Onboard, Volvo Champion Club

We have also started down the RYA junior coaching route, but not the Squad system route at all. We have a very active junior group which isn't pushed into racing, but is supported if they want to go that way, and a Youth Development Squad for those who have their Level 4 qualification and want to carry on with both racing and teaching the younger ones. It can work well, and we have very good adult/junior intergration.

Originally posted by G.R.F. Originally posted by charlie1019 There is one problem...Several clubs I've been a member at have done the RYA thing, with a big push on getting the kids at the club involved. Initially it has huge numbers of kids out on the water and creates a real buzz in the club. Plus as more kids are down the club you get the parents out on the water increasing club turnouts. So all good at this point.The problem seems to occur two or three years down the line when the kids and parents get more interested and start attending more and more events. At one club I was a member of, the toppers seemed to have an open meeting, championship, or national, regional, zone squad training almost every weekend so we never saw any of the kids or their parents. The effect of this was the club was empty most weekends - this also causes problems when trying to find volunteers to help run the club. You would expect as younger generations of the family come to sailing it would start the cycle again but we were finding as the parents were already on the road with the older kids they didn't have time to take the younger kids down the club. Instead they just start the kids on the circuit with the zone squads etc... I know a good number of parents where mum would be taking kid number 1 to an oppie event up north while dad would be taking kid number 2 to a laser event on the south coast.The worst problem I've seen with the current RYA system is that as all the kids are coached so much and spend so much time on the circuit they end up seeing club sailing below them. You end up with a situation where the kids get to 18, realise they are not te next Ben and that sailing a laser weekend after weekend is not as exciting as kite surfing or going to the pub and give up on sailing. Looking at the topper and oppie open numbers, I recon there are more kids getting involved with competative racing, but are more sailing in their 20's??The RYA system is what ever you make of it but be careull of its long term impact on your existing club structure! Exactly what's happened to us, decimated our Tues Longboard series, we're now down to half a dozen or so core and the few fair weather turnouts. All the parents with kids have either taken to the circuit or now feel club racing is beneath them(they dont like getting beaten at club level)and after 10 years of this, Not 1 kid has stuck to the system, in fact the only newcomers are Dan and Tom from the Dinghy section. Great fodder for the RYA squad system but disastrous for club structure.

 

Exactly my thoughts and worries of great concern !!!!!, its happened at our club too, and again now , The RYA scheme ,setup etc is destroying Clubs ,

We were the first "Champion Club in Scotland " looking back -overall has it done any good ?---- NO .

We can't even get money to train instructors anymore !!, whilst RYA are more than happy to take our top radial,Oppie , Topper sailors in uk squads.

From an initial input of over 80 children when my kids started to sail we only have 3 regularily sailing now (in their late teens) .

 

The current crop has been decimated allready , with club races in these classes often having NO entries and parents don't race either as they clock up the miles driving to RYA events !.

In my opinion clubs would be better fostering their own training schemes , perhaps interacting with nearby clubs to create a talent share and benefit the clubs as a whole .

THE RYA is a kiss of death to club developement in my opinion and experience.

Dabble at your peril

This subject has come up more and more at our club, due to loosing a fair few keen sailors to the taxi trade, transporting their kids and toppers to events all over the UK. We have probably one of the largest contingents of zone squad kids in the South West, and unfortunately none of the events are ever at our club so the result is the kids hardly ever sail at home anymore and neither do their parents.

Club sailing is loosing out, as has been noted by others in this thread, and I do wonder whether the RYA are actually aware of what they are doing to small clubs. I can understand the desire to build your kids with talent into the next gold medal hopefuls but this should not be to the detriment of local sailing clubs.

My own personal feeling is that the regional development coaching team should instead be the ones doing the travelling, and should come and provide coaching at kids home club. Perhaps once a month they could hold a regional event at a club that has zone squad members, but the aim should be to keep the kids racing at home for as long as possible.

In the long term the damage, being done to the sport is probably more than the good being done by the medal haul.

Over the last few years the efforts made by the RYA to encourage clubs to employ professionals, overtrain kids, remove families from their local club, have all failed to improve the sport at grass roots levels. Unfortunately all their efforts just go to show how they have failed to identify those whom they are supposed to represent.

Edited by craiggo

Maybe it's your clubs that are doing something wrong rather than the RYA.

At our club we have a number of junior national squad sailors that take part in club activities - racing and messing around.

They raise the bar generally in terms of performance, and also inspire the upcoming generation to go out and do well too.

Back to the question about VCC ....... we've recently been awarded it at our club, and it has enabled our local coaches to work alongside the pros, and pick up a lot of good exercises, techniques, etc that then get shared around a wider audience increasing both the quality and quantity of local coaching on offer.

The purpose of it is to set us up to stand on our own two feet rather than depend on the RYA for our coaching. If our juniors go on to get into squads then great. We'll all be very proud of them, and they'll come back and help the others along.

PS. If, as alluded to further up the board, there is nothing in this to help the more 'mature' sailor, why not organise something? If someone from my club asked me to run a coaching session for adults I would be more than happy to, but I don't have the time to proactively arrange coaching for anyone that might want it.

If you went to one of your local coaches and asked if they would run some coaching if you were to do all the donkey work in terms of organisation, I'm sure they would be more than happy to.

Edited by GarethT

Originally posted by GarethT PS. If, as alluded to further up the board, there is nothing in this to help the more 'mature' sailor, why not organise something? If someone from my club asked me to run a coaching session for adults I would be more than happy to, but I don't have the time to proactively arrange coaching for anyone that might want it. If you went to one of your local coaches and asked if they would run some coaching if you were to do all the donkey work in terms of organisation, I'm sure they would be more than happy to.

In the RS Classes, the class association is pretty good at providing some coaching. I'm sure more could be done on a local basis though. Particularly at the level of club sailors who are not far enough down the line to join class associations.