Commodore Bulletin 13 - 241124
Published 12:37 on 24 Nov 2024
It probably feels quite strange to provide an update when the club is in winter shut down, but behind the scenes, the committee are working hard to set up next year. We already have a full club racing and opens program and the fleet reps for other areas such as Catamarans, Paddling and Cruisers are starting to put their plans together. The formal RYA training program is published and we are also planning to offer some free adhoc training to members on a first come-first served basis to develop skills and a pool around race officer experience. We have done an incredible job the last few year, expanding our pool of qualified RIB drivers and next year we are planning to switch some of our focus to race officer training. Add to that the plan to expand our social activities including an end of year awards evening and we hope that for 2025 we will continue to give the members the highest level of opportunities, fun and training as well as value for money!
Looking at the shutdown, we had an incredible turnout and I would like to personally thank everyone who lent a hand. What use to be a 2-day exercise was done in just under half a day! We do have a small number of occurrences where despite multiple requests, boats have not been removed and as a committee we have taken the decision that those who have repeatedly ignored this request will have their membership reviewed at the 2025 renewal process. To explain the rationale behind this, we have a very clear mandate via our Lake Licence with Eryri Nation Park regarding our stewardship of the lake which also holds SSSI (Site of special scientific interest) status and during the flooding period (see photo above which was on the day of writing this bulletin), any vessels washed into the lake can do both physical and ecological damage. Over the last few years, we have really improved our approach to this and it is not fair that those members who take time and money to store their boats off site do not get acknowledged and those which do not follow the instructions of the club and put our club at risk understand the implications of their actions.
The club is planned to open on Saturday 8th March 2025 with our normal working party. As per this year, those members participating on the Saturday will be welcome to bring their boats down and put them in place (not rig) and then the general access to all other members will be on Sunday 9th March. If you have your boat in paid storage, please ensure that they are aware of these dates as some places may expect boats moved earlier. We are not able to accommodate any early drop offs as we schedule the groundworks as later as possible. If we do them early, there is a risk that we re-level the foreshore after flooding and then must do rework (at a cost to the club) if we have a second flood wave.
One of the enjoyable parts I have found since taking up the Commodore role, has been chatting to other clubs and basically, they fall into 2 types. The first are the larger clubs which are ran as commercial ventures. These have employed / paid staff and operate as a business. For them, revenue and income are the primary drivers as they are set up to make a profit and run as a business. The second type, are clubs like ours, where we are set up to serve the local sailing community and are totally volunteer ran, our general financial approach is to cover our costs each year and create a small profit to invest in the club services and facilitates. As a committee and set of trustees, we are continually aware of the fate affecting lots of small clubs in our position and cost rises or membership drops putting the future of the club in jeopardy. Therefore, the club direction and culture is paramount as we continue to exist as a training centric, race based sailing club but continue to develop our offering to other water sports and sailing pastimes. This mix continually changes and its feedback from the membership as to what they after from the club that partially drives our mid term strategy.
Two aspects of the club we are trying to change is around our weekend operation. Chatting to members, it is a common misunderstanding that the purpose of the Safety Boat (and the duties that drive it) are to support Sunday racing, but this is a misconception I am trying hard to change. Whilst the RIB does operate on a Sunday it is there to service all club members who are out on the water. It does patrol the racing area but if you were further down the lake (with a radio) and got into trouble, the safety boat is a quick way of getting support. That is one of the reasons we ask members to do duty on the safety boat as it is a service to all members. We are also trying to change the perception of the club being a Sunday only operation. We are having more members sail at the weekend and it has always been my vision to have a safety boat out at least one Saturday per month and gradually increase this.
Our identity and culture as a club will also slowly change over the next few years as we start to focus on diversity and inclusion a lot more. This is an area we can not overlook and we are under-represented in several areas. Some of this is due to catchment demographics but there are areas that we can aim to influence. Having Paul join the committee as out Diversity and Inclusion Officer this year is a huge step forward and I am looking forward to hearing some of his views and challenges to the committee as to how we move this forward!
The new membership forms will be open from the 1st January and you will notice a number of things when you rejoin. Firstly, the way and order in which you enter your information has changed. This is because we have specific reporting to the RYA that has evolved and we were either not capturing the information or it was difficult to extract from the database. Secondly you will now need to add your insurance details for boats that you are storing at the club OR bringing down. By boats, this means all vessels including paddleboard, kayaks and fishing boats. All boats launching from our foreshore must be insured either by an independent insurance company or if you have RYA membership, our understanding is that this provides sufficient cover in terms of 3rd party liability for paddleboarders (please check your membership to confirm). You will also be asked to confirm things such as duty dates and adherence to the clubs policies.
We have also reviewed the membership types and split out fishing from the paddling membership. This will allow us to understand our members much more and target our communications better.
