Who is Clare Rutter?
Clare Rutter grew up in rural, coastal West Wales with childhood days often spent with her younger brother playing and exploring in nature, climbing trees, jumping hay bales, cycling the green and lush country lanes and time spent on the beaches exploring rockpools, playing in the sand and swimming in the sea.
Everyday was a mini-adventure in Clare’s eyes whether on land or in, by or on the water which was only added to by joining the Brownies, the Guides and later the Scouts when girls were (finally!) permitted to join across all age sections. At age 6 and continuing through her participation in these youth organisations, Clare began her journey in paddlesport; thoroughly enjoying kayaking and canoeing.
Now, after more than 25 years spent in the Scouts as both a youth participant and as an adult leader; Clare has many ‘on the water’ hours paddling and has been on many Scouting adventures including working at a large, commercial Scout summer camp and activity centre for a season, expeditioning in Africa, multiday tall ship sailing, led the Welsh Contingent at a Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree and volunteered as a staff member at two World Scout Jamborees in England and Japan. As studying for a degree, worklife and life in general took over; paddlesport unfortunately had to take a back seat.
In 2016, Clare fulfilled one of her lifelong goals to move abroad, choosing Gran Canaria as her base (Australia was the original plan but aged out) Moving abroad with all the planning and preparation and prior language learning that came with it was in itself an almighty adventure. Life was pretty good, she found accomodation and work within two weeks and settled into Spanish life easily, made friends, adoring speaking Spanish with the locals, joined the Spanish Red Cross and enjoyed hitting the beach or pool side before or after work.
Unfortunately, when life seemed settled Clare unfortunately experienced some kind of a medical episode whilst on her way home from work one evening, passed out, hit the deck face first and entered a 30 minute unconscious seizure state. Unfortunately even further, from the time an ambulance was called Clare; received a very poor standard of care firstly being transported only to the local health centre and left mostly alone for almost two hours before the decision was made to be blue lighted to the main hospital in the north of the island. This delay in treatment was due to the medical staff believing her to be a tourist and not a resident as she actually was. Clare was again left mostly alone in a wheelchair in a dimly lit, freezing cold waiting room in just her workwear for a further eight hours. Following a CT scan in the morning and just a few minutes with a doctor who informed her that she had broken her nose and had two cysts in the brain. That was it. Clare was discharged despite her obvious state of confusion and unsteadiness on her feet.
From that point, Clare remained housebound for six weeks, very poorly, confused and in a state of fear of the predicament she found herself in. In her current day guest speaking, Clare talks of ‘the last photo’; a tear jerking emotive moment where she believed she was about to die, alone and scared in a foreign country. This incident, with potentially the impact of the poor state of care received resulted in a life changing traumatic brain injury. Clare slowly realised that she didn’t feel the same anymore, she didn’t act like she did before and that she didn’t think like she did before. In fact, thinking was difficult, mindblocks, difficulty remembering things and making mistakes. She realised that she didn’t recognise the person in the mirror anymore.
After several months with no signs of recovery from the resulting concussion which included symtoms including headaches/migraines, severe fatigue, insomnia, tics, balance and cognitive issues and declining mental health; Clare decided to give up her home in the sun and return to Wales for further neurological investigation and treatment and to have the support of her family and friends and from brain injury charity Headway UK.
Clare, by this point was mostly bed bound typically four days out of seven, seriously ill and had to resort to using a stick to aid walking. Clare describes that ill state as a combination of the flu, a really bad hangover and a really bad nights sleep all at the same time. At more well times, she returned to Scouting in her former Scout group as illness allowed. Scouts for Clare had always been a source of comfort and her ‘second family’. Despite this return, after two months of working with her to help understand and manage her illness, Clare’s Brain Injury Team Occupational Therapist encouraged her to do some further volunteering.
Returning to her childhood roots, Clare started volunteering part time at local outdoor activities company Adventure Beyond owned by fellow former local area Scout Jet Moore who provided multiple land and water adventures and experiences including coasteering, white water tubing, climbing, surfing, gorge walking, rafting, canoeing, kayaking and stand up paddleboarding. The volunteering proved tough for Clare resulting in worsening fatigue and countless early nights to aid recovery, positivity and enthusiasm for the next day but she remained committed to constantly pushing herself with the aim to beat the debilitating illness.
After a tough two years combatting the effects of the injury and pushing herself to volunteer; a change in medication brought about through her own research into what had helped others experiencing similar issues helped tackle Clare’s condition to the point where she could function better physically and mentally on a daily basis, could ditch the walking stick permanently and, as a result, experienced better mental health with this much needed, newly found relief.
After a season volunteering at the outdoor activities company, and rediscovering and reawakening her love for paddlesports, Clare, was to her delight, offered a full-time, all year round position and begun her journey and next chapter towards more training and qualifications to be a paddlesports Instructor on a permanent basis.
