09 October 2025
Doubling membership with a makeover
How one Midlands club is boosting participation on and off the water
Club overview
Volunteer-run for the benefit of its members, Northampton Sailing Club is located at Anglian Water’s 600-acre Pitsford Reservoir within Brixworth Country Park, and offers dinghy racing, windsurfing, winging, kayaking and paddleboarding. As an RYA Recognised Training Centre, it runs a wide variety of courses and has one full-time employee, who is the Chief Instructor and Training Principal.
Identifying the problem
Pre and immediately post-Covid, Northampton SC had a falling number of members and an ageing demographic. It was also under pressure financially and the challenges were further compounded by a lack of awareness about the club locally despite there being a popular circular footpath around the reservoir.
There were additional difficulties around the renewal of Northampton SC’s lease with Anglian Water, which had wanted to claim back around a third of the club’s footprint to run commercial activities like open water swimming and SUPing. This generated a period of uncertainty until resolved with a new lease in early 2023 that maintained the club’s existing rights.
Implementing a solution
Identifying an urgent need to halt the decline in the club’s fortunes, and after resolving issues around unsustainable costs, fees were reduced by 30% and open days reintroduced to raise awareness and attract new members.
This was particularly successful in increasing the existing number of paddleboarding members, who make up half of the club’s membership, and encouraging people from the nearest two villages, Brixworth and Pitsford, to find out what the club had to offer, likewise increasing membership.
As well as public open days, the club introduced Members’ Open Days, inviting existing members to try something different to their usual activity. For example, giving paddleboarders a chance to try sailing and vice versa, or windsurfing, kayaking or winging.
Supported by members having access to a 25% discount off the club’s external pricing for taster sessions and RYA courses, members have been inspired to learn new watersports or gain instructor qualifications, encouraging more people to be on the water, more often.
Other activities include free weekly coached windsurf and sailing sessions in the main season for adults, and for young sailors with the Pitsford Pirates. There is dinghy racing on Thursdays and Sundays, and a Friday night paddle with SUPing, kayaking, BBQs and picnics.
There has been a major drive to add more social events to the calendar, including regular quiz nights that have grown from two tables to 14 teams. The site is accessible daily and allows camping, caravans and camper vans, and the clubhouse is open most days during the summer.
Consolidating progress
When the current Commodore joined the General Committee she took the lead in updating processes and systems to bring them up-to-date and the club now has a simple to use, self-serving, online membership system, an updated website and a new bar system that almost anyone can use!
Northampton SC uses a sports management app called Heja, which offers both free and paid versions, to manage its Pitsford Pirates group and volunteers, instructors and coaches.
A successful application for an RYA Midlands Learning & Development Bursary supported six club members to qualify as windsurf instructors - boosting the free coaching available to adults and juniors. The club has also invested in an RYA Dinghy Instructor course for five members to gain their ticket – and is actively seeking grants to strengthen its activities.
Having recently been awarded British Sailing Pathway Club status, it continues to support its members to qualify as instructors and is planning to train several members to be RYA Race Coaches to help both juniors and adults take part in club racing. The Pitsford Pirates group supports young sailors to gain RYA Stage 1-4 certificates, and to become instructors; there will also be winter race coaching on Saturdays in a joint initiative with Middle Nene SC.
Helping to further consolidate the sense of community for all, Sailability members now feel more integrated with the club as a whole. The club also hopes to provide a pathway for parents of young sailors to get more involved on and off the water.
There was a Women on Water session in 2024, and emerging from that the Commodore gained her Powerboat Instructor ticket and has been running PB2 sessions for the Pirates coaches. The club is planning another RYA-led WoW session and aims to extend this initiative in-house to encourage more women to start sailing.
The next plan is to consolidate the club’s communications and marketing strategy to keep promoting engagement and ensure the club’s activities stay in the spotlight.
Insights and tips
Commodore Sarah Carswell said: “When I first joined it was very much a sailing club for sailors, I hope that the changes we’ve made have meant the club is now more welcoming, vibrant and fun. We do our best to make it friendly and inviting, and along with the open days, a lot of our growth has been organic by word of mouth – people enjoy what we have and it’s a beautiful location. If people have a great time, they’ll pass that on to their neighbours, friends and family.
“The challenge going forward is that it’s difficult to know what the pinch points will be. It’s a balance of providing activities while not overloading the time of members and our volunteers. We are now expanding our coaching to get more sailors out on the water, running SUP opens to encourage groups to take part and inspiring our Pirates to keep afloat all year round! What we do know is that Northampton SC has an exciting future ahead - we have an open door and we’ve reconnected with our members and with the local community.”
Useful links
- Visit Northampton Sailing Club to find out more about its activities and memberships
- Sports team organisation and communication app Heja offers a free plan, plus paid options for additional functionality such as taking and tracking payments
- Visit RYA Affiliates Zone for guides including club comms/PR and finding new members
