Picture this: 38 teenage kayakers, a week of white water, and a campsite buzzing with energy. That’s the GB Freestyle Kayaking Academy Camp at Holme Pierrepont (HPP). It is become an annual summer event that blends freestyle kayaking, friendship, and pure joy. Now in its third year, the camp continues to grow, and I’ve been lucky to be part of the volunteer team that runs the camp each time. Here’s my behind the scenes look at the 2025 camp.
What is the GB freestyle academy camp?
As you might be able to tell from the name, this was a week long camp run by GB Freestyle which focused on developing junior (11-17) paddlers in freestyle. The core purpose of the camp was for the paddlers who attended to have a great time, to develop their freestyle and other skills and to then leave and continue to grow both themselves as paddlers and freestyle as a sport.
The overriding goal of the camp is to spread the love of freestyle kayaking as a sport. By nurturing the enthusiasm of these junior paddlers, the hope is that they themselves are then in a position to encourage and inspire others that they know (parents, clubs, school friends etc) to get involved and give it a go!
Paddlers who attended the camp had to be first nominated by their club and then selected by the freestyle committee in order to gain a place. Clubs had been invited to nominated any junior paddlers for the camp and in order to nominate a paddler. It was a tough selection process but ultimately 38 young paddlers were nominated and chosen to attend.
This is the third year of the camp and I really feel it has grown and developed so much since we first ran it 2 years ago.
Week of the camp
Day 1: Monday
After many months of preparations and a weekend of camp set up, the GB freestyle academy camp officially kicked off at 8am on the Monday. Young paddlers started arriving at the camp laden with bags, kayaks and paddles ready for a week on the water.
Myself, Bethan and Laura did the signing in process. Laura and Bethan dealt with the important things like medical consent forms and behaviour contracts. I had the fun job of finding the correct name badge for each paddler and trying to subtly get everyone to sign the first of the birthday cards. We had 3 birthdays on camp this week and it started off with Elsie who was turning 14!
Once everyone had arrived and was signed in, we had a camp briefing to go over the important things for the week. This was then followed by a session of kayak outfitting and tent set up.
We are lucky we had quite a few kayaks to loan out to paddlers who didn’t own their own playboat. A mixture of the GB Freestyle Jed fleet and other playboats loaned by clubs meant that everyone had a playboat they could use for the week. Coaches were helping paddlers to ensure they were outfitting properly in those kayaks so that they had a better time on the water.
Lunch followed and those paddlers who had never attended the camp before found out just how well they get fed on the camp! If there is one thing that doesn’t happen on the academy camp is that Em and her team let anyone go hungry!
By the end of lunch, paddlers were kitted up and ready to walk over to the course! 38 paddlers all geared up is quite a sight as we walked through the campsite. We arrived and coaches were all ready to get started. Bibs were on, warm ups began and it was time to go kayaking!
Each coach and their assistant coach had a group of paddlers and each group were doing different things. Some groups stayed pretty much in one feature for the entire session, others moved steadily down the course. Some started with a flatwater warm up on the lake. Others went straight into working on specific moves in Inlet.
As the welfare lead during the day, I essentially spent the water sessions wandering up and down the white water course checking in with groups and paddlers. Anyone who needs a little bit of time out, some medical assistance or anything else can then come and see me. This also means that I get to see what is going on across the groups which is really lovely.
Despite there some big showers earlier in the day, it had got very sunny in the afternoon. The warm weather combined with everyone having lots of energy meant that everyone seemed to be having a great time. Despite it being a 3 hour session, there were plenty of paddlers still raring to go by the end of it!
Once everyone was off the water, we stored kayaks away and then walked back to camp. Showers and snacks followed before coaches had a daily debrief with their groups. Whilst dinner was being prepared, the kids were encouraged to join in with some of the camp activities.
