Late May letter from the Commodore
Published 19:50 on 26 May 2020
Use of the Club. It has been great seeing so much activity at the Club during this wonderful weather, with sailors, kayakers and boarders out on the water, and so many people just enjoying our wonderful location. At the moment we don't feel able to open up the club any further and so formal racing and training remain on hold.We are monitoring all the advice from the Government, the RYA, the NHS and other organisations, and as soon as it is safe and legal to do so we will start running organised activities. Our number one priority remains your safety and the safety of our staff. With this in mind I must ask you all to ensure that you continue to follow all the health and social distancing advice. In particular we must be seen to be social distancing. The lake is becoming increasingly busy and it would be dreadful to be shut down because of Covid-19 lock down breaches. Please remember that at present you can't bring guests to the Club. Also if you want to leave a boat at the lake you must discuss this with James, who will allocate a space and take payment for the space. Please don' just assume that an empty space is a free one.
Security. Unfortunately dishonesty doesn't stop because of Covid-19. We have had a few issues with non-members being found on the Club's premisses. In one particular episode a member noticed two men inspecting and taking photographs of the Club's powerboats and outboard motors. This is why we are asking all members to close and lock the gates after entering our site and to ensure that the gates are all locked when leaving even if there are still cars in the carparks. We are investigating other security measures and will be changing the codes on the gates and Clubhouse later this year.
Working towards full reopening. Plans for full reopening are progressing well. This week the outboards are all being serviced and some problems with plumbing in the changing rooms are being addressed. James, Les Radford and Tom Clay are finalising the post lock down racing and training calendars and ensuring that we have a safe boat hire system. We are now producing a shortlist of Dinghy and Senior Dinghy Instructors who will soon be interviewed by conference call to ensure that we have top quality instructing in place when training restarts.
Volunteering at the Club. Dick Meredith and I have started a project to improve the Club's current Duty scheme. We are aware that some duties such as galley helper are not popular, and we feel that better use can be made of the many skills of our members. These might be sailing skills or other skills such as IT, PR, gardening, painting and DIY. We are currently exploring the concept of hours offered rather than fixed duties. (Provisionally 12 hours a year per adult member of what ever skill you are able to offer.) As many of you know I think that volunteering is integral to getting the most out of the Club, and that members lose out by paying to opt out of duties. Dick and I would be delighted to hear from anyone with ideas on the thorny subject of duties. While on the subject of volunteering we do need to have a work party soon, to get the site looking really spick and span but we are having some difficulties working out how to run a socially distanced work party. Watch this space!
Publicising the Club. A healthy and successful Club needs to be attracting new members. If you have any bright ideas on how to promote the Club Simon Walworth who leads the Publicity group would love to hear from you. We often hear new members saying that they had no idea that there was a sailing club in Ringwood. Adrian Lucas has been exploring the idea of a name change for the club to localise it better such as 'Spinnaker at Ringwood" or "Spinnaker New Forest". Initial response on the Ringwood Facebook page has been less than positive, but Adrian would love to hear views from the members.
The Boat Park. Phil Tinsley and James have almost finished their enormous project to sort out the boat park. We owe a big debt of thanks to Phil for his dedication and persistence. We have almost reached the point of starting to dispose of unpaid for boats. I am very grateful to Paul Naser who has agreed to lead on this. Before Phil hands the baton on to Paul I quote in full his last email to me.
"We have two requests of our members:
- Please can all Optimist and Topper sailors who have a boat on site contact James Oborne, Chief Instructor, as soon as possible, if you have not already made contact, for the purpose of identifying ownership of each boat.
- There are a number of boats stored at the club for which the club has no record of payment and hence ownership. There is a legal procedure the Club will go through to dispose of these abandoned boats, but before we do, we are asking one final time for information from our existing members:
We have on site: 10 Laser's, 3 RS Fevas, 2 Laser 2's, 2 Wayfarers, 2 Picos and one of Firefly, Foxer, Miracle, Mirror, Gull, Magno, Enterprise, Topaz and N12. These are at least in some sort of saveable condition. There some previously disposed of boats on site which will be skipped when circumstances allow."Over to you Members.
Once again please come and use our wonderful Club, but stay safe and act responsibly. Please feel free to contact me on commodore @spinnakerclub.co.uk
All my best wishes
Hywel
H J Morris Commodore
Last updated 09:41 on 20 December 2023
