I will be at a meeting later this week, and I need to raise one issue with regards to club duties. I'd like to be able to back this up with some numbers, namely how many duties (rescue boat/Race Officer/bar) would you guys expect to do at a member-run sailing club?

We have about 650 members, who are supposed to volunteer to do duties, and only sail (organised events) April-November, with - on average - two racing days per week.

I've had a look through some club websites, and it seems to be typical to do four duties per year... I think that I did 15 duties in 2008

At Whitstable we do 1 duty, ROD, recorder or rescue boat.

But open meetings are manned in addition to this so most of the more active/better sailors do an additional 1 or 2 to help with opens and nationals.

Then we have a smaller group who do loads more and without whome the club would struggle to function.

Forgot to add that we now use DutyMan to co-ordinate the OOD rota which seems to be a success!

See http://www.dutyman.biz/ - www.dutyman.biz/  

We have a Club Manager who puts together the roster: all members get rostered (or pay a duty waiver) for something: Bar, rescue, race assistants, Race Officer, working parties etc. On joining / each year, you register for the type of duty you would want to do.

Then members can swap betwen themselves (on line duty swaps) if they can't do it. A committee member is made responsible for each day: He can either chase people up a week before, or be prepared to cut his sailing and stand in if required. Wednesday evening roster is done differently: the first week is rostered, and then after that the duties are taken by people who sail on a Wednesday.

If people have been rostered, haven't swapped and haven't turned, they get "fined" the amount of the duty waiver fee (although I would like to see the fine double!).

In general, members expect one duty a year, although some (rescue boat mainly) get more. Committee members 10 or more duties a year (although these require presence at the club and dont necessarily stop you from sailing).

If you have 650 members, and are sailing twice a week, then that is 100 days. You probably need 12 members on duty each day: 4 for rescue (2 boats), 4 start boat, 2 bar, maybe 2 others for cleaning / weed clearing / grass cutting etc. Which nicely works out to 2 duties a year.

Hi,

I generally have 2 duties per year (Sunday racing - all year) -race officer + 2to3 ARO plus 2-3 safety boats). There's a volunteer system for Wednesday evenings.

If you do a duty, you qualify for "average points" for the series - it reduces the problems of losing support at the end of a series.

We also use the Dutyman system (for a number of years) - it works well.

Colin

At Wilsonian we have around 200, (on average -) very active members and no employees. Scheduled duties cover Sunday racing from end-March to end-December plus the odd Saturday event, with Wednesday duties being covered by competitors and volunteers, likewise the Warm-Up Series in Feb-Mar.

As such, we get away with two duties per year, plus one work-party duty in the Jan/Feb.

I've come to be a great believer in everyone doing duties and not having a paid-for opt out. I've realised that one of the reasons that our club has such a good atmosphere is because everybody is 'involved' through doing their duties. They get a greater insight into the workings of the club, meet members they'd never otherwise have spoken to, and get a sense that it really is their club and that they belong.

I get the impression too, that some members are re-activated by their duties. They may not find the time to come to the club until forced to by a duty date. After that visit has once-more broken the ice, it's easier to get back into coming to the club to sail.

In PD,

Our membership is about 150

Our Season is Late March – 1 Jan (Saturday), Late April – Mid Sept (Wednesday)

Each member does 1 RO duty a year & a member of the committee will do 5 race days of DO (they are excluded from doing a RO) ave. points for doing RO.  You can see our programme here - http://www.pdsc.org.uk/index_files/Programme2008.htm - http://www.pdsc.org.uk/index_files/Programme2008.htm

Works very well.  Members will swap RO and write on the main list in the club.

We employee Safety boat drivers & the Galley is  run on a franchise (I think that’s the right terminology)

Alex

Working Parties - have around 4 a year, everyone is expected to turn up to at least 1.

I will be down for 5 duties per year (be they OOD, AOD or safety)

I will usually end up doing more than this - to be honest if I cannot sail for what ever reason, I like to get out on the water and watch - you can pick up a thing or two when you are watching the racing rather than concentrating on your own

Ive got 2 duties this year, both PRO...and no bar or work party..yeha, however I expect I'll be dragged behind the bar in fed week

I have 3 duties this year, 2 rescue and one Officer of the Day.

That does not include the 6 days doing Cadet Week, and the 2 Rib duties using our own Rib at Piers Race.

We have 2 working parties (4 days), nearly everyone attends for some time and helps.

We generally do 2 - 3 duties each, but we have some generous non sailors who run our wed night races and our frostbite series. We only have 2 officers on for each race day. 1 RO and 1 SBO, it is all we need. I sometimes do more, but that is due to being on the committee and have plenty of jobs to be doing around the club.

