Club rescue boat rotas

We have used (in some fleets) at Grafham the enticement that if you do a duty, you gain an extra score to your results of Average points MINUS one, so you gain in the race series BY DOING YOUR DUTY

We have had exactly the same. I think most clubs suffer to a greater or lesser extent.We like you send out reminder notices by email or post about two weeks before and like you ask them to look for replacements. I have frequently stood in at the last minute as have several other regulars. One lady whinged the "we dont race so why should we do our ONE duty per year. I took some action on this recently by making a serious comment in my write up as commodore in our quarterly Log.

It went along the lines that we are a community and that the committee put in a great deal of their own precious time to ensure the club runs smoothly. Without the input of past and present commitees (who happen to be mainly made up of racers) their would be no club and no facilities. It states in our membership rules booklet that every member is expected to do one duty per year and that many do far more than one. After all one short day in a whole year is little to ask for the privelidge of sailing in such a beautiful setting etc etc.

Basically you can only shame people but without mentioning names. As said previously in the thread you will always get the few who are too selfish to consider anyone else.

There are no easy answers so best of luck.

Instead of a “stick” how about a “carrot”.

Each duty earns you a meaningful reduction in your membership fee &/or boat park fees.

e.g. Do 3 duties a year and store your boat for free.

If the overall fees for the majority unwilling to help went up by 10% to cover the costs they could hardly complain.

This is a very good topic and a difficult issue.

I think that at least 50% of the time, when people don't turn up to duties it really is simply because they've forgotten.

If the rota is done at the start of the year, it can be easy to forget when your duty is, especially if you don't sail on a regular basis.

We found that at our club, after an automated email reminder system was setup, the number of people turning up to duties dramatically increased. A reminder email is automatically sent one week before the persons duty (obv this is no good for people without email, but it is cheap and it has been effective).

An extension of this would be to send a postcard reminder a week before, which could then be pinned to a noteboard at home, although more expensive and labour intensive.

Another idea is to rota people into teams, so they're always down for duty with the same group of people.

I know of one club who have thrown members out who have failed to turn up to duties on more two or three occassions unless there has been an exceptional reason. This does seem slightly draconian but the fact is they rarely have a problem with people turning for duties, and their rationale is if people consistently fail to turn up, do you really want them as members of the club? I guess that might be okay if you can afford to lose members!

It is a shame when people don't or are unwilling to help with duties because ultimately it really is quite simple - you can't have it both ways: either you have cheap membership fees with most things being run by volunteers, or if members don't like that, they have a choice, they can join a professional club and pay considerably higher fees to have those duties done by paid staff!

Hi Mike.

You're not alone in this scenario (surprise surprise) and it is very frustratiing for all concerned.  I think one of the things that was mooted at my club was a kind of name and shame, and then serious questions being asked about whether these peoples membership was really needed by the club.

Trouble is, there are a fair proportion of people out there who really don't give a damn and are extremely selfish, and unless there is some kind of public embarrassment factor, they'll continue to do it.  We have, on the odd occaision, even had the OOD not turn up....

Anyway, you get my sympathy, if not a solution.