Another club closure

My sailing wife is also a paddleboarder. If her experience of other people in the the sport/ pastime is anything to go by.. They really don’t want to pay to do it , they just think they can turn up anywhere and paddle . 

Originally posted by eric_c Originally posted by ChrisI Originally posted by fab100 ..... Think this is a really important point and totally correct.... sailing takes huge time on the water to get really good and to race well, although not too long to learn basics. Our club has many more signing up for our 'General Sailing' day every weekend (most of whom have done their RYA !&2) rather than for the other day which is 'Racing'. We are trying to intro a fun racing element on this day (short course 'wacky racing') but I think this is the step that has to be solved in order to grow the sport generally (i.e. the problem is not the numbers doing our 1&2 courses which are choc-a-bloc full). To be controversial.....is 'not making people pay' for this bit (unlike the 1&2 courses at our club), and therefore not being able to pay for qualified help to make sure it always gets managed and supervised well, the possible problem with this step? Like most clubs we are always debating what volunteers 'should' do and what we will pay people to do....which is the commercial sailing centre vs voluntary club issue in a nutshell. But in other sports, people don't turn up as beginners and expect to compete with the top people. When I was younger, people bought old boats as beginners and competed among the other beginners (and a few experienced, un competitive people with old boats). Do people buy racing bikes and expect to be at the front of their local club after a month or two? I think you raise a good point about paying to improve, coaching is very valauble at club level, more could be done to provide this, although I think it will be much easier to do on a class basis. There arecoaches, and there are plenty of punters who could benefit, there seems to be a gap in making it happen except in a few classes.

I think you are missing the point  somewhat  

I've been dancing  not  quite 6 years,  not quite 5 years ago  i decided this is  'my thing' now  ...  this february  i took ' advanced / pro' classes  on a trip to London  nd wasn't 'spat out the back' 

in a couple of weeks time i'll be performing  it;s not a paid  gig  but some of the dancers i'll be dancing with  are professionally trained  ... 

 this is  now what people expect  of an activity  that if you  put the effort in you can perofrm at high level  if you put the time and effort in 

equally  when i started sailing as a 12.5 year old  i didn;t  plan on getting to  WInter Training / Squad selction before i aged out   of the system ... 

Nicola.