A short time after the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, after less than a year participating once again in paddlesports, rediscovering her flame for it together with it’s healing and rehabilitative effects; Clare was informed that she had been selected from multiple applications to be the first ever women’s paddling ambassador for Wales, a #ShePaddles Ambassador; a voluntary, public facing role to help tackle the low numbers of females getting into and staying in paddlesport which at the time was less than 3 in 10. Despite the lockdowns, Clare threw herself into the voluntary role promoting it, encouraging it, starting much needed conversations, sharing her passion and own reasons for it to inspire and motivate a whole new generation of female paddlers.
Together with Canoe Wales and British Canoeing, #ShePaddlesCymru had an incredibly successful first year that no one could have imagined at such difficult times. Given the ‘Stay at home’ lockdown the country was required to abide by, Clare came up with the idea to start an online Facebook group with the vision to provide a friendly and welcoming paddling networking hub whilst paddlers or prospective paddlers were at home for something positive to engage with and focus on and came up with what turned out to be a fully booked, sold out series of paddlesport taster sessions to hundreds of females at #ShePaddles ‘On Tour’ events all across Wales. The Facebook based #ShePaddlesCymru group became an active and thriving community of women and girls from all walks of life, all ages, all abilities and who paddle all different types of craft which now has well over 2000 members who share ideas, paddle locations, kit reviews and arrange informal paddle meets.
With the participation numbers having increased nationally to over 3 in 10 paddlers being female, Clare refers to the unmeasurable impact of #ShePaddles to many women as the ‘#ShePaddles effect’ meaning the enjoyment incorporating the smiles, the laughter, the confidence boost, new friends, new paddle locations, new knowledge and so much more! The #ShePaddles Ambassador role for Clare and the nine other ambassador covering England and Scotland were extended from the original 12 months to 16 months due to Covid-19 which only gave Clare more time and opportunities to further create even more opportunities for women in paddlesport.
Whilst still battling illness, known as Post-Concussion Syndrome, with her symptoms carefully managed and mostly masked through medication; Clare is now a full time, qualified Paddlesports Instructor & Leader in canoe, kayak and stand up paddleboarding, specialising in stand up paddle boarding as her favourite discipline. Clare is aiming towards further qualifications and regularly supports clients with neurological conditions, mental health issues and a range of disabilities enabling participation, enjoyment and progression in paddlesports utilising the outdoors as fun and rewarding therapy and rehabilitation as she did.
Clare is now a guest speaker speaking at club nights, gatherings, events and online sharing her motivational and inspirational brain injury story ‘From Stick to SUP – Clare’s Journey’ and is still heavily involved in #ShePaddles and #ShePaddlesCymru (in Wales). Clare is, as ever; passionate about paddlesport and you’ll usually find her on the water in her spare time as well as in work; having fun and enjoying the outdoors and ultimately seizing her second chance at life, committed to relearning, redefining and challenging herself and her abilities which shows that given some adaptations, self-belief and unrelenting determination that almost anything can be achieved!
“Surround yourself with incredible, strong, motivated, passionate and inspirational women. Ladies, you all have this within you. Delve deep and you’ll find her, delve deeper and you’ll become her. Be strong, be brave, be caring, be you…but better. BE EMPOWERED!”
Clare Rutter, 2021
One of Clare’s proudest moments was being nominated for her efforts for the Canoe Wales 2020 Coach of the Year Award and the Alan Baker 2020 Volunteer of the Year Award, taking home the Volunteer of the Year Award title. A real honour to further cement the fact that she had had a second chance at life. Given her experiences, both the good and the bad, Clare likes to remain positive and enthusiastic as every single day that is afforded to her is a welcomed second chance.
Aside from paddlesport, Clare also enjoys volunteering for multiple community organisations, writing, camping, geocaching, photography and videography and enjoys sharing her experiences, challenges and adventures across her social media channels. Clare can often be seen out on the waterways litterpicking and caring for the environment and publicly encourages and promotes a positive mental mindset and positive mental health and wellbeing.
Q & A with Clare!
Favourite:
Craft? SUP! Own an iRocker SUP 2019 All Round 10′ 6″ & Blackfin SUP 2021 Model V touring board 12′ 6″. Partial to paddling a Mad River Canoe too! Love paddling kayak still but will usually take a back seat behind SUP and canoe!
Cag? Peak UK Adventure Single
Buoyancy Aid? Palm Peyto & Palm Nevis
Quick release SUP belt? HF SUP Buddy
Throwline? Palm Pro 15m
Gadget? GoPro Hero 8
Apps/websites? Met Check, Magic Seaweed, XC Weather, My Tide Times, River Levels UK, Ordnance Survey, What3Words, Paddlepoints, Plantnet, Twitcherie
Paddle? The River Teifi
Paddle activity? Litterpicking!
Dream paddle? Wild camping and touring The Great Glen, the Isles of Scilly, The Lake District, Norwegian Fjords and anywhere tropical! Or anywhere!
Paddle food & drink? Coffee and a Mars bar or cake – WINNING!