Activities included designing a picture for their tent. Each tent we had given a freestyle move name, e.g. ‘Loop’. Each tent group had to then design a poster for it, which got laminated and tied to the tent. There were some excellent designs, particularly from George and Bella, who both turned out to be artistic!
One of the activities that Em had brought with her was a nail saloon set. One of the groups of girls got started and were quietly enjoying doing their nails. They were joined by one of the boys groups who got very into it very quickly. None of the boys had ever done gel nails before and weren’t quite as practised.
Luckily young Vivienne took charge and was quite happy to direct them how to do it properly as well as inform them when they weren’t doing it properly. She soon had them in order and they were some beautiful gel nails across the group by the end of the night! The group gave her the nickname of BOSS which she seemed to be very proud of!
A lovely dinner of lasagne was followed by some birthday brownies and singing for Elsie. We did have some birthday candles but these got misplaced during dinner. Luckily Becky had a small tealight candle in her van so this was used as a replacement. Everyone was very happy with the brownies!
Pete then got out his collection of circus equipment and a juggling session then began. It was lovely to look out across the camp as the sun set to a group of amateur teenage jugglers just having fun and giving it a go! There were some quick learners in the group and many had really got the hang of it by the end of the evening. Thanks Pete for loaning your equipment!
Day 2: Tuesday
Tuesday was the first full day in camp and felt very busy! The campers were up early, breakfasted and geared up all by 9.30am. Matt led them in a group warm up which involved penguin impersonations amongst other things. If you haven’t met Matt Stephenson before, whilst being an incredible kayaker and kayaking coach, he is also one of the biggest kids at heart you will ever meet. Any chance to be silly and do silly things – Matt will take it! He is therefore the perfect person to lead a light hearted warm up on the first proper morning of camp!
Warm up over, we walked over to the white water course and got on for the morning session. Groups were with the same coaches as Monday and were once again working on different skills and towards different goals all over the course. I had brought my camera along today so was busy getting some photos as well as checking in with the coaches and paddlers.
Different paddlers will have different challenges and what was lovely was watching everyone pushing themselves to meet that challenge. For some of the paddlers, they tried their first ever time surfing on white water, for others they got their first roll. There were paddlers in Troll Hole trying to link moves or a group working on entry moves into features. It didn’t matter what they were working on, the joy on their faces when they got it for the first time was incredible to see!
When the coached session came to an end, the coaches spread themselves out down the course and the paddlers had some free time to paddle whatever they wanted. This of course was met with great delight and we had to drag them off the course when it was time to go back for lunch.
After lunch we headed back to the course for some swim safety and rescue practice. Swimming at HPP is really quite okay as it is so deep. This is one of the huge advantages of HPP compared to other white water courses. If you don’t roll up, swimming is really not so bad! However learning how to swim safely and also how to help rescue someone in a playboat yourself are skills worth learning.
The groups were joined together for this session and it clearly very good fun! With Matt leading the way, they started with just swimming down through Inlet gate, then swimming whilst holding onto their paddles.
This progressed to pairing up with one person kayaking down and the other holding onto the back of their playboat. This did result in a few people being tailied whilst going through Inlet but that is part of the learning process. The pairs swapped over so that each one had a go at the paddling part.
Finally Den ended this session by getting them all to jump below Inlet for one last swim. The paddlers were ecstatic (and very soggy) at the end of the session!
We ended the afternoon session with an hour of kayaking as well. Once again, when our session came to an end, we had to drag them off the water. Confidence was really building and it was hard to remind them they still had 3 days of kayaking to go!
Back at the camp, everyone showered and was very glad of a delicious dinner of nachos! Em and the team really do spoil us when it comes to food on the camp! Evening activities then involved doing some juggling and video analysis. Being able to watch videos back of a skill performance and analyse that skill in a constructive way is a valuable skill in itself. Although this is aimed with then applying it to watching back kayaking videos and self coaching, it was good fun for everyone to give it a go with juggling!
