Successful International Paddle Film Festival, Nairn 2024

Successful International Paddle Film Festival, Nairn 2024

The international film festival was a huge success with people enjoying the diversity of films on show and enjoyed the opportunity to have some food and a good catch up. Around 130 enthusiasts came to the film event itself raising around £400 for local charities. After weeks of rain, we were given a calm and clear weather window for the outdoor elements of the festival earlier in the day. The sun even shone for a short while.

Events were organised by the two charities we were supporting with donation from the event.

Blue Space Highland  who are a new kayak and paddleboard charity that works to support people’s mental health with blue experiences led some wellness sessions on Nairn beach.

Green Hive organised a beach litter Pick where over 20 volunteers braved the afternoon winds to head down to Nairn beaches for a litter pick. They scoured the dunes and the beach to comb through the tidal mats of seaweed, poke in-between the rocks along the promenade and scramble through the gorse, broom and maram grass in the dunes to collect all kinds of rubbish – there was a mixture of litter dropped on the beach and litter that had drifted in on the tides.

The scores on the doors for each recyclable material type were:

• Glass – 8.2 kg (18 pounds)
• Plastic – 5.1 kg (11 pounds)
• Metal – 3.1 kg (7 pounds)
• Paper – 200g (0.5 pounds)
• Miscellaneous – 5.6 kg (12 pounds)

As well as tidying up our beaches, we work really hard to ensure we recycle as much of our collected litter as possible – sometimes that can be quite difficult, especially when we pick up lots of things like dog poo bags and soiled food wrappers. Unfortunately, the majority of the rubbish heading to landfill from the beach clean is dog poo bags. In total, that’s 22.2 kg of recyclable materials collected and sorted over 2 hours on Nairn’s beaches! Loads of the plastic was collected can be recycled in Nairn at Green Hives Enterprise Workshop. where they can take plastic and melt it down into reusable blocks and planks. A tyre and many other larger items were also recovered from the beach.

Paddle Festival Evening – 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/442375281627955

Around 130 people were in attendance for the showing of 13 Award Winning video shorts from the paddling world. Around a dozen people made a weekend of the festival and came up from the central belt to stay in Nairn for the weekend. Bringing income to local business and accommodation providers.

Film highlights – There was a bit craziness from Beau Miles in his  video Renovating A Canoe While Running A Marathon while local adventurers Cory Jones and Dave Crosbie showed their video Unpeeled of their 1000 mile canoe journey through the Canadian wilderness.

Dave Crosbie “What a wonderful evening of presentations, some happy, some inspirational and life changing, lots of laughter.  A great evening.

Our adventure canoeing across the Artic Circle and over the American continental divide showed us how much climate change has affected these pristine wilderness environments. Loss of salmon in the rivers, trees falling over as the permafrost melts and forest fires that now last for months and months.  At least we can highlight these issues by showing the film of our journey highlighting what we learned along the way”.

At break both meaty and vegan (GF) homemade chilli was available for all to gobble down. This gave everyone a chance to chat about the films over food, making for a wonderfully social atmosphere.

Headline Sponsor ‘ALPKIT at the Ledge in Inverness’ – Sean, Inverness Store Manager said of the event “ We are pleased to sponsor the Paddle FiIm Festival so it can take place in the Highlands. It has been an inspirational evening of films showing not on paddlesports but what they can do to support change for the better. Social and environmental change, activism; these are things ALPKIT supports, as well ad adventure and inspirational journeys”.

Cory Jones from Highland Experiences who was the overall festival organiser said “ What a good day everyone has had. There been a tremendously good vibe all day culminating is seeing some of the most moving and stimulating paddle sport films. We have had sea and river kayak films, paddle boarding, pack rafting, canoeing and sweeper raft films. The films have been so diverse. People have been asking if we are running the event next year. Watch this space!”.

The raffle raised £235 which is to be split between the two local charities Blue Space Highland and Green Hive. Prizes donated by Alpkit, TISO and Green Hive. Overall £400 was raised and donated to our local charities.