RDO Blog September 2021

Hi everyone,

British Youth Sailing Regional Junior Championships OnBoard Fleet

With just a few days to go until the East British Youth Sailing Regional Junior Championships on 25/26 September at Grafham Water, I’m excited to see the entries coming in. I am really pleased that we have an excellent weekend of fun activity lined up for the OnBoard fleet, which is all about encouraging young sailors to attend their first event. We’re making it as easy as possible to join in, so we have a dozen boats available on a first come first served basis which are free to use for the OnBoard fleet. We have also assembled a great team of instructors to deliver a safe and enjoyable weekend. So, if you have young sailors that are at stage 2 standard, the OnBoard fleet could be perfect for them. You can book here. For those sailors with more experience, there is also the Coached Regatta and Championship fleet – find out more here.

Club Membership Census – thank you!

We have now achieved an 85% return rate for the club membership census, and I am incredibly grateful to all the clubs that completed this task. I appreciate that it is not super quick to complete, however, I am certain that you understand the importance of our data gathering - not only does it help shape our support to you, but it helps us to demonstrate the health of the sport to our funding partners, which in turn enables us to bid for funds to further support clubs. We will be publishing the insight from the survey over the coming weeks, however an initial look at the information suggests a reasonable uplift in membership from 2020, but still falling short of 2019 levels. More info to come soon.

Engaging with members over the Autumn & Winter 

Bearing in mind that many clubs have gained new members this season and many have returned to boating after a break it will be really important for us all to think about continued engagement through the autumn and winter. Of course, those clubs that remain open for the winter have a great opportunity to do this, but for those that close their doors and are unable to get afloat I would strongly encourage you to be creative and think about how you could learn from the lockdowns and provide continued engagement to your members. Virtual socials, evening talks, regular newsletters/updates are all good ways of keeping the club in mind. Coupled with modernised systems, this can drastically improve membership renewals for next season. Perhaps you could even extend the membership year, moving the renewal period out of the darkest months and into the beginning of Spring. I know that many clubs who have done this have seen it be successful. Whatever you choose to do, please do keep in touch, we’d love to hear what you are doing and share that with clubs around the region.

In other news…

 Please look at the other information in this edition of Club Room about the Affiliated Club Conference, which will be held in person, on Saturday 27 November at the Royal Hospital School, Ipswich. We are also holding a short virtual event on the evening of Monday 08 November, keep an eye out for more information.

Keep in touch

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - and keep us updated with your activities and plans to keep in touch with members over coming months.

I look forward to seeing you soon,

Robbie