Susie's Scoop March 2022

Hi everyone,

What a busy and wild month it’s been with Storm Eunice producing the highest gust ever recorded, 125.4mph, at The Needles! I hope everyone stayed safe and if your organisation has been affected with storm damaged facilities, you can apply for up to £15,000 from Sport England’s Storm Relief Fund. Details here.

Thankfully the storm was the weekend before the Dinghy & Watersports Show. It was an incredibly busy show and a joy to meet up with so many people face to face. Something that I’ve really missed.

I was especially pleased to take part in the This Girl Can…Race! Talk, helping raise awareness of some of the issue that prevent female participation in our sport.

Talking of females in sailing, I hope that all the RYA clubs, class associations and centres in the South will get involved in the upcoming Steering The Course festival. Clubs should be thinking about how you can get involved now and which activities which you can run to help with female participation.

Here are some ideas:
• Run a ‘women at the helm’ club race,
• Use a female race management team,
• Run a specific taster session,
• Link a celebration to your ‘women on water’ group,
• Provide opportunities for aspirant female instructors or coaches to shadow your current team.

During the week of 20th-29th May, the RYA will also be running a ‘takeover’ on RYA social channels highlighting women and their roles in the sport on social media. Whether as commodores or committee members, helms or trimmers, race officials or mark layers, instructors or coaches, to raise the profile of women in boating.

Please do let me know if you have activity taking place or would like to join in and feature during the social media take over. Sign up here.

Also at the Dinghy Show, it was fantastic to see Brading Haven YC and Lymington Town SC take to the main stage to receive their special recognition certificates, during the Club of the Year Awards presentation. Brading Haven for sustainability and Lymington Town for modern, innovative and forward thinking. As well as Warsash SC in the limelight receiving a Certificate of Commendation for their outstanding work during the last year. Congratulations to all and well deserved.

Congratulations also go to Emily Shears from Reading SC for receiving a well-deserved Musto Youth Award at the Show. Unfortunately, Gabriel Davies from Brading Haven YC was unable to attend the presentation but is also a well deserving young sailor from our region. Well done to both!

RYA Resources
It is great to see that Aylesbury SC, Guernsey Sailing Trust LBG and Tudor SC have signed up for RYA Discover and Rediscover Sailing Support. These clubs will now receive lots of help, advice and resources to help plan and run events to bring new people and potential members to their clubs.

This really is a great resource for clubs and I urge you to have a look online and see what is available for you. The next print run date for materials is 7th April. Find out more here.

Our Regional Communicator, Helen Skelton-Smith can help you reach your local community by helping promote these events to local press and radio, as well as on South Facebook and Twitter. Please do contact Helen for assistance. 

CPD

There are several Race Coach Level 2 courses taking place over the next few weeks, costing £125:

Hayling Island SC on 6th & 7th April, book here and book onto the course on 21st & 22nd April here.

Warsash SC on Saturday 7th – Sunday 8th May. Sign up here.

Join coach, and Gold and Bronze medallist Helena Lucas MBE at Spinnaker SC over the weekend of Saturday 14th – Sunday 15th May. Sign up here.

Chichester YC on 14th – 15th May. Book here.

More details about what Race Coach Level 2 is can be found here.

A Dinghy Senior Instructor Course will take place at Guernsey Sail Training Trust on 11th – 14th April. Book onto the course here. https://rya.eventsair.com/so-dsi-apr-22/dsi/Site/Register

A Dinghy Instructor Part 2 (Double Handed add on) course will take place at Andrew Simpson Centre, Reading on 26th - 27th March. Costs £100. Book here.

There are several Instructor Revalidation Days taking place soon. Two dinghy courses, both costing £50 at Active Nation, SWAC on 27th March, book here. and at UKSA, Cowes on 9th April, book here.

Two Powerboat Instructor Revalidation Day Courses will take place at Active Nation, SWAC 27th March. Book here and at UKSA, Cowes 9th April. Book here.

All the courses available in the South region and elsewhere can be found here.

At the time of writing, the Online OnBoard CDP for Instructors has just a few days left until it starts on 17th March. I can now confirm that the on-the-water session will take place on 24th April. Find more info here.

Good luck to everyone taking part in the Aspirant trainer programme. The next selection dates in April will help these Instructors to the best Instructor they can be and hopefully lead onto becoming Trainers.

Instructor Online CPD
Just two sessions now remain in the hugely successful online Instructor series - I hope you have all found this series useful and informative.

The March 23rd session will help Instructors feel confident to deliver sessions for students with a disability, different genders, or people from ethnically diverse communities. Then on 29th March, the rescheduled RYA Training Scheme Update from Amanda Van Santen RYA Dinghy & Windsurf Chief Instructor and Rachel Andrews RYA Power Chief Instructor will take place.

And remember that all the sessions are recorded so even if you can’t make the live event, please do sign up so you can catch up at a time which suits you. Book here.

Online Club development forums
The final remaining Club Facilities forums will take place in May. Planning, Permissions and Consent on 4th May and Procurement and Build on 17th May. Book here.

Unconscious Bias training session
The RYA Equality Team will be holding an Unconscious Bias online training session, with Ineke Houtenbos, NSPCC Senior Trainer and Development Consultant, on Wednesday 6th April at 7pm-8:30pm. This session will look at what is unconscious bias, the ways in which our unconscious bias can be challenged, plus how can we put this into practice when it comes to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion amongst RYA affiliated organisations. This will be held on Microsoft Teams, you can sign up here.

RYA Volunteer of the Year Awards 2022
The deadline to submit nominations for the RYA Volunteer of the Year Awards 2022 is fast approaching - Monday 2nd May! You can recognise the outstanding contributions made by our volunteers from four categories: RYA Awards (National and Regional), Francis Elkin, Honor Preston Award, Family Award and the RYA Community Awards (Lifetime, Outstanding and Young Volunteer). Nominate here.

Regional Junior Championships
Entries for the Regional Junior Championship weekends will be opening soon - watch out for this on social media. The event is taking place earlier in the year for (hopefully!) more favourable weather.

We have a very exciting development as the windsurfers will have their own event this year at Oxford SC on 11th – 12th June, with coaching on the Saturday and racing on the Sunday. More info here.

I will be running the OnBoard fleet at the dinghy weekend at WPNSA on 18th – 19th June. So many youngsters have a fantastic time so please do encourage all your young OnBoarders to join in. More info here.

Youth sailors needed!
The British Youth Team is looking for candidates to feature in a behind the scenes vlog to capture what it is like to take part and travel to the Youth Nationals. Please do pass this on to any young sailors at your club who are competing at the event. To take part just drop the BYS an instant message throughout the BYS Facebook page.

The British Keelboat League has made some big changes for this year that will affect sailors and clubs in different ways. The deadline for BKL Premiership is also at the end of this month.

The BKL is now the BKL Championship and includes the following events:

Series Final

These events are now open to all, with no requirement to be a member of a club. The three highlighted championship events have specific requirements. In order to maintain the club aspect of the BKL have introduced a three event League for this year which will consist of the following events:

The league will run consecutive scoring with points accumulating over the three events, team members can change throughout the series and the winners will be invited to compete in the Sailing Champions League as the Premiership is now the exclusive route into this series.

Here is a handy video where Jack Fenwick and Richard Moxey explain the changes.

Save the date – ACC

And finally...the South Affiliated Club Conference will take place on 12th November. The South Volunteer Committee AGM may also take place during the event.

Until next time,

Take care, Susie