All set for 2014 season at St Edmundsbury Sailing & Canoeing Association
by Mike Steele 20 Mar 2014 15:22 GMT
20 March 2014
The St Edmundsbury Sailing & Canoeing Association is getting ready for the start of the Club's 2014 sailing season, which commences on Sunday 30th March.
Our first major event will be our 'Antigua Sailing Day' regatta, which will
incorporate a Laser Masters (over 35s) Open Meeting, which will be held on
the 27th April. The event has received sponsorship from the Antigua &
Barbuda Tourism Authority, as a result of press coverage of our inaugural
Antigua Sailing Day being picked up by the Antigua Sailing Week Race
Committee, last year. The Club has been offered a steel band and bottles of
English Harbour Rum as prizes, so it should be a fun occasion.
As last year, we will be running an RYA 'Push The Boat Out' Club Open
Weekend, which will be on 17/18th May. This event has again been registered
as a BBC Sports Taster (sailing) Activity. We are hoping for an even more
successful outcome than the 150 visitors and 80 sailing tasters that we
gave, twelve months ago, which resulted in a dozen new family members
joining the Club. This made it one of the most successful PTBO events in the
Eastern Region and also earnt the Club the RYA's Social Media Award for
promotion of the event.
As a new initiative, we are introducing 'Have a Go' sailing sessions, on one
Sunday afternoon per month, to encourage new members. We have already
recruited ten Club members to train as Assistant Sailing Instructors, with a
view to extending our training capabilities, and expanded our Club
hire/training fleet to fifteen boats. It is a key attraction of the Club
that you do not need to own a boat in order to sail.
We are also starting a series of Junior Sailing Sessions; monthly Topper
race training and will be holding a Junior Regatta in September, in response
to the influx of new family members with young children.
These events are being run in addition to regular race training activities;
Women on Water sessions; WASH Disability sailing; Sea Cadets; Young People
Afloat and Suffolk Scouts' sailing activities. A full calendar of events is
available on the Club website, www.westsuffolksailing.org.uk