Commodore Bulletin 19 - 090725
Published 12:36 on 7 Jul 2025
Can you believe that we are rattling through July and starting to look forward to the traditional Summer School break time that marks a period of holidays and leisure for a lot of our members.
We have had an incredible period of activity at the club since my last bulleting with the Long-Distance Weekend, the Catamaran Open, Border Counties Midweek series and the conclusion of the Commodore Cup series. Phew! That felt busy!
These things do not happen on their own and we have been fortunate to be supported as usual by our members who have ran the events, provided safety cover and kept the wheels oiled in the galley and bar. A huge thank you to each one of you.
Just to recap on last months events starting with the Long Distance Weekend, which is slowly developing into one of our Blue Ribbon events with a large percentage of the competitors being visitors. This year did not let us down with 58 boats taking to a very extended start line Saturday. It was an incredible sight with a real variety of boats on the line. With single lap races also planned for cruisers and juniors, the final honours were taken by Mike Allen (overall event win), Gary Darch (cruisers) and Finley Partington (juniors). Congratulations to each of you.
Last year we decided to rest the Catamaran Open due to a low level of interest, but this year we did get 19 boats register and 15 boats take to the water. It was great to host the Catapult class again who bought along 6 boats plus your Commodore and the numbers were improved due to the gradual increase at the club by our members in the multihull class. It was great to see Stuart and Reiko out in their Dart 16 in very challenging conditions as well as Luke and Tom (two of our junior members) who after the shortest of demonstrations by our Multihull Fleet rep (yes they had not sailed a Cat together and Luke had zero helm time and Tom a few hour crewing with John), took a Dart 15 out and had an absolute blast! Well done both of you.
Whilst top honours were taken by Gareth Ede in a Catapult, top Bala position was secured by Dave Ansell (Dart 16), closely followed by John Tuckwell and Mike Cleaver (Hurricane).
We have a big decision to make about the Cat Open in 2026 and how it fits in the calendar and I always welcome members to give a view on this.
The club racing series saw the Commodore Cup conclude with Mike Allen taking the top Monohull / Dinghy slot and Rob Sloggett the Multihull top spot. Where we have 4 or more of the same fleet in a series, we are also creating a small leaderboard for them to have an internal competition so its great to highlight Steve Pooley at the top of the K1 fleet and Luke Chadwick in the Laser fleet. We now move into the Presidents Trophy so everything is reset again. Good luck to everyone on this series.
Moving onto the training and youth development, our Saturday morning junior sailing continues to do well with great feedback from the participants and their parents. The next step past this entry level training is to develop a suitable pathway to both engage and retain. It would be great to see some of the participants enjoying club racing in years to come and we are committed to providing the best support to our young members to guide them on their sailing pathway. Dont forget that we have a Youth Squad Co-ordinator (Mick Fleming) and Senior Coach (Andy Todd) as resources to discuss any development needs.
We continue to have a healthy pipeline of new members joining the club via our RYA Learn to Sail scheme and we currently have 7 members going through this, soon to pick up their Lvl 1&2 qualifications. Word is they are thoroughly enjoying it and looking forward to getting out on the water and getting absorbed in club life. During August we also have a Junior Learn to Sail which is different to the Saturday sailing sessions so as you can see, our training team continue to be busy and having their hands kept full!
On a side note from sail training, we are also planning to run First Aid training on two consecutive Saturdays (both parts will need to be attended). This is on Saturday afternoons on the 26th July and 2nd August. Please contact one of the training team if you would like to know more.
Over the last few months, we have been trialling the club merchandise. This bespoke service allows you to have the Bala Logo, your name, your boat type and sail number, the Welsh Dragon or other custom images (such as your boats class sail logo) embroidered on an item of your clothing. In order to arrange this, all you have to do is 3 things:
- Order your item on the membership link (add ons)
- Make payment
- Drop the item off at the club by hanging it on the metal mannequin
We will then pick it up, get it embroidered and then drop it back on the mannequin for collection
Looking forward to the Summer, a couple of things to bring peoples attention to. Obviously, we would like to see the club as busy as possible and people keeping safe whilst doing so. The club will operate normally at the weekends but we have several events where the club will be active with more boats out on the water. Firstly on the 5th to 7th August, the Junior Learn to Sail will be going on so it would be great to see members having a bit of a leisure sail and making the club come alive. Secondly on the Bank Holiday weekend we have a 3 day Summer Regatta. This is 3 days of racing (23rd,24th and 25th) which will include the Vareo Inland Championships and a K1 Open. We are planning to do a hot meal (Lasagne) one of the nights, so if you are planning to do the regatta or fancy a meal jump onto the website to book this. Regatta bookings are now open and the meals will be popping on in the near future.
The last weekend of August will see the club absolutely rammed (I kid you not) as we host the Welsh leg of the Onboard festival. The RYA normally split this into North and South Wales but this year Bala SC has ben asked to host a combined event. This is a huge accolade for the club and once again spotlights how the club is viewed in the sailing community. Inevitably we will need support and the foreshore will be very busy so planning is essential. More on this to come.
A bit of a shorter bulletin, but as you can see, the club has been very active and signs are that this will not die down as me move into the August season.
Looking forward past this, September will see the Annual AGM take place. The constitutional position is that all members stand down and all roles come up for election. You can find a full list of the roles on the website (including your current committee). If you would be interested in joining the committee, please get in contact. There are a few roles where I know the current committee members are planning not to re-stand due to future commitments so there will be roles where we will have known vacancies.
The club continues to be a vibrant place thanks to an incredible membership and underlying culture so a final thank you to everyone for making it as place of enjoyment.
Rob
Last updated 15:47 on 27 November 2025