Glossop Sailing Club deliver Activate success
by Katie Ashworth, LaserPerformance 27 May 2010 10:41 BST
Glossop Sailing Club attended the Activate Workshop at Crosby Sailing Club in March. Since attending the workshop, a lot of thought has been given to the project, which has resulted in a lot of activity.
It became obvious that for the ‘Activate’ program to be successful, the first thing we needed was a Laser Fleet Captain, a role left vacant at the Club after the previous Fleet Captain moved into another class a few years ago. In a moment of weakness and encouraged by Sailing Captain (Dave Worth) and Regional Club Coach (Alan Jones), Dave Morris accepted the role.
Some serious thought was given as to how we could encourage more Lasers out of the boat park and onto the water and the strategy adopted was a simple one:
- Identify all of the Laser sailor/owners at the Club and create a ‘Laser’ mailing list
- Instigate regular communication with the Laser fleet members – this resulted in the birth of the Glossop ‘LaserBeam’ newsletter, short & simple, published every week or two.
- Set up Laser Fleet Training/Fun days as early in the season as possible
- Provide an incentive to get Laser sailors of all standards out enjoying racing
With fantastic support from the RYA (who provided Alan Jones , our Regional Club Coach) and LaserPerformance (who provided us with shiny new boats to play in!) we set 3 dates for the Training/Fun days, one in May, one in June and one in July. The decision was taken to charge a nominal fee of £10 for attending individual events, or £25 to attend all three. The money collected from the attendees will be used to fund prizes to be awarded at the end of the season. Our ‘Big Idea’ that we hope will help put us in contention for the Paul Goodison coaching day is the novel way we intend to award the prizes. Of course we are all used to seeing prizes being awarded to race winners, but to encourage those new to racing or new to the Laser we decided to try to reward attendance rather than performance. So each time a Laser helm takes part in a Club race this season, he/she will be awarded a raffle ticket. At the end of the season, prizes will be awarded based on a raffle draw and obviously the more race participations an individual has, the better their chances of winning a prize. The ‘star’ prize this year will be a brand new Laser sail!
Already, we’ve seen an increase in Laser participation and hosted a friendly inter-club Laser race event with fellow Laser enthusiasts from Winsford Flash SC.
Last weekend saw the first Laser Training/Fun event being held at the Club and in total some 18 sailors participated. What was particularly good to see was that the event attracted both male and female sailors, a very wide range of ages (13 through to 50+) and a wide spectrum of previous sailing experience. With support from LaserPerformance (who loaned the Club five demo boats) it also enabled Club members who usually sail in other dinghy classes to get their first experience in the ‘Olympic Class’ Laser.
The days’ activities started with a rigging session in rather overcast, chilly and windy conditions. The 18 attendees shared knowledge and experience on rigging and tuning tips, ably assisted by Duncan Adams from LaserPerformance.
By the time the boats were rigged, the clouds had started to break and the first on the water session was held in glorious sailing conditions.
After a lunch in the Clubhouse it was back out onto the water for the afternoon sessions. Alan Jones, a Glossop Club member and also an RYA Regional Club Coach divided the group into two. One group of experienced Club racers were put through their paces with exercises focusing on boat control and race starting techniques whilst a second group of improvers focused on tacking and upwind sailing.
The afternoon finished with an impromptu ‘fun’ race around a short triangular course. Sailors were organised into pairs of experienced racers and laser improvers and positions were awarded based on when the ‘pair’ crossed the finish line. This worked really well and encouraged the more experienced sailors to sail alongside their less experienced partner and offer advice and encouragement around the race course.
This case study is another success story for the Activate Your Laser Fleet programme. Stay in touch with the progress of these clubs via the Facebook Page: Activate Your Laser Fleet and the dedicated Yachts and Yachting page at www.yachtsandyachting.com/activate . The full Activate resource pack can be found at www.laser.org.uk . If you would like your club to be considered for a future Activate workshops please email Tzaneen Mears at the RYA, 
