Female Participation
With Sport England’s This Girl Can Campaign having proved extremely successful at getting women into sport, the RYA have been looking at ways of increasing female participation in sailing and windsurfing.
In the East Region, Sailing Development Officer Jen Miller is taking the lead on the project and developed resources, aiming to increase female participation across the Region through assisting clubs in both getting existing non-sailing members on the water, and encouraging new members into clubs.
Are you thinking about starting a group at your club or have an activity you’d like to build and attract new members? Get in touch with Jen to discuss possibilities.
About Jen Miller
Jen has been a Coach since 2011, and has been sailing all her life. She’d like to see more women become role models for others, and here she tells us more:
It would be great to see opportunities for female sailing broadened at a club level. This is something I’m very passionate about. I was born into a sailing family, but rather unusually it was my mum who sailed, who inspired my love and enthusiasm for the sport.
Now I want to pass that passion onto others. Of course, the focus on racing will always and should remain, but emphasis on other types of activity in the sport is key to those individuals that find racing intimidating, particularly at entry level (first learning to sail). In some clubs, it is women that have identified this, and groups have been developed to offer that opportunity. If clubs can harness this and use it to their advantage, participation as a whole will rise. We have also seen that more female instructors encourages participation and these can be a role model for others. We know that there is a huge opportunity to increase membership and participation within sport from Sport England research, with it currently showing that in England alone there are 2 million more men participating in sport than women.
You can get in touch with Jen to find out more: jen.miller@rya.org.uk
Your Stories
Currently there are many groups across the region already taking part. Jen would like to hear your stories of how you started and progressed and how it’s affected the membership at the club. Clubs wanting to start will also benefit from hearing your stories, learning what different activity takes places, giving them ideas of how it could also work for them.
Resources
We have a number of resources available to help get your project off the ground - contact Jen for more information and case studies.
