Jen Maxwell, Angela J Wood, or Terra McGill joined together with our sisters from the north (Knoxville area club) to have a women’s paddle. They met Saturday morning @ 10:00am at OAR and set up trips. There were impromptu trips to the Hiwassee and the Ocoee where everybody just did their thing. No stress, just amazing paddling, comraderie, and an event to remember. They camped Saturday night at OAR and then did it again on Sunday. Photos of this event are coutesy of Rachel Elise from Relise Design Co. Watch the Calendar for details of future Women of WhiteWater Events..
Friday night, October 10, 2014, WWW Report Out:
Whiskey, Women and Whitewater was held at Rock creek Ocoee @ 7pm. We had 44 women come to TVCC’s first women’s only event. We kicked off the night socializing with drinks and snacks. Kelly O’Brien of SheLovestheKayak sold Boof and Boobs swag and we were able to collect data on “What women want in our paddling gear…” As we got everyone signed in, we moved to our panel of four wonderful speakers: Adriene Levknecht from Liquid Logic, Charli Kern from Blackfly Canoes and Boof Sisters, Emily Shanblatt from Confluence Sports and Kat Levitt from Jackson Kayak.
These women answered a series of questions about their paddling careers, goals they have, challenges that they have faced and where they see females and the sport progressing. We then opened the floor to Q&A, were all the ladies where able to ask anything they had on their minds.
Of course, with any good paddling event we were able to ensure everyone walked away with something, including and not limited to the L’Eau Vive by Deb Pinniger and Bomber shirts, rash guards, water bottles, gift cards, hats, koozies, two new AT paddles and Bomber dry tops! We want to extend a huge thanks to our wonderful sponsors: Rock Creek, Confluence Sports and Chattanooga Whiskey.
That night, we gained 6 new members into TVCC and have several other women considering joining. A survey will be sent out to all the ladies that attended to find out what other events they would like to see available and how as a club we can support women in the sport. At the end of the night, the overwhelming response was a big thank you to TVCC for having an event where women could talk openly about being in a male dominated sport and how we as women can grow and support each other.
An aside from the Webmaster: As I post this, I have to smile remembering what a great time I had that night. I want to thank the women of TVCC who worked so hard to put together an excellent, albiet unusual, event for the women in our paddling community. For myself, I really hope that this is only the beginning of a long and outstanding series of events aimed at the often times overlooked women who add so much to the sport and to our club.