Day 3: Wednesday
Day 3 – half way through the week! Wednesday morning is lie in day so that the athletes and staff can recover a little bit from the first 2 days and have enough energy to keep going for the rest of the week. There is no paddling in the morning, instead a late brunch and other activities. The lie in was appreciated by everyone but especially coach Gav who was celebrating his birthday today!
The morning activities including some t-shirt designing for the new academy camp, learning first aid, card games and some impromptu guitar and singing practice. Becky and Matt had both brought their guitars out and it turns out we have some very talented musicians in the group – especially Phil!
In the afternoon paddlers had the choice to either stay a bit longer on camp or come down to the course a little earlier for some Balsam bashing with Matt. Himalayan Balsam is an invasive weed commonly found along banks of canals and rivers and is good at seed dispersal, so mush so that it is rapidly outcompeting many of our native plants. This is a problem as it leaders to a lower biodiversity making ecosystems less stable. Matt is a big advocate for Balsam bashing and loves to share that with others.
Most of the paddlers opted to come do some Balsam Bashing and so we headed down to the course at midday. After some guidance from Matt, the team got to work. There is some very therapeutic about Balsam Bashing and the kids soon got very competitive about who had pulled up the most Balsam or who could bash it the hardest. They almost seemed a little sad when we said it was time to go kayaking instead!
The rest of the group from camp joined and everyone got kitted up and on the water. Coaches had changed groups today to give the paddlers a chance to experience different coaching styles. I spent the afternoon supporting groups from the bank and taking photos. My role soon turned into chief snack supervisor. The camp team had kindly left some extra water and snacks by the side of the course. Never underestimate how much a teenager doing exercise all day long can eat. The homemade cocoa bars and bananas seemed particularly popular. I think the record was 4 bananas in one snack break by one of the paddlers, which is impressive when they were only there for 10-15 minutes!
The paddlers all seemed to be having an excellent time on the water. It was really lovely how encouraging they all were of each other. When a paddler was struggling to paddle back onto a feature, they’d all be in the eddy screaming encouragement for them to paddle back up. When someone nailed a loop or a tailee, they’d be shouts of joy from the others in celebration. They might not have realised they were all doing it, but walking along the course and seeing all the groups meant I have the bigger picture and it was a really wholesome one!
Once again by the time our session had ended and we needed to go back to the camp, I was having to drag coaches and their paddlers off the water as they were all having so much fun. We went back to camp for dinner and raspberry cake for Gav’s birthday.
In the evening, there had been a virtual talk arranged from Dr Cooper about how changes in hormones can affect our bodies and our performance as paddlers, especially for women. I hadn’t clocked who Dr Alison Cooper was until she appeared on the screen and I said to Becky – oh it’s Oli’s mum! Oli Cooper is a lovely friend of mine and one of the UK’s most talented white water paddlers. Alison is also a phenomenal paddler and it was great to hear her wisdom from her medical background shared with the group. Thanks Dr Cooper!
Day 4: Thursday
Thursday turned out to be another beautiful sunny day! Thanks to Gav’s birthday the day before and Teija’s birthday today, there was the option of a slice of birthday cake to go with breakfast which of course everyone was thrilled about. We got everyone geared up and headed over to the course. There were a couple of paddlers staying behind this morning due to illness or over tiredness. The option of an extra few hours sleeping so that they then felt they had the energy to get back on the water in the afternoon was gladly taken.
This morning’s water activities involved trying out different types of kayaking. We started with a mass start down to the bottom of the course. Mass starts are always impressive but when it is done in playboats, perhaps even more so! I particularly enjoyed watching them go through the stickiest of the features – Troll Hole. At one point, I looked over to see Brendan charging through Troll Hole, surround by not one, not two, but three upside fellow paddlers. It was quite impressive!
