Mercia Canoe Club - Coventry

In November I was invited to the GoFoleshill Showcase event at the Coventry University Techno Centre. I was privileged to accept a Community Champion Award on behalf of the club, for the multiple paddling sessions that we had run in 2022, with many different and diverse groups that came from the Foleshill area of the City. The aim was to encourage residents of Foleshill to become more active. There were many stories of participants taking up cycling for the first time, covering a weekly community mile in one of the parks, starting female only swimming sessions and even training their own lifeguards. Broad Heath school were indoor rowing champions but had never been on the water, so maybe that is something we rectify next year!
Sport England were there to support the programme and keen to develop schemes that had a self-sustaining legacy after the funding stopped. I even had to go on the stage comfy chairs, to talk about our sessions! However, all the right people were there to keep up our profile, in their minds.

A different view of our Saturday paddling

If you would like to join Mercia Canoe Club please email us [email protected] and we will tell you more about us and arrange to introduce you to the club. Visitor and group sessions are not running but the club is open for members to use.

Club members who are key holders are currently able to access our club under strict conditions.
There are no open sessions or group sessions for visitors or members. May 28 2020.

Mercia Canoe Club remains closed to visitors. There are no organised sessions being run. We are initially considering how Club members with keys can safely access the club. Thanks.

May 4th Update - The club remains closed. Members will be advised when the guidance allows paddling again. No point in speculating how things will operate just yet. Thanks.

Some more from playtesting. Ludic Rooms have been playing with live projections of slow shutter camera feeds. A few screen caps. These incredible new landscapes emerge as the canoes pass. Neon birds over imagined horizon lines.

Mercia Paddlers gathered on 10th August 2019 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the first two canal boats travelling into Coventry, on the Coventry Canal. Bridge 1 is the entrance into the Canal Basin, at the end of the Coventry Canal, close to the City Centre.
The Coventry Mercury reported, on 10th August 1769, "two boats laden with coal were brought to this city from this side of Bedworth. Being the first ones, they were received with load cheers by a number of people who had assembled to witness their arrival."
It is amazing to think about the history of this place and all the people that have travelled to and from Coventry, on the waterway. Members of the Canoe Club and visitors of all ages took to the water on a wild afternoon with challenging gusty winds.

Have you seen the new graffiti art around bridge 3?