Yachting Australia moves towards better deal for sailors

by Jane Gordon on 4 Aug 2015 Yachting Australia, with the unanimous support of State and Territory Associations, are a step closer to securing a stronger national governance, management and organisational structure creating closer relationships with Clubs and Classes and delivering increased participation in sailing.

Yachting Australia President Matt Allen and CEO Matt Carroll have led a national consultation process over the past five weeks, presenting The Case for Change for ‘One Sailing’ to representatives of Clubs and the Boards of State and Territory Associations. Through this consultation, all Boards have endorsed the move to the next Phase which was formally approved at the Federal Assembly on Saturday in Sydney.

The next Phase involves detailed planning and scoping of functional transition plans and timings for each State and Territory Association to be integrated into a single management structure. The new organisation and service delivery model will be documented in an Implementation Agreement completed by Yachting Australia and each State and Territory Association on the services to be delivered, responsibilities and financial arrangements, as well as the finalisation of staff secondment and transition agreements. This will also include the operational aspects of quality assurance reporting from Yachting Australia with each State and Territory Association Board.

During the consultation process with the State and Territory Associations, specific safeguards on select local services, resources and assets were agreed to by Yachting Australia and will be incorporated into Phase 3.

The proposed structure for One Sailing will provide organisational efficiencies with the removal of duplicated services and the centralisation of common activities to free up State Association personnel from administrative tasks allowing them to focus on core sailing development and services. One Sailing will provide a Club centric culture and structure to improve existing services and deliver new services and bring Clubs and Classes into the boundaries of the organisation, creating a network to develop strategy and ideas and deliver services to significantly grow the sport.

Speaking after the meeting on Saturday, Yachting Australia President Matt Allen was extremely pleased with the progress on One Sailing so far, saying “through a period of self-assessment, listening to Clubs and looking to the future, we have reached agreement for the continued development of ‘One Sailing’. I would like to thank the State and Territory Presidents and Boards for their vision, ongoing support and willingness to respond to their Clubs and act in the best interests of sailing.

“We are happy to have reached this stage but we are aware of the huge amount of work that lies ahead however Yachting Australia will work with State and Territory colleagues to achieve the best outcomes. Our Clubs have told us what they expect and our aim is to deliver better resources, clearer communication and stronger levels of engagement to them so we can all prosper into the future. This agreement also works towards securing our Government funding for junior and adult participation programmes and we will work towards getting more people onto boats and out on the water,” Matt added.

Yachting Australia CEO Matt Carroll will lead the Executive Officers of the State Associations in commencing Phase 3 immediately, in particularly establishing communications with the clubs, classes and the sailing community to keep them fully informed on progress.