Once everyone made it to the bottom, we headed back to the top to try out another activity. There was the option to go try either squirt boating or oc1 (or both!) There was also the option to try doing some races off the ramp. This is always a fantastic spectator sport and as I took some photos I had few paddlers come and join me on the side to watch. Many of the paddlers hadn’t had a go at a ramp start over water before and so were a little nervous but they all smashed it!
I popped over to see the squirt boaters and OC1 paddlers who were also having a great time! Both squirt boating and OC1 take a little getting used to if you’ve not tried it before but the group of paddlers involved looked like they were having the best time!
We headed back to camp for some lunch before getting ready for the afternoon session. I decided it would be great to let the paddlers take over their warm up whilst we rallied everyone into getting ready to go to the course. George was happy to take on warm up lead and soon had everyone in a circle and working through some stretches. Excellent work instructor George! Once warmed up and sun creamed up, we walked back over to the course.
The afternoon was dedicated to coached freestyle sessions and the groups were with the same coaches that they had been with on Wednesday. It was a long sunny afternoon as I wandered up and down the course taking photos and checking in with groups, everyone seemed to be having the best time.
Becky’s group were working on boofing through Inlet to start with. It was amazing to watch Vivienne (A.K.A Boss) manage to get an accidental back loop in her run as well! She looked slightly surprised afterwards but the other paddlers watching were all very impressed! Vivienne also did an amazing job of helping her group with kayaks and paddlers. She was an assistant fisher and was really helpful in supporting other paddlers who had had a swim. Well done Vivienne!
Matt’s group were working on a range of moves in Inlet. I stayed a little while to take some photos and was very impressed when Dylan looped so hard that he went out of frame of my photo. I first met Dylan about 4 years ago when he was a super keen young freestyle. Whilst little certainly can’t be used to describe Dylan any more at 17, he is still super keen and it was lovely to see him having such a lovely time on camp again this year.
Gav and Tamsyn had groups working on surfing, spins and more on Jaws. It’s very impressive to watch Gav coach something like this as he is so comfortable, he can still in a surf and fully describe the break down of each move to the group as he is doing it! Owen was thrilled to nail his surfing on Jaws and was looking very happy when doing so. Owen came to the camp last year with little white water experience and now he is so comfortable in playboat which is amazing to see! He is also the happiest person ever – every time I saw him he had a huge smile on his face!
At Muncher, Mike and Ottie’s groups were both working on a variety of moves including entry moves. Muncher is a funny feature and one that people often seem to dislike. It is easy to get flushed off of it and can be harder to land moves on compared to something like Inlet. It was great to hear from paddlers though that by the end of the afternoon they were really liking Muncher. Mason said his opinion of Muncher had really improved that day and he now was starting to enjoy paddling in it which is great!
At the end of the session I headed back up to Inlet where Becky’s group were now practising some surfing. George was so happy front surfing in Inlet and even more happy that I’d got some photos of him. It was a really positive end to the session.
I rallied the groups to get off at the end of the session and we were soon off and walking back to the course. After dropping the paddlers back at the campsite, I went back to the course to take some extra photos for some of the coaches. There was a special occasion to be celebrated for coach Becky as she had graduated! We celebrated with a little private girls photoshoot which was really fun. Well done Becky!
Back at camp it was busy as usual. A delicious BBQ dinner, followed my homemade chocolate ice cream. Olly had made the ice cream himself and it was delicious so thanks Olly! Everyone was happy either chilling out or doing various activities such as ball games or board games. It was a lovely chilled out wholesome atmosphere to end the last night on camp.
Day 5: Friday
The final day of camp was here! The morning felt slow and quiet as both the kids and the staff were absolutely knackered by this point! The atmosphere was positive however and everyone was keen to get back on for that final session.
I really enjoy this point in the camp as everyone has got to know each other quite well and the weird friendships begin to come out. I was treated to being part of ‘circle time’ with one group who were setting each other challenges such as a press up with a clap behind your back. This of course resulted in most people landing flat on their face with their hands behind their back instead. I didn’t quite see the appeal myself but they seemed to enjoy it!
