Reply To: Western Climber

Whew! Well I haven’t been climbing for a while, partly because I’ve been sucked into paddling, so I’m not checking the CAWA website often . . . .

For a different perspective, let me explain how paddling is organised, as opposed to climbing.

About 1,200 paddlers in WA belong to one of the paddling clubs. The clubs pay capitation fees ($78 per person) to the State body, Canoeing WA. $30 of that is then sent up to the National body, AUS Canoeing. Both the State and National bodies have Boards of Directors (I’m on the Board of Canoeing WA) and paid yes PAID full-time Executive Officers.

The paid Exec Officer of Canoeing WA has spent significant amounts of time in the past year dealing with the same organisations that CAWA’s volunteer committe has – DEC, Outdoors WA – all organisations trying to regulate our activities.

I had NO idea how time-consuming this was until my past year on the Canoeing WA Board – so from me, a huge thank-you to everyone in CAWA who has sat through these meetings in order to protect our right to climb.

There is strength in numbers, even if you have some ‘ethical’ objection to the bolting guidelines you can still be a member. We’ll have a lot more clout with the government regulating bodies if 1,000 people are in CAWA.

Thanks again Toc and everyone else volunteering their time to do what in other sports is done by someone paid to do it!