We are a small river club with roughly 100 members.

Thanks for all of your replies.

There does seem to be two trains of thought: Those clubs which, though maybe racing all year round, might only do ~6 official duties in a year, and those clubs which have a more pre-determined regime of about 4 (mixed) duties per year.

I forgot about the 2-3 work parties that we do each year!

We do impress upon new members the need to do/volunteer for duties, and luckily, we don't have that many no-shows (except maybe for bar duties). We are now using Dutyman, which is a great system, though still not without some drawbacks.

I think that it seems to be the regularity of rescue/safety duties which seems a bit out of proportion at our club. It has been said that we do have a very large percentage of non-sailing members, which obviously aren't expected to volunteer for these duties, but this does mean that there are still lots of frequent racers who may well be spending much of their potential sailing time in a RIB.

 Seems to me you are looking at it from the wrong end.         &n bsp;         &n bsp;         &n bsp;   How many duty slots need filling. How many people available to do them and the rest is simple arithmatic.

At Brightlingsea SC it's 4 duties (rescue or OOD) a year.  If you sail every weekend then I don't think that's too much to ask.  But if you only don't sail that much due to time contraints then it all becomes a bit of a vicious circle - a significant proportion of the odd weekends you have free for sailing you don't get to sail 'cos you're on duty.  I'm pretty sure this has caused some members to give up all together which is a shame - clubs need members whether they sail regularly or not.  But what to do?  Can't run races with OOD & rescue.

Mike

The trouble is as membership decreases the duties per head goes up and things get worse ...

At Whitstable we have offered people free membership if they commit to a certain number of duties per year.

We have a number of members who just do saftey boat and race recording and never sail. We advertised in the local paper and these people are now valued members who do duties for free membership and don't sail; they just enjoy being part of the club and they also spend money in the bar.

Seems to work very well.

Not necessarily - it is likely that the people who are down racing alot will be asked to put more into the duty slots than people who only come down 3 times a year. We have a system where all the members are put down for a duty (usually of their choice) and then the gaps are filled by regulars. Reading this thread, I'd say many clubs work a similar system.

Couldn't agree more. It's all too easy for those who are able to attend regularly to pilliory those who are prevented from doing the same and who then take issue with providing services for regulars on a precious free day. Those clubs who operate a duty-waiver fee take advantage of these people's desire to limit the number of days they can't sail/race. Having been a long term shift worker, with mostly just one weekend off per month, I have added considerably to my club's coffers over the years, just to avoid missing yet another day's sailing/racing. It is galling to suffer criticism for doing it.

Without letting this turn into a debate-cum-moan about how many duties are forced upon X of Y Sailing Club, I find it interesting to see just how many or few duties some of you are expected to do, which is the info that I am looking for.

Duty waiver fees. Now I know that they wouldn't work at our club. We are a volunteer-run club that gets an influx of members who should be encouraged to participate - One or two drop out every year because they just didn't get to know anyone in their first year through apprehension or whatever.   I know some would like to "pay" their way out to get the most out of their sailing time, and given the amount of duties that we do, it would be a nice idea but, it would lead to even more pressure on people to do the remaining duties. A nearby club allows this, and it works for them because they have so many sailing members.

ASok is correct in my opinion - we should be (and do) encourage new members to get trained in safety boat/RO duties, but they usually find it a bit daunting to do so in their first year. This would, eventually, lead to a membership base that could be relied upon to fill out the on-the-water duties.

At Yorkshire Dales SC we do 2 or 3 duties a year. Membership is around 200 sailing 10 months. We have a no duty fee and use the income from that to (part) fund a semi-pro patrol boat bosun. We've thought about 'fining' no shows but that seems fraught with difficulties - anyone tried it and if so how does it work and does it get more to attend for their duty?

I don't see why doing duties is so 'valued' by some as necessary to truly be a part of the club.  

It's always a difficult balance.

In a former sailing club, we had week-end when the OOD was one person - often the person who could not find a crew..

The OOD was planned, but often didn't turn up. This meant that the 1 volunteer had to lay the course, start the race, record the result & man the rescue boat. On the river this was (just) manageable.

My current club (lake) needs 2-3 people to start the racing on the water - plus 1 or more rescue boats. Without the support of the members, the club would not have the regular events. The organisation for this is several orders of magnitude greater than one/two people to manage a fixed-line start & tea.

If you join a club, then (in my view) you take the whole package - duty rota, racing, cruising, social - no-one forces you to join - equlaly, there has to be some understanding of those who can't commit time (e.g. shift work).

