OpenUK Open Technology for Sustainability and OpenUK Awards 2021

This week sees COP26, the UN conference which is probably the last chance for humanity to mitigate the worse effects of the climate emergency.

At Akademy earlier this year KDE had a talk about Towards Sustainable Computing. Open tech can make a difference.

OpenUK will be hosting a venue on 11 November with a day of events about sustainability with technology emphasising why open tech is the most effective way to do that.

Sessions include an opening from former government minister Francis Maude, Launch of the OpenUK Consortium Data Centre Blueprint, Open Collaboration Opening Sustainability led by Red Hat, Opening Up the Energy Sector, building the Sustainable Open Future for the UK.

In the evening I’ll be hosting the OpenUK awards 2021, showcasing and recognising the best people and organisations for open tech in the UK.

Do join us online for the streaming of the event Join us Digitally on 11 November

BC Advanced White Water Coach Training with Matt Haydock

I did an BC Advanced White Water Coach Training with Matt Haydock overseen by Ken Hughes.

We started with Ken doing a session on paddling in a ~10m wide circle using constrains based coaching to limit the possible options of the person being coaching until they got the right answer. Turns out that when turning in a circle you use your inside stroke much more than the outside stroke.

We did a varied practice session on eskimo rolling with Matt. Go and roll. Go and roll after paddling about. Go and roll without any setup. Go and roll in the moving water by the fall. Roll and do Bren’s helicopter under the water then roll up. The point is that we rarely practice rolling in the river but on a not-too-cold day it’s fine to do if you have a drysuit and it doesn’t ruin the rest of the day and it’s well worth doing rather than just a roll at the end of the day when you are cold and tired.

We did some sessions on the first two drops of tripple step at the Ettive looking at attentional focus to get a clean line through the section. It does help a lot to look ahead of you where you’re going.

We practiced some boofs off the last drop.

The next day we had three students come and we coached them in the pool at the bottom, the bottom drop and then I did the top two drops. Using video to review and watching each performance to review who got the slickest. The aim is to do it, do it cleanly then do it so it looks good on Instagram.