Robbie's Blog December 2023
Hi everyone,
It’s been a busy few weeks with several events taking place, including the East Region’s Connected Event and the Cruising Conference, both well attended and enjoyed. It was great to catch up with so many clubs and sailors over these events, and we have more to follow, with the Connected Forums coming to a club near you in the New Year, and further events (more information on these below).
RYA Connected Event
The RYA East Connected event took place on Saturday 25 November at the Royal Hospital School. With the aim of the event being to share experiences, learn from each other and grow, it was good to see almost 100 delegates - representing some 50 affiliated organisations across the region - on the day. It also saw many Sailability groups take part for the first time. With a packed agenda covering a wide range of matters, from what’s coming up on the legal horizon, to supporting volunteers and everything else in between. Your feedback has told us it was a great opportunity to network with members from other clubs and centres and gain some useful information for your organisation, thanks to all that came along and supported the event.
You can find out more information in the event summary here.
RYA East Connected Forums
Coming up in the New Year, the RYA East Connected Forums provide an opportunity for clubs to come together in a more local setting, enabling the potential to network and have discussions around important matters such as volunteering and membership activities. This will be an interactive evening with content that will support your organisation in preparing for the future. We will look at how you can build an active volunteer network and understand how best to meet the needs of your current and future membership and participants.
These FREE forums take place across January and February and will be coming to a Club near you. All Forums take place 18:00-21:15 (18:00-19:00 for networking). The venues and dates include:
30 January 2024 – Benfleet Yacht Club (Essex)
31 January 2024 - Blackwater Sailing Club (Essex)
06 February 2024 – Royal Harwich Yacht Club (Suffolk)
08 February 2024 – Grafham Water Centre (Cambridgeshire)
13 February 2024 – Stanborough Park Activity Centre (Hertfordshire)
15 February 2024 – Norfolk Broads Yacht Club (Norfolk)
Additionally, there are a number of national online forums, taking place weekly these cover a wide variety of topics. You can check out the full list and book here
Save the date for Regional Training Day
The 2024 Regional Training Day will take place on Sunday 03 March at Grafham Water Centre – save the date now! Bookings will be open mid-January, and the day will include a range of content across dinghy, power, windsurf & winging schemes – it will be an accessible event with boats and activity available for all.
PY Online
It’s that time of year for clubs to get your PY returns in – this helps to generate the new numbers which are published at the Dinghy Show. The more submissions from clubs, the more accurate the data is, so please do submit this.
Congratulations to the East Region Volunteer Award Winners
Volunteers truly are the reason why so much activity happens in the region, and it was fantastic to hear about the recognition of some of the East Region’s volunteers at the RYA Volunteer Awards, where recipients were presented with their Awards by HRH The Princess Royal. Congratulations to them all, you can read about the winners via the news section on the RYA East webpages.
Happy Christmas!
Finally, I’d like to wish you all a good holiday period and I look forward to working with many of you in the New Year. If you’re getting on the water over the festive period, don’t forget to tag us in your photographs(Twitter (X), Facebook and Instagram) – we’d love to hear from you!
Robbie