2025, will be a busy year for our training team and supporting members as we aim to run 3 Learn to Sail courses, a Power Boat handing and a Safety Boat skills around the RYA syllabus. The Tuesday youth training is being repositioned to Saturday and we are also running sessions to give members the skills to run club racing as Race Officers. We also acknowledge that we need to upskill members to be able to run our open events so we will also be running a session to give members who have ran club racing some additional skills to start to support and hopefully longer term, run our open events. Finally, we need to expand the knowledge and create a small pool of people who are able to publish club and open results on our Sailwave application. More of this on the future bulletins but a very exciting program set out already.
Our Senior Coach is also starting to think about the more informal / adhoc training we can offer and if you have any ideas or needs, please get in contact with Andy Todd to discuss this.
One area we will continue to maintain our focus on is voluntary duties. We were very fortunate last year that every Sunday we had a fully manned safety boat on the water and we also had a Race officer for club racing. We hosted several open events and for these had multiple safety boats, ran the galley to provide food and the bar in the bar in the evening which contributed to the club with a small profit that can be re-invested in club activities or services such as removing the honesty box for tea and coffee which was proposed by a member and passed by the committee at the last committee meeting. Unfortunately, after reviewing the membership figures a significant number of members did no duties at all and a small handful did not do their full 3. As a committee we have agreed to continue to make this a priority and highlight to you that by signing up for membership, some membership classes make a commitment to do 3 duties per year. We were very fortunate this year that some members who do not have to do duties supported us with 60 duties last year which allowed us to deliver the service and support we strived for. As a committee we are reviewing the club duty policy in a few weeks time and prior to the membership subscription for 2025 opening up we will be providing a copy of the duties policy including the agreed commitment by duty type to all existing members. Where a member has not done any duties this year but has renewed, we may contact you to commit at least 1 duty in the first half of the year and 1 in the second half before your membership is activated.
The duty roster is already populated and open for next year so any member planning to renew next year will be free to populate their duties once the policy is re-issued.
Club racing has always been a staple part of Bala Sailing Club and the last few years has seen an increase in fleets joining us for both fleet opens and joining our regattas and mixed opens. Last year we made a small change in the Champion Helm, moving it to a pursuit race which whilst well received did create some challenges and has been fine-tuned as to how we operated it. Next year we will continue with that format but have also made a few changes to club racing. The two main changes will be that these will be starting at 11:00 instead of 11:30 and increasing the morning races to 3 which will follow the same format each week (sprint race, windward/leeward then round the cans).
Following a 1 year break, our new sailing captain is going to re-introduce the 2 challenges we held in 2023 but with a few improvements based on our learnings. The 5-4-1 challenge keeps things local to the clubhouse and favours developing members as well as those who like sprint sailing whilst the Long Distance challenge allows other classes of boats to stretch their legs
A full article on this can be found on the club website at https://balasailingclub.wordpress.com/2024/11/15/club-racing-2025/
Gary Darch has asked me to also mention that now he is back from what was a busy year for him this year, for 2025 he is planning to resurrect the monthly cruiser events on the first Saturday of the month. It will be great to see this class pushing forward as it seems to be a continually evolving class with a regularly influx of new boats.
Finally finishing off with a bit of new news, we have three initiatives underway that I would welcome member feedback and / or involvement in if you have the time?
Firstly, whilst the website is useful we would like to update it with a new platform, website address and layout. We would really like to know what information you would like presented and any new sections that members might find useful. This will be a long-term project but the movement over to the new platform and basic structure is something that we are aiming to get done first and your input would be welcome.
Secondly, we would like to re-energise the club during the summer break and part of this will be having a week of activities. Some of these days will be supported with the galley being open and some will just be targeted days encouraging members to take a day off and enjoy a collective day out on the water. I would like to pull a small subcommittee of members who have an interest in supporting this so if it is something you might like helping with, please let me know.
Finally, I have always been keen to do a proper presentation for the racing trophies and maybe recognise and acknowledge other achievements throughout the year. Therefore we are planning to hold a club awards evening on Saturday 11th October 2025. More details to follow!
I did mention the tea and coffee early on, and this is a small good example of how the club operates. We have a volunteer committee who represent the members wishes and balance that with the clubs future and any matters bought to the committee by members are discussed in an open way and all committee members have the opportunity to discuss the matter and then we have a casting vote. We were asked to consider offering free tea and coffee to those members doing duties as sometimes it can be cold out on the water but this also then raised the discussion about the tea and coffee honesty box. When we looked at how much money this raised it seemed logical to offer members free tea and coffee so the following rules will be in place next year as a 1 year trial:
- During normal club opening, we will provide a table with tea, coffee, sugar and milk in the fridge. This will be free to all members (including those on duty) and there will not be a need to put money in the honesty box
- During Open events, the free tea and coffee will be removed and members will be able to buy tea and coffee from the galley. Anyone doing duties on an open weekend can request free hot drinks from the galley
Hopefully this gives you a bit more information as we plan for 2025. As always, I am only a phonecall or whatapp message away.
Have a great winter break
Rob
Last updated 15:47 on 27 November 2025