Commodore Bulletin 3 - 030124
Published 15:35 on 3 Jan 2024
Dear Members (2023 and 2024 early adopters….)
Well, 2024 has started up and your committee are rapidly turning their attention to everything needed to get the club up and running. You will notice that this is addressed to both our 2023 members and those of you who have already rejoined for 2024. Thank you for your continued support. But YES MEMBERSHIP IS OPEN and hopefully you have all received links to renew but if you have not please shout up so we can help you with that.
2024 has a really busy calendar forming and this should be up on the website in the next week or so but as a set of headlines we are planning around the following:
1) Sunday club racing 3 separate series and the full season Champion Helm
2) Cruiser meets and activities the first Saturday of each month
3) Race development and coaching the first Saturday of each month
4) Ongoing youth development initiatives
5) Our regular opens and regattas (Easter, August, Massacre, Long Distance, Cat Open)
6) Visiting fleet/class Opens (currently K1s tentative, Border Counties mid week in July and Waspz in September)
7) 3 x Learn to Sail courses, a PB2, a Safety Boat and a number of more informal tasters including Catamaran sailing
8) An event aligned to the Bala 700 celebrations
I hope you agree, this is a really exciting program BUT it does not finish there. About 25 % of our membership are non sailing members and we now have a fleet representative (Ewan) for paddling members on the committee who will be reaching out to discuss ideas such as paddle days etc. We have a number of fishing members but I do not believe we have ever had a match event? Not sure if that is a thing or do-able but it would be great to discuss if the fishing membership feel that it is something they would like to do?
We also have fleet reps for Blaze (Mick), Solo (Miles), Catamarans (John) and Cruisers (Gary) so if you fit in one of these groups and fancy something that we are not offering dont forget to grab them and bend their ears. If you dont fit these groups but would like to experience them (who does not want to experience the absolute joy of trapezing on a Dart 16 with John or seeing if Blazes do always tip over when you gybe with Mick), thats what the reps are there for.
We have a number of committee meeting dates planned in January and from that we will be updating members with other bits of information such as the final foreshore opening dates.
We have been liaising with Snowdonia National Parks over the winter regarding some more significant ground works that are needed in order to maintain a safe treeline and also the recent floods will require significant JCB works to prepare the club foreshore. Due to this we are holding back issuing the barrier code to limit boats being dropped down early as these will impede on the work. To be clear, that does not prevent members using the club foreshore to launch between January and mid March as your membership allows any member wishing to use the club foreshore to launch during this time, please just contact a committee member and we will issue the access code to you. All we ask is that boats are trailered down and away and not left at the club until such time that the foreshore work is completed.
Going back to the general sailing and club life information, we have a new RYA strategy to consider which fortunately is aligned to the club direction and a few highlights that hopefully we can continue to build on are:
1) Building on the youth participation hopefully more to come from both our Senior Coach (Andy) and Youth Squad Co-ordinator (Mick) but I believe there is some great development on the cards
2) Increase Sunday racing participation we have set ourselves a target to get a regular 10 boats on the start line as our average. In order to achieve this, we really need to understand what prevents members participating. If this is skills, knowledge, understanding or confidence we can sort that. If its that there is not an appetite or the format does not excite, we would be keen to discuss this more
3) We still have a low representation of female members, whether this is out on the water or on the committee and I am still keen to find an energetic person to fill our Diversity and Inclusion Officer role.
In order to get continued feedback from our members I would like to try something a bit different to start the year off. We are considering a couple of free breakfast gatherings at the clubhouse to get members down and chat with myself and the committee as well as a New Members day where anything you are unsure about we can cover off but also I would like to try a bit of a Noggin and Natter each month.
So what is a Noggin and Natter? Well basically, as I will be doing a bulletin each month, as it comes out, I will be publishing a Noggin and Natter date. This is a really informal 1 hour Zoom call, probably about 8pm so you have time to get home from work etc, have some tea, get the kids to bed if you need to (I get this is a generalisation but hopefully you get my drift…) then grab a drink, jump on the call and really from there it is an open invite evening. There will be no agenda, just an opportunity for members to chat with myself and hopefully as it progresses other fleet roles and committee members will join if they want to spotlight their area. If no one joins, its not a problem but hopefully if you have something you want to discuss or have ideas these will be a low key way of making sure we keep the doors open to hear our members views. Ultimately Bala SC is not a commercial venture, it is a volunteer ran club, managed via a committee and trustee structure and funded by club membership subscriptions. In order to continue to grow and be successful we have to balance the normal operational duties and tasks with that of the memberships wants and needs and hopefully these sessions will at least create an additional way of keeping that dialogue open. We cant promise to deliver everything but at least this will create an opportunity to discuss ideas etc.
I think that it is for January. If you want to keep up with club life in a more informal way, dont forget that we have a Bala SC whatapp group. This is a general open chat group where members (both past and present) gather, exchange views and sometimes just shout out is anyone up for a sail tomorrow. If you are not in it and want to be added, please just ask. The plan is to keep these bulletins monthly to members via the email address you use when you apply on Webcollect and also put it up on the website.
The date for the first Noggin and Natter will be on Tuesday 16th January at 8pm.
Have a great January everyone.
Rob
Last updated 15:47 on 27 November 2025