Sailing is for posh people

Combs Sailing Club is close to the small town of Chapel en le Frith and about 10 miles from Buxton. This area is 'Old England', there is wealth but largely it is a very mixed and ordinary place.

We have very few local members (we are) with the bulk of our membership being drawn from small towns and communities on this side of the Manchester conurbation. We do publicise ourselves locally and can be seen from a main road but we find it very difficult to attract local members particularly juniors.

There are just not enough of the right (posh?) kind of people locally. Clubs like Datchet, QM or even Northampton are close to large swathes of the 'right kind' of people.

Our membership is stable and our finances good but it seems a shame that sailing is regarded as an exclusive sport.

There maybe an element of truth in what you say although it would probably be more accurate to say: keeping fit and healthy is more an obsession of those that don't do manual work.....fair enough, they need the exercise.

We do seem to be overly obsessed with class in this country though. It's one of the main reasons that manufacturing is struggling.......The problem (or attitude) is nearly a 1000 years old though so I don't suppose it'll go away. 

It's a joke really isn't it, the old class categories are gone...

A) We have an underclass... people who will never become a net contributor to society.  (I don't mean just tax- there's loads of ways to contribute to communities)

B) Then there is everyone else... arguing about how we deal with (a), when in reality we're all in the same boat and probably all would accept that we pro rata the hit, if only it seemed a bit fairer.  

There's also a final category- international citizens, folks who hide their wealth from taxation.  It could be corporations like Starbucks, who offset their Corp Tax arrangements with some moral nonsense about creating jobs and saving/cloning High Streets in yet another bland array of corporate identity.  All that lost government revenue could put a big dent in (a), but it won't happen- they'll be too smart about it and the rest of us will pick up the shortfall.

So what if Starbucks threatens to pull out of the UK in totality?  That's a b**locks threat... there's a market for coffee shops and they'd want their slice, even if they were made to pay Corp Tax.  But if those Starbucks shut down then independent coffee shops would spring up- picking up the lost labour, contributing more to local and national economics and almost certainly adding a bit of something interesting to the typical bland high street location occupied by that regal green bitch. 

Independent business is what drives the backbone of our economy... it pays its taxes, it employs to grow, it uses specialised resources when needed and it trains its staff.  Independent business will invest in new markets and above all, it tends to innovate, which is essential in a global market when our own cost base is higher than competitor economies.  

Over 24 million people are employed by the SME market in the UK.... most of them doing a bloody good job, working hard and restoring our economy after the last Government raped it.  And before key workers from the public sector jump in- yes, you guys do a damn good job- teachers, nurses, doctors, policemen, firemen... christ knows how you deal with burden the underclass put on you, never mind the bureaucracy to cover your arses from the media and/or central Government in the event that 'sh*t happens'.  And all you get is a measly 1% pay cap, while IPSA dole out 11% more for the tax dodgers and corporate cronies in Whitehall.      

The SME sector could do a lot more, and imho, a lot more beneficial to society as a whole, if the playing field were evened up a bit and the corporates were made to pay their due share of society's burden too. 

It won't happen- too many vested interests in the media and in politics to protect it.   

Yes!  .  I work with/in SME's and it's bloody hard work but a huge sense of achievement when you can take an idea and within a couple of years be employing, in one case, 9 people.

Not sure what this has to do with being posh and sailing though!