Club Commitments

[cweed]

Following on with the Tidal v Inland club debate, I wonder what commitments the forum users are required to give to their various sailing clubs?
At Island Barn there are 2 working days per year and 3 1/2 or 4 duty days to cover normal club sailing. There is also another fleet duty day to cover an open meeting. I must confess I missed my last duty day.
Is 7 days commitment per year reasonable?

[jpa_wfsc]

At Whitefriars its about 2 days.

However, as in many clubs I suspect, there are a number of members who give a LOT more than that.

[davidh]

I'd say that 7 days seems a tad excessive to me! At Netley we have a commitment to do 2 duties a season. To qualify for the evening and frostbite series (which are extra) you have to do one in those.

D

[chris]

It must boil down to what is needed to keep the activities of the club going. We do two duties and a rescue cover if you are qualified. There are also a few work-party sessions which just ask for volunteers. However we are struggling more and more to get race duties covered and have had some cancelled in previous years. I know some members that don't want to race don't want to do duties but I think most people quite enjoy doing it and take the attitude that you get out what you put in to a club. However I think that if I had done 7 duties last year I would have only been able to sail at the club once or twice in th ewhole year.

[Pat]

We commit to two at each club but always end up doing more unofficially at Shearwater. Tuesday evenings tend to get sorted out informally from amongst those that race. At any time those that just turn up to watch often end up lending a hand to hoist flags or calculate the results as the box is the best place to watch the racing and chat.
To add to the debate - does your club give you a choice of dates or are you just allocated a date arbitrarily? At Shearwater we get chance to choose whereas at BCYC we get given a date, though we can tell the rotasec dates we really can't do.

[Demon]

We have one duty a year (as family members) I helm the patrol boat, while the wife helps with catering.
Along with that we have 2 work days a year, which is not compulsury, but as im looking after our first work day of the year (today) i better get a move on!!

[Ed]

Two golden rules of club sailing:

There must be more days sailing days in any year than OODs

If traveling to an open, the time on the water must be more than the time driving.

eib

[neil]

It's the classic club in decline syndrome. Less people sailing = more duties done by those remaining. This leads to smaller fleets, people leaving because the fleets reduce AND you have to do more duties.

We tried to introduce a system where only a single OOD was required. This failed, so 2 people are required, bit of an issue when the reducing fleet is mainly singlehanders.

[chris]

Yes I agree with the above two posts. This is a problem that hits smaller clubs first but it sounds like larger ones have difficulties too. At least at Roadford your rescue cover is sorted though.
Perhaps with money tight the more low-key clubs may have an attraction. You rarely see a new sail at Shearwater for instance and has been said elsewhere you can pick up an old boat very cheaply and have a lot of fun with it if everyone else is in the same boat (not literally of course, though that may be interesting).

[Roger Holman]

It is very interesting to hear the other side of the story.

At Torpoint Mosquito we do not have any compulsory duties at all. Over the years we have cultivated a small team of ladies who 'man' our start hut, they normally start as Mums of younger sailors who are 'invited' to haul flags etc., and graduate to assisting OOD, and eventually to becoming OOD's in their own right. The result is that they have been involved for a number of years, they have learned about course setting where we sail, they recognise the boats as well as the sailors, they apreciate when a crisis might occur, and they do a fantastic job. Enough have done a Race Officer course, and/or a VHF course, not because they were forced or asked to, but because they wanted to play a bigger part in the operation of the club. A few years back we did try and involve sailors in Start Hut duties, but it was a failure; fleet numbers fell, absenteeism was a feature, and everyone suffered, so we dropped that plan.

As far as Safety Boat duties go, we appear to have that one covered; as an RYA Training Establishment (which in itself takes a lot of work) we run safety boat courses. These are run on an 'almost not for profit' basis, working on the principle that the more members we put through, the more interest we catch, and the more potential safety boat crew we have available. We are able to put two RIBS on the water twice a week to cover our dinghy racing, both boats crewed by at least one PB 1&2/SafetyBoat qualified Coxn and a PB 1&2 crew. These bodies are not taken from the sailing fleet, but from a pool of potential crew who number such that each only has to expect about three duties per season. All these people enjoy just pottering about in boats, the chance to blast up or down the river now and again (in a responsible way of course) and being part of the wider function of a sailing club.

Exactly how we do it, I'm not sure, but I think it comes from having a strong emphasis on young people; you attract the children and get them involved, the parents bring them and collect them, and stay and have a drink sometimes. When the parents see what a good time the children have, they can more easily become involved in any of the 'non sailing' activities. The main focus of any sailing club these days must be youth; if you ignore the young people, your club will inevitably die, what ever boats are sailed.

Roger Holman Millbrook Cornwall
'Mystery' J247 TMSC

[cweed]

Yup, Thanks for the feedback.
My club has allocated duty days. I usually also help out with the evening beginners sessions, and the wednesday evening series is manned by those who participate; it used to be one night per season (12 weeks), now with falling attendance it's 2.
What rubs salt in the wound for me is that the great and the good encourage winter membership who don't have a duty allocated. (Don't all rush for next November!)
The average size of the team for a sunday, with full compliment, would be 7 to 8. A.N.other mans the bar.