national slalom team with their GB Team kit for many years. We also sponsor the Best Newcomer in Div 1 Award (boys / girls), which each year sees two young paddlers receive a voucher for £200 to spend with us. Outside of canoe slalom we sponsor several of the GB Freestyle Team and we also provide top prizes for the annual YoungUns series, a great event which focuses on encouraging young paddlers into freestyle. We support athletes and teams from several other disciplines too.
We are founding members of the Paddle Peak group, an organisation which focuses on campaigning for fair access to local waterways for all users, whilst encouraging safe, responsible use of the environment. Paddle Peak has organised multiple river clean ups, removing tons of rubbish from the River Derwent. The group also arranges free come-and-try-it sessions for local youngsters, which not only gives the children the chance to try paddlesports for the first time, but allows them to meet some of the world's best athletes too, including Olympic gold medallists and World Champions. For more info on Paddle Peak visit their website at paddlepeak.org.
We regularly support charitable events and have, as a company, raised money for various causes, including for the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic with our series of Rainbow PFD competitions. On a national scale, we have donated kit, including bespoke equipment, to numerous charitable causes including Stand Up To Cancer's Great Canoe Challenge and more recently Comic Relief. Internationally we have donated free kit to good causes from as far away as Peru and Nepal, and we used our 25th birthday celebrations to raise funds to help the Nepali Earthquake appeal, with all proceedings going to local communities affected by the disaster.
Locally and outside of paddlesports, we are active members of the Inspired By The Peak District business group and we support our local Darley Dale Community Awards by sponsoring one of the prizes. Recently we used our world-leading custom printing expertise to donate twenty sets of totally unique, waterproof, custom-designed overtrousers to the kids at nearby Matlock Bath pre-school.
Finally - away from paddlesports - as of summer 2022 we are proud sponsors of our local cycling club, Matlock CC.