Harrogate businessmans Inspired donation to Ripon Sailing Club
by Jennie Clark 17 Oct 2012 13:27 BST
13 October 2012
Harrogate businessmen Paul Welch and Duncan Tweedy donate a Laser Radial used at London 2012 to Ripon Sailing Club © Ian Smith
Harrogate businessman, Paul Welch, is a man with a mission. Inspired by what he saw at the 2012 Olympic Games Paul decided he wanted to 'inspire the next generation' and set out to achieve this through a remarkably generous donation to a local sports club.
A keen sailor in the past, Paul and his business partner Duncan Tweedy decided that they wanted to inspire young sailors to develop their skills and help them aspire to sporting glory. Pondering how they could achieve this they decided that they would like to present an Olympic class dinghy to a sailing club near their office in Harrogate and selected the Laser Radial as their chosen class. Contacting Laser UK to organise the purchase of a boat, they were delighted to find that they would be able to purchase one of the boats which had actually taken part in the 2012 games, and on Saturday 13 October Paul presented the boat, now named 'Inspired' to the Junior members of Ripon Sailing Club.
Ripon Sailing Club's Commodore, Jennie Clark, thanked Paul and Duncan for their extremely generous gift and said 'we have a wonderful junior and youth sailing scene at the club and this boat will enable us to develop the skills of our young sailors further. We are extremely grateful to Paul and Duncan, and their company 'Insyte' for their support for our junior and youth sailing programme and look forward to seeing 'Inspired' on the water, inspiring the next generation of sailors'.