RYA Scotland Impact Award - Jamie Rodger Kintyre Seasports

Jamie Rodger, Kintyre Seasports © RYA Scotland

Jamie Rodger, Kintyre Seasports © RYA Scotland

Jamie Rodgers helped achieve RYA Recognised Training Centre (RTC) status for the voluntary run charity in Campbeltown, Kintyre Seasports, and has been nominated for an RYA Scotland Impact Award.

In less than a year Jamie Rodgers managed to achieve RTC status for Campbeltown, introducing 50 Campbeltown Grammar School (CGS) pupils to sailing, qualifying 30 of them as dinghy sailors, with 14 now working towards instructor qualifications. 2022 was the first year of the CGS programme, and it has established strong relationships to underpin meaningful growth in the local community.

Kintyre Seasports is a ground breaking charity based on Campbeltown Loch, an outstanding natural destination for sailing and other watersports. A unique feature of the project is the outstanding commitment of community organisations previously unconnected with watersports. RYA Scotland have been involved from the start, actively supporting the charity's community-first policy and bidding for funding for new facilities.

Jamie was nominated for an RYA Scotland Impact Award for making extraordinary progress in a short period of time for Kintyre Seasports in his role as Operations and Development Manager.

Jamie Rodgers, Kintyre Seasports

"The sailing instructor training programme, working with Campbeltown Grammar School and Campbeltown Sailing Club, brings together a group of pupils to learn to sail and to coach and that group are also going to move onto powerboating. Through the programme, we're teaching sailing directly and developing life skills through the sport of sailing."

"I think the big difference has been that there was a huge amount of work done before I came and there's so many volunteers who have worked really hard to get Kintyre Sea Sports to the point where they could get full-time staff and become a training centre."

"RYA Scotland have really been involved from the start of the project and they've supported the volunteers locally to get to the stage where they were ready to become a training centre to go through the funding routes that they needed to go through to actually identify what the need was and how they were going to fulfil that need. And then since I've come on board I've had a huge amount of support to get a new training centre up and running. It's the first time I've done that. It's obviously quite a big thing."

Elaine McGeachy, Depute Head Campbeltown Grammar School

"Jamie was really keen on getting them all on the water sailing, and so we had quite a few meetings to get the logistics and the program running and he offered to come in and he spoke to our pupils. He went round the classes, our personal support assemblies and encouraged them all to sign up. We got a little program up and running with a lot of our S2 and S3 students out on the water who have absolutely loved it and we couldn't have imagined even some of them being on the water or taking part in sailing and now they are really competent sailors and we're very pleased to be working well with Kintyre Sea Sports."

Kiera Wallace, Pupil CGS

"In school we were given the opportunity to come down and do a sailing course as a trial and I enjoyed it, so I kept going with it as they gave us more opportunities to keep going with it. You feel fear at first, and then it gives you like a peace of mind, like it makes you calm, because you get your mind taken off everything cos you've got to concentrate on doing the sailing. So it just takes you away from everything, from school and things like that."

Gregor Craig, Pupil CGS

"Jamie makes sure everyone understands him, like he just like waits for everyone to understand it and then he just like try and make it go at your own pace."

Ellie Watson

"He's really patient when he is teaching. He like, he doesn't get angry when you make mistakes or anything, and he'll let you figure it out yourself."

Jamie Rodgers, Kintyre Seasports

"There's a whole team of volunteers that I've worked with here since I got here and who were working here for years before I arrived to, to get us to a state where there was the funding in place, the charity in place and the, the foundation really for us to, to come and to build on to get us to a training centre status. And since then, there's a whole team of volunteers from both the club and Kintyre seaports who've worked to make sure that, the kit and the centre is of a standard, where we can be a recognised centre. Thank you."

The RYA Scotland Impact Awards aims to recognise achievements and contributions of the people that made our sport and activities happen in Scotland. Find out more at www.rya.org.uk/gbni/scotland/events/impact-awards

For more information about the Kintyre Seasports project visit www.kintyreseasports.co.uk