Once everyone was geared up, we got together for some last group photos of both staff and paddlers. It was then one final warm up led by Alex and off to the course. After many days of glorious sunshine, this final morning was spent in a steady drizzle. By the time we got to the course, I was regretting not bringing my umbrella. Never mind though – the paddlers were all still happy as they were getting wet anyway!
The morning started off with coaching and then led into free time where the paddlers could choose to paddle whatever they liked. They were loving this and by the time it came to ending the session, it was really hard to get them all off the water again. Which is lovely. The whole point of the camp is to develop young paddlers in freestyle and grow their love for the sport so it was great that they all wanted to carry on paddling.
We then had a team effort to get everyone’s kayaks in a van or on a roof of a car. Luckily lots of parents had come along to watch for the morning and thankfully many of them were happy to transport a few kayaks down to the campsite. One final roll call later and we were walking back for the final time.
When we got back to the campsite, I had to leave very promptly as I was actually headed straight to Dover to drive to Austria for a kayaking holiday. It was a shame to not properly see everyone but I shouted my goodbyes and had lots of kids heads appear from tents amidst packing their bags to say goodbye back which was nice.
The team behind the dream
This camp would not be able to run without the huge help of all of the volunteers involved. This was split into three main teams – the coaches, the pastoral care team and the wider camp organisation team. There was a lot of overlap between the pastoral team and the camp team and of course many of the coaches took on a pastoral role this week as well.
The main coaches were Tamsyn, Mike, Matt, Den, Ottie, Gav and Becky. Their assistant coaches included Neil, Sol, JP, Pete, Lisette, Math and Issie. The talent in terms of paddling and coaching skills within the coaching team was phenomenal. The opportunity for the young paddlers to have that knowledge passed on from those coaches was huge and I know many paddlers really appreciated and valued that opportunity.
The core camp team consisted of the Walkers (Em, Baz and Olly) who have all been involved in all of the camps so far and bring so much to the team. Running a camp that feeds 60 people 4 times a day is no small thing! Without the Walker family – the camp experience would not be the same for sure!
They were of course joined by a wider team of Nikki, Lisa, and Rob. Bethan and Laura were the pastoral leads at the campsite and I was leading pastoral during the day at the white water course. We were very lucky as well that Laura has a medical background and so could lead on this! Many of the coaches were very involved in helping to run camp life as well.
The care and dedication shown by all the volunteers throughout the week to ensure that the camp participants had a good week was incredible. There was so much good will given to make things happen and to look after all of the members of the camp. Thank you to the whole team for what you have given.
Thank you also to Peak Paddlesports, Palm Equipment, Pyranha Kayaks and Dewerstone for donating some hats and stickers to give out to paddlers over the week.
The Peak caps were given as spot prizes to those attendees who really stood out as having a great attitude whilst on camp and the stickers were given out to all paddlers. We appreciate those companies for supporting our young paddlers.
A final massive thank you to River Legacy and GB Freestyle of course for providing the marquee and tents that are the core of the camp set up. Camp couldn’t happen without you!
Final Reflections
This is my third year involved in running the GB Freestyle Academy Camp and I am so glad that I got involved again. Whilst I am utterly exhausted whilst writing this, it was once again an amazing experience. I love paddling and I love the paddling community more than words can describe. Volunteering to help to give this opportunity to young people has been an absolute pleasure. I have loved the chance to watch them grow over the week and am so excited to see what the future holds for each and every one of them.
I hope all attendees had a wonderful time and can now go back to their own clubs and local paddling communities and give back some of what has been given to them this week.
Anyone young paddlers reading this, don’t forget to sign up to Euro Open which we are running the 30th-31st August as well as the final Youth Freestyle Series of the year at the Tryweryn on the 6-7th September.
Happy paddling everyone – see you on the water!