Volunteering / Club Duties

Originally posted by Noah   I think it’s just good manners to thank those who have run the racing, for example.  It is also nice to receive thanks and/or compliments having run racing for a day. How are a race team to know the event could have been improved if no-one tells them? There are, of course, nice ways and less nice ways of doing this! Thanks for e.g. a work party normally come in the form of a supplied lunch or similar. In my previous class a whip round was made to raise some cash to buy goodies for the trolley crews who were generally the youngsters from the host club.

My thoughts exactly.

Sadly I have heard the other option voiced several times over the years. IMO being miserly of spirit is not a good look.

Edited by Sussex Lad - 11 Jul 23 at 3:57pm

Quick question to anyone who reads this:

Do you consider it appropriate to thank volunteers for volunteering?

or...

Do you consider it something that should be done by all members as a matter of duty and therefore require no thanks?

Edited by Sussex Lad - 11 Jul 23 at 2:42pm

Hope it went well .

I'm probably old enough to be considered 'old school', and far too old to be commenting on the future of club sailing - that will be determined by the youngsters who are currently junior members. Received wisdom says that the majority of them will leave sailing as tertiary education and the struggle to start a career and maybe a family take precedence, but that some will return once those factors are settled and personal finances allow.

The reference in an earlier post to the rise of individualism is relevant here. Like most of my age group (70+) I started sailing in the front end of someone else's boat and still believe this is the best way to get started, but over the years we've all seen the rise and rise of the singlehander which I guess is one example of the individualist mindset; most kids these days seem eschew crewing and want to start off in oppies or toppers. How that will affect clubs in the future is anyone's guess.

Certainly starting as a crew fostered teamwork which I believe carries over into helping one's club run; doing duties and volunteering for all the odd jobs that need doing aroud a clubhouse and dinghy park emphasises the feeling of being a part of the club community, of being a member - and thats the point I'm trying to make.
 
To be a member means 'to be a part of' and almost by definition requires some input in terms of doing duties and volunteering. Its a two-way relationship in which we both give and take; its the model that sports clubs of all kinds have run and survived on for years. The alternative is for clubs to employ people to act as race officer, to man the safety boat, to run the bar, to do the admin and to maintain the dinghy park. At this point the club doesn't have any members; if all you're doing is paying a membership fee (vastly inflated to take into account all those salaries) then you're not a member, you're a customer.

Personally speaking, I'm a customer in almost every aspect of life; a customer of my bank, my garage, every shop I step into and if I want a pint then of my local too. I certainly don't want to be stuck in a one-way customer relationship with my sailing club as well. But whether the future members I outlined above will make that distinction remains to be seen.


Edited by Sheetpuller - 08 Jul 23 at 2:24pm

It all depends on how long it takes people to go from fit to dead. Until recently UK health statistics were showing that people were staying fitter for longer and taking the same amount of time to fade away and die. Of recent years the length of infirmity has been increasing again. Probably mostly due to obesity and diabetes. Whether this is going to be significantly true for us healthy sporty types time will tell.
Obviously there is a big difference between statistics and the individual's experience