Hi,

My home club, like many I am sure suffer with the non attendance of OOD and duty crew. What do clubs do to address this problem?

The current system works on a 3 month rota with each member being on the list 2 times a year. A schedule is sent to people on the forthcoming list, with a reminder to the OOD several weeks before the date. It is expected that the OOD will telephone his crew to ensure they are coming but this causes some hassle and if the OOD is not going to turn up what hope is there! Phone numbers are on the list so it is possible to make a swap, but this is not policed.

Redders

We have talked about a payment system. Using vouchers to the value of say £20 which are handed out when you do a duty.That way no money changes hands except when joining or renewing membership. The vouchers could then be used against the following years membership fee.

People would have to say at the beginning of the year if they wished to do duty or not in order to put together a duty list. The problem would come if the majority of members said they did not want to do any duty.

How many people do clubs have running duty for club racing? What are the recommended numbers?

We publish the lists at the start of the season and then it's up to the person on the list to find a replacement if they cannot make it. We need 4 in the Battery (RO, Flags, Timekeeper and Assistant) plus 2 in each safety boat (2 or 3 boats out each time) so that's quite a lot of volunteers.

The Battery and Rescue lists are mailed to every club member, feature prominently on the website and our weekly e-mailed newsletter lists that week's crew as a reminder.

We give average points if you are on duty so you are not penalised for your effort and we try to coordinate things so that you are on duty with your crew. We have tried docking people points if they don't show but we race both dinghies and keelboats, and penalising an IRC Cruiser when one of the 'hands' didn't turn up was a bit draconian.

It's an ongoing problem for most clubs, I think. It causes us problems perhaps once or twice a year but we are fortunate that 80% of sailors live within 10 minutes of the club so emergency replacements are easy to find.

Weston runs a good system.  All the duties are managed on an online system and you are emailed a notification a couple of months before your duty to let you know you have one.

If the date doesn't suit you can arrange swaps online - no hassle trying to ring around.  If you fail to turn up to duty then you may have your membership suspended. 

Works a lot better than my old sailing clubs system ever did.

Bala has introduced a credits system. This appears to work well. Members book themselves in for duties, so shouldn't need reminding. Next years membership is credited with £10 per duty. A full member is asked to do 3 duties with a cap of 6 credits. So If you do your duties you are rewarded with lower fees and if you are cash-rich-time-poor then your fees are higher.

Kevin

That's a good idea, providing you have a menbership big enough to cover more than all duties. Yes, there are members who will want to help the club and/or save money by doing extra duties, but buying your way out of club duties might create an atmosphere of resentment.

I don't think there's a ready answer, especially in club like ours, where the membership is small and everything's run voluntarily. All we have to encourage, is good will and enthusiasm from occasional sailors, so they come down to the club for something else than their duty.

In Lancing, we're using a combination of http://www.dutyman.biz/ - Dutyman and a very persistent rota secretary. At the end of the day, all our little clubs depend upon people's will to help.

Good luck