A recent call from someone who had just registered alerted us to the fact that registering as a “Non Paddler” is not always easy to understand.

For those of you who are more visual, the difference between the 2 types of registration is summarized below.

In other words, people who don’t want to take part in the workshops at all sign up as “Non Paddler”. These include, of course, people who don’t canoe at all. But we know that there are also regular paddlers who prefer to take advantage of the weekend just to explore the various sections of the Drôme, without taking part in any workshops.

This is a perfectly legitimate choice, but we’ve noticed that those who make this choice are often clubs whose members, often good paddlers, feel they have little more to learn.

We’d like to insist on the fact that one of the OCF’s greatest assets is the hundred or so workshops on offer over 3 days. 30% of them are dedicated to technique (for beginners / intermediates or advanced). The remainder deal with safety (10%) and canoeing culture in the broadest sense of the term (60% of workshops).

No other festival will offer so many workshops on leadership, live no trace, the art of lighting a fire in the rain or using a tarp, canoe fishing, energy management and phone applications, river fauna and flora and many other topics.

So, if you register as a “Non Paddler”, you won’t be taking part in the workshops, and frankly, you’ll be missing out!

Go: I register!