Christchurch sailor Richard Beasley wins RYA Community Award

by RYA on 9 Nov 2014 Richard Beasley has been nominated for an RYA Community Award (Youth Category) by the club and has been selected as a winner by the RYA Honours and Awards Panel. He will receive his award at the organisation’s annual awards ceremony in London on 21 November.

Richard, 24, was a Topper sailor at the age of 10, and became the club’s 1st Junior Captain before qualifying as a Level 2 Race Coach. He runs race training for the club’s young sailors and formed the Young Person's Instructors Group (YPIGS) to give other youngsters the opportunity to become RYA Dinghy Instructors and Coaches. Several YPIGS members are now professional instructors.

Richard helped the club gain RYA Champion Club status in 2010 while, working with other coaches, he formed Christchurch’s adult training programme, the ‘Rusty Rudders’. As the club’s youngest ever General Committee member in 2011, he took on website and IT work and served on Moorings and Storage, Bar and Sailing Committees. This year he was elected Assistant Sailing Secretary.

Richard said 'I was really surprised to find out that I had been nominated for an RYA award. Our club had already decided to nominate another member, Tony Lock, for a Lifetime Achievement Award. He has put in many years of hard work to get junior sailors onto the water and has started to stand down from these duties. It’s is fantastic that both of us have been nominated and we are both receiving awards from the RYA. Without Tony’s influence 15 years ago when I was only 10 years old I wouldn’t be getting this Award at all.'

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