Sail Canada announces the Volvo Cars Volunteer of the Month

by Sail Canada on 3 Sep 2015 Tim Irwin had been an active and competitive sailor while growing up on Canada's West Coast. After his competition in the sailing events at the Mexico Olympics, Tim carried on to become a builder of the sport of sailing. A member of the Kingston Yacht Club since the 1960s, Irwin served as Commodore in 2002-2003. During that time, he demonstrated strong leadership in guiding the organization out of a period of disquiet and upheaval.

Tim Irwin got to work the day a small group of sailors suggested the idea of founding an annual sailing regatta in wind-renowned Kingston, Ontario. He hasn't stopped since. Irwin lead the charge to develop the Canadian Olympic Regatta Kingston (CORK) Organization into the team that hosted the 1976 Olympics Sailing Event to great success, and that now conducts the largest annual regatta in Canada and the largest fresh water regatta in the world.

While in his leadership roles as CORK's Board Chair and Regatta Chair, Irwin led the organisation to bid for and deliver the 2007 ISAF Youth World Championships - the largest youth sailing competition in the world. This - along with CORK's four annual regattas and 14 World Championships hosted over 14 years - offers a prominent measure of Tim Irwin's leadership.

Along with organizing hundreds of volunteers every year, he expanded CORK's capitol and financial capacity, which now fuels the legacy forming from CORK as they offer equipment to other local and provincial regatta hosts. Such legacy extends to their volunteers as year after year CORK offers opportunities to develop personally and professionally.

This year - with Tim Irwin as Regatta chair - CORK hosted the Laser Class World Championships and the Laser Radial Youth Championships. This past month the Sail Canada Youth and Senior National Championships were integrated into the delivery of the annual CORK International and CORK Olympic Classes Regatta (OCR) respectively.

Volunteer positions held:
CORK Regatta Chair 2005-current
Chair, 2007 ISAF Youth Worlds
Commodore, Kingston Yacht Club (2002-2003)
Commodore, UBC Sailing Club