Another club closure

Originally posted by maxibuddah Years gone by people were enthused by the Swallows and Amazons, those days are gone into the distant memories of the eldery that inhabit clubs these days.

Originally posted by sargesail Originally posted by maxibuddah Football for the most part is engrained into your soul at a young age. You grow up with it and junior wants a new shirt each season at a rediculous cost. But they do and that will be the reason they get a season tcket if they can ever afford one, and they travel. Football, like a lot of sports is a religion, you have faith. There is no rational about it, which is why they lavish vast amounts of money on it. Sailing on the whole is not a sport you can watch, lets face it on the whole its boring to watch, unless of course you are really into it. There are no teams to get behind to generate that 'faith following'. So unless you were brought up on it you are going to struggle to get people to commit in the same manner. For me: delete football. Insert sailing. Delete new shirt insert new sail. If I can’t be sailing I like nothing better than to watch it. I’m a believer! Too many negative vibes here! Where are these clubs that are closing (outside landlord pressures). How will we know that Duncan’s club actually did survive beyond his generation?

Edited by Grumpycat - 27 May 22 at 2:32pm

Most radical working practices I have come across are working from home and the four day week, only flexible hours working people I know are our sales people, they are all self employed. Perhaps it's different down south. Jobs trump sailing, no amount of talking will change that.
My club isn't suffering job issues though, old age and very few new members, younger people will look around and see a vibrant large club like Bartley, large reservoir, good facilities. Their are probably twenty small clubs within a ten mile radius of Bartley, all of them struggling.

Originally posted by sargesail Originally posted by maxibuddah Football for the most part is engrained into your soul at a young age. You grow up with it and junior wants a new shirt each season at a rediculous cost. But they do and that will be the reason they get a season tcket if they can ever afford one, and they travel. Football, like a lot of sports is a religion, you have faith. There is no rational about it, which is why they lavish vast amounts of money on it. Sailing on the whole is not a sport you can watch, lets face it on the whole its boring to watch, unless of course you are really into it. There are no teams to get behind to generate that 'faith following'. So unless you were brought up on it you are going to struggle to get people to commit in the same manner. For me: delete football. Insert sailing. Delete new shirt insert new sail. If I can’t be sailing I like nothing better than to watch it. I’m a believer! Too many negative vibes here! Where are these clubs that are closing (outside landlord pressures). How will we know that Duncan’s club actually did survive beyond his generation?

Originally posted by turnturtle I do wonder if sailing in general has a bit of parsimony issue

Mid fleet club sailing *is* a pretty cheap sport for most people. Its an interesting exercise to replace duty hours with the equivalent of those hours in the living wage. At my club it would nearly double the membership fees.

As I've said before this is because the club sailing model evolved at a time of vastly lower affluence than now. If we are heading into a time of reduced affluence again then it might not be time to dump that model.