Demographic Changes

How can you foresee what will happen in the future without an understanding of what has occurred in the past?

20 years ago, to reference another thread for a moment, the future being written for sailing was one of high speed assy machines, no harder to sail than an Enterprise, dominating the sailing landscape. That, despite the history of sailing showing that the HP boats have always been a minority interest. I'm sure there were articles around saying it was all a load of hype, but I don't recall them.

The 20 years thread shows that at the moment none of us have a really clear vision of what sailing will be like in the future. Even the prediction of an assy revolution would be welcome compared to the ideas put forwards on that thread.

Best bet for an article about the future would be all about rotomoulding and the boats being used for pay and play.

Originally posted by Null Originally posted by Rupert Null, what should the new tech version of a website like this be doing that this one can't? As usual, I'm about 5 years behind on technology - if I'm on the curve at all. I missed gaming totally... For me Rupert, the basics are here but its quite old in terms of web formatting.  When was the last time we saw a change in how the site operates?  You could argue that it works, so why change it.  However we don't seem to attract new people.  In fact all the front page does is post PR by class associations and the odd article.  The archive it.  There are many other websites to look at and drawn inspiration from.  I like the Bikeradar format (cycling is my other sport) in terms of the news, reviews etc.  The forum is but the same as we have here just with more bell ends.  However even this is split out into sub forums better. We talked about recently how there was a lack of a magazine nowadays and Graeme mentioned how it was not possible when we consider advertising revenues.  But I'm not sure a printed magazine is needed nowadays.  A hub for all things dinghy sailing, is whats needed.  Somewhere writers like dougal can publish articles, industry experts can pull reviews together.  Manufacturers can sell their latest products.  Events can be advertised properly.  Easy gateways for people to find out more about sailing, a clubs page where clubs can create biographies.  Hell if i had the time and the 'Web design' savy i would create it myself. A one stop shop.  Hell call it Dinghy Hub, a hub for all things dinghy.

Sounds good to me. Shame our National body doesn't think that way, but then these things are often better done somewhere where criticism is possible...

Originally posted by Rupert Originally posted by Null Originally posted by Rupert Null, what should the new tech version of a website like this be doing that this one can't? As usual, I'm about 5 years behind on technology - if I'm on the curve at all. I missed gaming totally... For me Rupert, the basics are here but its quite old in terms of web formatting.  When was the last time we saw a change in how the site operates?  You could argue that it works, so why change it.  However we don't seem to attract new people.  In fact all the front page does is post PR by class associations and the odd article.  The archive it.  There are many other websites to look at and drawn inspiration from.  I like the Bikeradar format (cycling is my other sport) in terms of the news, reviews etc.  The forum is but the same as we have here just with more bell ends.  However even this is split out into sub forums better. We talked about recently how there was a lack of a magazine nowadays and Graeme mentioned how it was not possible when we consider advertising revenues.  But I'm not sure a printed magazine is needed nowadays.  A hub for all things dinghy sailing, is whats needed.  Somewhere writers like dougal can publish articles, industry experts can pull reviews together.  Manufacturers can sell their latest products.  Events can be advertised properly.  Easy gateways for people to find out more about sailing, a clubs page where clubs can create biographies.  Hell if i had the time and the 'Web design' savy i would create it myself. A one stop shop.  Hell call it Dinghy Hub, a hub for all things dinghy.   Sounds good to me. Shame our National body doesn't think that way, but then these things are often better done somewhere where criticism is possible...

I loved reading about the Moth worlds, the techy bits, the stories, but sail on a puddle in the middle of nowhere. I can see, though, that the Moth sailors might not be so interested in a 12 boat open meeting at our club.

This is why open meeting write ups are a bit odd - some would say mine especially. Who do they cater for? If you were there, you know what happened. If you weren't, why would you care? They do act as a way of keeping a class visible - when thinking about a class, the Y&Y page will show me that it an active class if there are lots of postings, but there must be more interesting things for classes to write about than who beat whom to the windward mark in race 3. In fact, very often the previews are more interesting.

Originally posted by Rupert I loved reading about the Moth worlds, the techy bits, the stories, but sail on a puddle in the middle of nowhere. I can see, though, that the Moth sailors might not be so interested in a 12 boat open meeting at our club. This is why open meeting write ups are a bit odd - some would say mine especially. Who do they cater for? If you were there, you know what happened. If you weren't, why would you care? They do act as a way of keeping a class visible - when thinking about a class, the Y&Y page will show me that it an active class if there are lots of postings, but there must be more interesting things for classes to write about than who beat whom to the windward mark in race 3. In fact, very often the previews are more interesting.