Promoting Sailing Clubs

I have posted before, I will again, IMO there are too many clubs and it's diluting the racing available.  We have sailors continuing at clubs with crappy little sailing waters, trees, poor access, mixed up fleets (no fleets at all), bad landlords etc... when there are perfectly good clubs within 20-30 minutes drive offering far better sailing, facilities and potential for growth. I applaud anyone getting stuck in and volunteering to help, just wish there was some slightly more long-termed view and/or some route/guidance coming from above that would help the bigger clubs flourish, the medium clubs expand and the small clubs, die off - but crucially, die off gracefully so no one is lost who wants to participate.

Hi Moo
We offered a much reduced rate for the first year for those undertaking a training course and in the second year the jump to full cost lost us a few in the following year the loss was nowhere near as great. By offering courses at well under the local pro centres we have certainly stopped the rot and are starting to grow again with some starting to come through to racing and joining in with work parties etc. Aiming at Adults works better than juniors as they seem to stick at it longer once the very first drop outs happen.
The next challenge we tried to address was helping them gain confidence to just go sailing when rescue cover was in place and just some confidence giving coaching/ refresher courses.
We have been involved with the local councils passport scheme to get bored kids off the streets and Gosport afloat giving taster sessions.
To our club members we created a monthly newsletter and what coming up emails every couple of weeks covering all aspects of the club.
All this involves a lot of volunteer time so good luck and as is always the case the few do so much for the many.

I assume that the underlined communicating was implying that the thread was not going in the direction that you had hoped!  

I have no idea if there is any supporting data, but when dinghy sailing grew in the 70's on small gravel pits and on rivers, along came the big lakes, such as Queen Mary and Datchet, these creamed off many prospective members of the smaller clubs, and in my experience these little clubs had a better social atmosphere than the big places.  Yet I don't see that these clubs have gone to the wall, many stagger on with a handful of perhaps ageing members.

I like that Ladies that Launch idea, trying to get our lot to run an evening maybe back it up with a creche rota so Mums can take a break and get out on the water whilst we torment their kids.

We've been bashing our Facebook page like there's no tomorrow, our problem at Hythe is a very small boat park, over the years flat developments have moved in either side, so there is nowhere else to go, the beach on occasion gets completely washed away despite replenishment so we can't store boats even in the summer, so we have had no alternative but to go multi sport, a lot of us do other stuff anyway so we consider ourselves more a sail or seaport club. With the growth in SUP as well as Kite to supplement Windsurfing it keeps our numbers stable without too much pressure on storage. We tried to encourage some kayakers last season, but they're a bit like divers in a weird psycho serial killer style way so nobody really spoke to them and we think they might go away, shame, but it is funny how the different sports attract different personalities.

We've also tried for the sea swimming/triathlon lot but they're a bit roadie thousand yard stare weird, you try to talk to them but unless you have a wet fish handy to keep slapping them round the face with, to get their attention they just drift off to the horizon.

But we persevere, we've had a couple of new members moved down with their work, but then we get some of ours drift off out of orbit and get sucked into black holes like Downs. We're just about to get the events calendar sorted then published so folk get to see what is going on next season, hoping for more demo days, come try sailing days, teaching kids to sail and windsurf down the lake, work closer with Redoubt who have even worse troubles with a fish murdering fascist warden doing his best to scare anyone who comes along away by sheer force of rude personality issues.

It is tough, the world has changed so, there are lots and lots of diversions and calls on folks spare time, not to mention cash, the social aspect of the club just has to be part of it, folk who laugh and drink together as well as sail or ride together tend to suck more to the flame, so that's how we roll, make it fun, as well as exciting and competitive and keep it visible, always something going on.

Then report it, and there, like it or not, Facebook is your friend these days.

Edited by iGRF - 07 Jan 15 at 10:33am