Lakes Leisure win OnBoard Club of the Year award

Kathy Jackson of Lakes Leisure receives her trophy from Dave Woodhead © RYA

A Cumbria sailing centre has just received a top award. The Lakes Leisure OnBoard Club, Bowness on Windermere were proud recipients of the OnBoard Club of the Year award at a ceremony at Glenridding on November 8th.

The award was made at a meeting of all of the Cumbria RYA OnBoard clubs. OnBoard is an RYA programme to introduce youngsters to sailing and windsurfing.

This year, out of all the Cumbrian OnBoard clubs, Lakes Leisure has given the biggest total of first experiences of sailing/ windsurfing to children new to the sport. It has also helped many of these children to take up regular sailing, and to make real progress in the sport.

Lakes Leisure is the first Cumbrian OnBoard Club to have one of their sailors gain a place in an RYA zone squad. He is 11 year old Ollie Mulhall who has been accepted to join the RYA North Zone Windsurfing Squad, after making a string of great racing performances at events across the region.

The award was accepted by Kathy Jackson the manager of Lakes Leisure at a ceremony at Glenridding Sailing Centre. This was the second successive year that Lakes Leisure had received the award. Lakes Leisure offers OnBoard beginners sessions and a regular Onboard club for more experienced sailors every Saturday afternoon from March to October. On offer are singlehanded and double handed sailing and also windsurfing.

Dave Woodhead, RYA OnBoard Development Officer for Cumbria, said, “Lakes Leisure thoroughly deserve this award in recognition of their hard work and commitment. They have given children in their area a life changing experience, offering them a chance to develop new skills and meet new people in a character building, healthy outdoor environment. Every community needs a Lakes Leisure!” Run by the RYA, OnBoard is a grass roots programme which introduces sailing and windsurfing to young people aged 8 to 18, through schools, youth groups and training centres. Cumbria has four OnBoard centres, at Derwent Water Marina, Lakes Leisure Windermere, Low Wood Watersports and Bassenthwaite Sailing Club.

Over a ten year period OnBoard aims to introduce a minimum of 500,000 children to sailing and windsurfing in the UK, converting over 10% of them into regular participants. So far it’s nicely on track.

For more information about how to get involved in sailing visit the RYA’s website www.rya.org.uk or the OnBoard website www.ruob.co.uk