Winners of first ever RYA RS Sailing OnBoard Awards announced 

New awards recognise OnBoard Officers; Innovation, Commitment and Performance

The outstanding work and dedication of three OnBoard Development Officers (ODO’s) was acknowledged last Wednesday (10 November) at the Annual OnBoard Conference dinner held at the Rose Bowl, Southampton.   

For the first year ever, special awards were presented for Performance, Commitment and Innovation to those officers who had gone the extra mile working for the RYA OnBoard programme, which encourages young people to get involved in sailing and windsurfing.

Victoria Lenz, RYA OnBoard manager said: “The work done by the OnBoard Development Officers across the country is pivotal to the programme and we have introduced these awards to recognise all the hard work the team put in to making it such a success.”

Performance

Picking up the ‘Performance Award’ was Adam McGovern from Littleborough who works at Hollingworth Lake Activity Centre. Adam clinched the award for his exceptional efforts in developing sailing clubs and centres in the Manchester area.    

Working with schools in the local area to get them involved with OnBoard (OB) Adam often takes boats to local fairs and school assemblies.  

In the last three years he has organised numerous fun-filled OnBoard festivals for local youngsters. This year his ‘themed’ events were a great success including the 8hr race, Bug day and fun end of season regatta.   

Commitment

The ‘Commitment Award’ was won by Liz Wrigglesworth from Crofton who works at Pugneys County Park for Wakefield Council.    Liz always goes out of her way to support her clubs in Yorkshire, so was an obvious choice for the award.  She has run numerous successful festivals, two of which were even outside her OB area. 

Liz regularly puts in extra hours including completing four instructor training courses to help boost her knowledge and skills.  

Innovation

The final award for ‘Innovation’ was awarded to Plymouth’s OnBoard Officer Stuart Jones, who works at Plymouth Youth Sailing Club, for his ability to provide new and imaginative ways to draw young people to the OnBoard programme.   

Stuart has linked young disabled people from special schools with Onboard centres with the year end finale being his “All Aboard OnBoard” Festival which was specifically for sailors with disabilities.    

Victoria went on to say: “The past year has been truly remarkable for OnBoard thanks to the hard work and dedication of our 30 ODO’s. We now have run nearly 200,000 new sessions for young people to learn to sail and windsurf and we have 165 OnBoard Clubs organising activities across the country.  

“OnBoard not only encourages young people to learn to sail but inspires them to remain regular participants of the sport.  Since the programme began we have had over 10,000 youngsters continuing to get out on the water, a figure we could never have achieved without the dedication of officers and volunteers and I am delighted that this is recognised through these awards.”  

Proud sponsors of the awards were RS Sailing who presented the three winners with specially commissioned trophies to mark their achievements.  These perpetual trophies will go on to be presented to future winners of the RYA RS Sailing OnBoard Awards.   

Riki Hooker from RS Sailing said: “RS are big fans of the Onboard scheme. It’s our chance to invest in the future of sailing. Onboard serves to reinforce the next generation of dinghy sailors and to feed us with the passion and participation that we need. The Onboard awards were a perfect opportunity to say thank you to some of the people who shape the future of our sport by engaging children into sailing for the first time.”  

RS Sailing also provided champagne to the management team of each of the winning ODO’s as a thank you for their continued support to the officers.   

To find out more about OnBoard visit www.rya.org.uk