Committee

Members

• President - Cynthia Berry

• Treasurer - Marianne Patrick

• Secretary - Ada Czarnecka

• Safety officer - Alex Jeffery

• Child welfare officer - Marianne Patrick

• Development coach - Paul Anderson

• Facilities liaison - Tony Leaver

What the committee does

The committee is made up of volunteers from across the club — parents, paddlers and coaches — who look after the day-to-day running of Edinburgh Schools Kayak Club. We're a small charity, so we try to keep things simple and practical. Rather than meeting to a fixed timetable whether there's anything to discuss or not, we get together when there's an actual decision to make, which means we can sort things out quickly and keep the club moving.

How we make decisions

We call a meeting whenever it's useful, usually for one of these reasons:

• There's something new the committee needs to know about or decide on

• Something urgent has come up that can't wait

• A club member has asked us to look at something

Most things can be settled by a quick chat or a message thread. When we do need to make a formal decision, we ask that at least 60% of the committee takes part — in person or online — so that everyone's had a fair say before anything's agreed.

Staying accountable

The committee answers to our board of trustees. Once a year we take a bit of time to look back honestly at how we've been doing — whether our decisions have been good ones, whether we've been quick enough off the mark, and whether we're meeting at the right times — and we change how we work if we think we can do better.

Getting involved

We often pull together small, short-lived groups of volunteers to get a particular job done for the club. If you'd like to lend a hand, just drop us an email and ask what groups are running at the moment — we'd love to have you involved.