Pay and Play

Originally posted by Demelza Many thanks for all the info and suggestions. I can understand that a lot of clubs would like you to become a member rather than offer day sailing but not everyone wants to spend out on annual membership or commit to regular use of club facilities and all that entails. Pity,they are missing out on additional income.

You're welcome to start a club on that basis, or maybe make it work at one of the very small number of members' sailing clubs which are failing. The issues with offering sailing to non-members are not trivial. There is a whole load of H&S and Safeguarding for a start. Licensing. Insurance. The need for qualified staff.

There have been loads of business operations based on making dinghy sailing available to the casual public, it's a very tough way to make a living, and the market only supports a small number of commercial operators. I don't think my club is missing anything by not offering services to non-members, we don't particularly need a small amount of sporadic income, we could do a few more committed members of course!                                                                     

Also, while there are actual businesses offering this kind of activity,  it might not actually be a good thing for members' clubs to undercut them by using volunteer labour. The commercial operators do bring some value to the sport IMHO                                                                                               

Getting £150 from someone who turns up and sails 6 times a year, is not the same as getting £150 from someone who wants to be a member and who may only sail 6 times a year, but who does a couple of duties, turns up for an annual working party, volunteers to help out in other ways and comes to socials and spends money behind the bar.

I'm not criticising you for wanting to do it the way you propose, but at my sailing club we're not particularly short of income, but we are short of people who put in time to volunteer to do things that have to be done and are reliant on a small band of really helpful people. And I suspect a lot of other smallish clubs are the same.  

edit add. For all the ideas of what additional things Clubs could offer somebody has to organise it all through from start to finish. For some smaller outfits the priority is going sailing, weird heh. Yes I can that this idea could be viewed as unwelcoming but it really comes down to what is possible with limited resources and quite often the resource of primary concern is person power.