RDO Update January 2020
It was especially nice as we move into an Olympic year to see our local 2020 hopeful Stuart Bithell from Hollingworth Lake SC who normally crews with Dylan Fletcher in the 49er back at the helm of a Merlin Rocket in the 58th Eskimo Pursuit Race at Blackpool and Fleetwood YC, coming home in 3rd place behind two very quick GP14’s! 
2020 looks like it will be a busy year and the big news announced just before the end of 2019 was that Push the Boat Out and Try Sailing have now been relaunched under the banner ‘Discover Sailing’. The campaign will be running from 10 April to 30 September with clubs and centers able to order resources for events within that time frame.
We will be running a national marketing campaign, however this will be during the whole of May and throughout the Olympic Games in the summer. Sign up will go live later this month.
It may be the winter but we have lots going on as you prepare for 2020 including the following:
RYA Club Development Forums
New for 2020 are the club development forums. The overall aim of the forums is for clubs to come together to share ideas and support each other to help increase club membership across the North West.
Focused around key regional topics the forum outline is:
- Focus area & topics presented
- Discussion - What your club or the clubs as a group can be doing to tackle the challenges or take advantage of the opportunities on the table.
- Highlighting of support available from the RYA or other organisations
- Plan of action created
- Any other Business/ Questions - An opportunity for anyone to highlight successes they wish to share or a challenges they are facing outside of the evenings topic.
And of course snacks & refreshments will be available at each session to help keep the mind focused! The first forum topic is: How can your club make the most of its open days?
During this session we will look at the new ‘Discover Sailing’ campaign and how to make sure your club are signed up for the resources. We will help you to create new ideas an initiatives to help achieve your clubs open day aims and most importantly try to retain as many new sailors as possible following the day.
Dates for the forums are:
28 January – West Kirby Sailing Club
4 February – Delph Sailing Club
6 February – Royal Windermere Yacht Club
Please book in advance to give us an idea of number.
RYA National Training Conference: 1-2 February 2020, Wyboston Lakes
FINAL CHANCE TO BOOK YOUR SPACE, all the information and booking details can be found online.
Open for the first time to all Senior Instructors in the Dinghy and Windsurfing schemes, and all Instructors in the Power and Personal Watercraft Instructors, the RYA Training Conference supported by Gallagher is back and it’s set to be bigger and better than ever before.
Aimed at Principals, Trainers, and Coaches within the Dinghy, Windsurfing, Power, Personal Watercraft and Inland Waterways schemes, we’re delighted to announce a change in venue and increased capacity for 2020.
Only a few places remain so if your planning on attending book asap!
RYA Sailability National Conference: 15 February 2020, Wyboston Lakes
Once again we are delighted to be able to offer three RYA and Sport England funded places to all Sailability Sites who are part of the programme. Each place includes conference delegate, awards dinner and Saturday night accommodation. All we ask is, if you take up all your allocated free places, one of these goes to a sailor.Booking will close on Monday 3 February 2020, or earlier if capacity is reached. Book your place via this link.
RYA Safety Boat Course – 22-23 February
This two day course, being held at Scotman's Flash Activity Centre, Wigan, is a pre-requisite for the RYA Senior Instructor course and is useful for anybody wanting to assist as safety or rescue cover at their local sailing club. Over the course of the weekend you will learn how to safely rescue and recover a variety of water craft as well as how to set up and manage tows.
Key learning points: Preparation, boat handling, dinghy rescue, windsurfer rescue, kayak or canoe rescue, towing, end of day procedures, safety, suitability of craft, local factors, communication, rescuing other water users.
Cost for this course is £150 per person, booking is online using this link.
RYA NW Instructor Training Day 2020 – Saturday 14 March
This year’s annual Instructor Training Day will be moving back to a Saturday and will be back at Waterside Lodge, Southport after our trip to Windermere in 2019. We have loads of great workshops planned including some old favorites mixed in with some great new topics so it should be another good event.
Booking will go live this month on this page!
RYA Dinghy Senior Instructor Course – 21, 22, 28 & 29 March 2020
Our next Dinghy Senior Instructor Course will take place at Delph Sailing Club in March at the reduced cost of £215 per person. Only 3 places remain so book your place now.
Planning our future together
Finally we are approaching a significant time for the RYA. We are currently mid-way through our 2017 -2021 strategic process and are already building great ambitions for the following four years, and we want you to be part of it. Boating is a volunteer, club and training centre based sport and it’s imperative that we better understand the challenges and opportunities which you have within your venue. This will ensure we can provide the best support possible for you and your venue going forwards.
To help you identify the challenges and opportunities, we’ve created two toolkits. You can pick which one you use and each has some questions and tasks which will help you discuss, draw out and capture the relevant information and ideas. We recognise time maybe limited so we’ve created a 30 minute form of the toolkit in addition to the more comprehensive two hour version.
Your club contact will have received full details on how to complete the toolkit however if they or your committee have not received this please get in touch. It would be amazing to see lots of responses from the region so we can ensure our voice is heard as we continue with the planning process for 2021-2025.
Happy Sailing,
Adam McGovern
Facebook: www.facebook.com/RYANorthWest/
Instagram: @ryanorthwest @adam_sailing