encouraging youth into the class.

[sam293]

I have been doing a bit of rs200 sailing this year. I know I’m sorry.

But looking at their youth side etc its great to see how they encourage are
and how much emphasis is given to the youth and youth events.

In order to get more young people in the class, I have a few ideas,

For instance have a more publicised youth champs, maybe a weekend event? If
people were will be kind enough to lend their boats to people from other
classes to come to the champs, obviously we wouldn’t lend boats out to anyone,
would be trustworthy people who are good sailors. 12's are great boats to sail
and we need to let people in other classes know this, I’m sure we can find 10
helms and crew from other fleets easily and probably 5 from within the n12
fleet. 15 boats for a weekend open is pretty good, and if this were to be the
youth champs this would be a fantastic thing for the class to be doing. Especially
if well publicised.

I also think we could have some more focus on the social side, maybe have a
social committee made up of different age groups of people, and helms and
crews. This should be separate from the main committee so as people who don’t
own boats can be on the social comitie too. But maybe a rep from the committee
could report social news to the main committee.

Sorry if I’m sticking my nose in where it isn’t wanted I just thought a few
ideas would be nice

Hope to get some feedback and if anyone has any ideas please air them.
Really want to hear what people think

Sam

[Phil Brown]

Apologies accepted, you'll get over it!

But seriously, great idea but it doesn't only have to happen at the national level, it can work at the club level too.

 At Spinnaker we have a largely untapped pool of good sailors coming through the Oppi and Topper coaching squads. The challenge is to lure them away from the usual progression of boats and into N12s. We're working on it.

On try a boat, I've done it at other clubs in other classes and there is a huge PR spin off generally but also a realisation for anyone who hasn't sailed one before that a boat they thought of as difficult to sail is actually sailable, exciting, a lot of fun and actually sailed by people who love their boats. Thanks for reviving an idea Sam. Alex, Simon, Ian, Dave, Steve, we should do this next year


My apologies for sitting at the computer instead of sailing but there's no wind at the moment

[Chris Troth]

There has been a great deal of new interest in 12 sailing at Olton Mere SC in the midlands. In the past year the fleet has grown from 2 to 7  boats - 4 of these being sailed by teenagers, including myself. Olton Mere would very much like to participate in a youth open circuit of some description, and hopefully encourage more events in the midlands area, since these seem to be few and far between - youngsters find towing boats long distances very hard to organise!

Chris, 2930