Colin 

 I don't think you need to do duties to truly be part of a club, but I observe that it helps many people to integrate who otherwise might feel they are on the margins, such as new members, beginners and even old hands like myself who free-loaded for years doing the least they could but once they got involved found they enjoyed it!

And how do you get clubby members? I'd suggest by getting people involved; duties can help.

at broadstairs which is not a very big club but seems to have a big heart members all take turns at things like bar duty , rescue boats either crew or helm.we have full time race officers who take turns.if we have an open everyone helps in every way like some take turns to work in the galley making the food.so the whole club pulls as one.which seems to work great and the people who come along to the opens always quote what friendly club it is.

andy

Crikey, how do you keep it so low? Our duty team is typically two in each of two RIB's (4), plus RO, ARO, CDO (=OOD), and two in the galley. That's 9 people every Sunday.

At my old club, we had RO + ARO who did a committee boat start and then became the safety boat crew. On return to the club, one of the racers would open the bar with others helping as necessary while the RO worked out the handicaps.

That's two only people missing their sail! Of course, we had the odd delayed start when the committee boat became a rescue boat prematurely, and no hot food, but that's a small price to pay in my view for 78% fewer duties. OK, we were a small club with racing turnouts of maybe a dozen max. compared to Wilsonian's 30-40. There are also health and safety enthusiasts to contend with at every turn these days. Nonetheless, the contrast between 2 people and 9 is striking.

At Hill Head we have about 800 or 900 members, i have 3 or 4 safety boat or instructor duties to do this year, and I'll probably end up helping with open meetings I'm not sailing in as car/boat park person. I think most of the bar officers do 1 duty a month but we have the bar open every evening and lunchtimes at weekends.

I'm starting to wish that I hadn't asked the original question - I'm beginning to think that we are being over-worked at our club!

Our usual allocated duty teams consist of 1 RO with 2 assistants, 1 Beachmaster, 4-5 people in RIBs. 2 on the bar, and 1-2 galley slaves to assist 1-2 cooks!     The bar/galley crews are not necessarily sailing members, so there are usually enough of them to pick from the membership, but strangely the source of most no-shows.   I'm thankful that we can usually hold races owing to most people turning up. No racing due to a lack of rescue bods would be a disaster - Whoever is desperate for a drink is likely to stand in behind the bar, at least temporarily!

No-shows result in a call from Committee/Commodore. Membership renewal will be questioned in the case of consistent no-shows.

You're right Mikey. Galley duty is less popular than the bar duty, and our membership base is well-dispersed, so people tend to casually "forget" that they have a duty. However, we do have plenty of willing volunteers and mums who do a great job.

Overworked? I'm inclined to agree - but yes we do pay MUCH lower annual fees than the club down the road. I think I mentioned to ASok a few posts ago, that the way forward is to get more people on the water doing water duties - We spend (IMO) way too much time doing on the water duties for the number of members/number of people actually competing in a race. Unless racing at every opportunity, it does feel like about a third of our time is tied up on the water, but not sailing! Rant over.

I was going to ask how many people you have out racing to need a staff of 10 to 12 people doing duties.

Having been a member of a number of clubs the most duties I've had to do in any year is 3. And as I do Rescue boat, I get 1 more than most of the other regular members.

However the commitee members of every club I've been a member of always do more than the regular members. But 15 is way to many.

Looking at how many people are racing on a good, typical day = 30ish

We are always pushed to recruit rescuers/ROs - most people who sail maybe 5 times a year should do them, but because they aren't regular racers, they don't really count towards the rescue crews. When I first started, I had 1 duty, then 4 in a year. Last year's 15 has now dropped to 8 rescue boat duties, but there will no doubt be at least 1 bar duty to come.

The idea of becoming qualified sounded great - and it was.   Then the duties came rolling in...

Still, I guess we have to live with it (only 1 resignation this year from the rescue team).

Thanks to you all for your input, the meeting proved to be somewhat productive.

My clubs have a similar active racing membership. At one your unlucky to get 3 duties a year, while at the other you're on every 6-8 weeks. I think that the one club only puts racing members on duty and never junior members. I think this is wrong, a junior AOD will learn a lot about how racing is run and also windsurfers and casual sailors need rescuing just as much (Arguably more!) than the racing fleet.

I may be dropping to one sailing membership next year because i want to do the circuit and the duties are prohibitive.

I'd agree with Gordon - cracking idea.  Clubs need to latch onto certain club members that love to potter around in safety boats keeping a watchful eye on people or those that prefer the official roles as RO.  Reduced or free membership for those type of people has more value than the ££!

Play to peoples strengths and you get a better return on duties - lay down a dicate and you have more disruption through no shows