In the days when the Committee was first formed, expeditions were rarer, more formal and often planned and prepared over the winter by paddlers before they set off to attempt their expedition some months later. Now-a-days expeditions tend to be a group of friends who select a destination – Nepal say – and when they hear a few words from fellow travellers and they are off to some new run that has opened up. A rush round the shops and a dash to the bus station and the expedition has happened. No one really calls these trips “Expeditions” more often they are referred to as “Missions”.
So what direction for the Expeditions Committee? In recent years, the majority of applications the committee has received have been “gap year” students doing Operation Raleigh or similar organised trips which include some canoeing or kayaking. We do not want to belittle these trips but feel that this was not the reason for the committee’s existence.
There is nothing we can do about the lads and lassies in Kathmandu or similar destination even with the marvels of e-mail, and the committee will continue to try and support the “gap year” type of expedition if the tag “canoeing or kayaking” expedition is sufficiently warranted. However, in between these two types of trips are (slightly!?) more organised expeditions and we look forward to hearing from these trips. The expeditions committee works like this:-
1. Expeditions apply by mid January – application forms here. Email them to Dave Manby.
2. Dave Manby checks the expeditions: feasibility, capability of the team, references and the like if necessary.
3. Dave circulates the rest of the committee with the details.
4. The committee decides whether an expedition will receive ‘BCU Approval’. This tag may prove useful in your expedition planning for opening doors and establishing credibility.
5. The committee considers whether grant aid is available for your expedition. Grant sizes vary depending on the number of expeditions applying, the nature of the expedition, and the budget we have to spend but vary from £100 to £1000.
6. The expeditions who applied are contacted and told if they have been successful.
7. They go off on their expedition and on return, write of their experiences. They have to write a trip report and provide photographs for publication in Canoe Focus. Some examples of completed trip reports can be found here.
8. On receipt of the article we pay the grant whether or not the editor of Canoe Focuschooses to publish their account. Many previous paddlers who have received a grant have used the “article in Focus” line as a lever for further sponsorship.
9. (We try to be fairly helpful as a committee and through the marvels of e-mail will consider exceptional applications that may want faster processing – for instance an expedition may be conceived in April and the window for it is October.)
BCU Expeditions Committee 