Promoting Sailing Clubs

We have been in existence for 65 years this year and are still surviving with good-ish turnouts.  We really are friendly but not pushy and there is no one in the club who I do not like. Our tea is cheap and our views beautiful. We are also well organised have good facilities and provide enthusiastic racing with two National Champions in the fleet. What is there not to like? It is competition from other pastimes that restricts the numbers, local kids are more interested in football or playstation. Sailing is not on their radar. Our bigest membership growth is in returners and middle aged men who just stumble across us.

Originally posted by davidyacht However, I have pointed out previously, there really needs to be a forum for Flag Officers and club managers to communicate with each other and learn from the others experiences ... Come on Y&Y grab this initiative!

Turnturle

If you care to look back at my original post, I very deliberately did not name the large club to which I was referring and was merely using this as an example to counter Peaky's original post in which he was saying that small clubs were clichy and unfriendly to newcomers. Chrisq subsequently named the large club.

Its all a case of horses for courses. If someone is sailing in one of the main fleets at the large club then they will, I suspect, be made very welcome by that fleet but I can only repeat that we regularly see people who comment how much friendlier and less impersonal is our small club.

We also have training on tap, a professionally cleaned clubhouse, an oversubscribed junior section and an even more beautiful setting in glorious countryside. We don't have the professional rescue cover which is needed on your large water but only do 2 race duties a year.

We have a very successful Junior Sail setup. Anything from 20 to 45 kids every Saturday morning through their season and around 15-ish on a Wednesday evening.
From this we've been able to 'sell' sailing to the various parents and setup various courses to suit them on a Saturday afternoon. The bonus here is that the kids just love messing around with new pals getting soaked all day, the parents get to keep their offspring occupied very cheaply and get to learn a new skill - as well as discovering why we do this in the first place.
The parents are also heavily involved in the running of Junior Sail, so they feel invested in it and feel very much part of the club.
We pick up plenty of family memberships through the year as 'Junior' gets converted.
Once we have the families pootling around our very picturesque lakes - and get them to spend time doing impromptu Summer barbecues etc: 2It's your club, use the facilities..." we can then work on advanced training and racing.
We've had kids go from never seeing a Dinghy a few years ago to passing their DI courses just a few weeks back - a great life skill at such an early age.
Adults who did their Level One are now doing Level Two, Level three and even seamanship just one or two seasons later. All of our courses are modular so we get these people out on the water all the time...sailing becomes ingrained and part of their regular routine.
We arrange AI training too, again looking at parents and the juniors, giving a real sense of belonging.
This also helps with the supply of future DI's and keeps memberships healthy - in fact, we have a waiting list for our not-inconsiderably sized boat park.
We attract people, initially, via Open Days and, last year, by displaying at a local village day - which was very very successful. Offer a booked, free sailing session and a cup of tea and just see the result. Plenty of new members signed up and exposes the club to people that didn't know we were there.
Again, we use the kids as the driver to setup word of mouth at school, though we also use our faffbook page and website as well as local free press and news websites.
We've also recently done a cost breakdown to show that a club membership will cost less than sending the sprogs to football each week and that contrary to popular thought, a boat doesn't have to cost a fortune. All very persuasive and supportive
We focus very much on families and social sailing first and that gets the numbers in - people are put off if we mention 'racing' straight away, so we barely mention it. Once they're in, though, we'll try to get a few out crewing or just encourage the idea that actually racing is a laugh and improves your skills extremely quickly.
On a Summer's Saturday, when I'm sat on the club patio watching people just having an absolute ball either on or off the water, it always makes me smile.

Fleaberto...Manor Park? We did drive there once but came from the North through the countryside. I was impressed with your facilities and the youthful exuberance we witnessed. Where are you near where is your nearest centre of mass population? Where do you drawer your membership from?