ILCA UK Chair Blog #188

A bit of a lull in the Blog of late.

I, like many of our volunteers, have been stupidly busy culminating in a trip to and from East Lothian this weekend for National Open 4. A beautiful place and a very welcoming club by the way and the seafood chowder for sale from the hut on the harbour wall rivalled anything I ever tasted in Maine or Massachusetts. It’s official East Lothian has the best chowder on the East Coast.

We’ve blogged previously about the importance of our volunteers to the running of the Class (indeed for our sport as a whole) but I want to go a bit deeper.

This weekend at East Lothian some of the racing was not up to our usual high standard and as PRO the responsibility for that rests squarely with me. I am sorry for what we served up on Saturday. Myself and a number of others both from within the Class and from the Club did our absolute utmost to address the root causes and to put things right for Sunday only then to be somewhat undone by the weather which took the ball away and left the pitch. I applaud the sailors; whilst visibly fed up, cold and on Sunday very, very wet, they didn’t give out about it (or at least not to me) and I thank them for that. If its any consolation, I didn’t drive a 15 hour round trip to run races of that quality. But this blog isn’t really about my weekend.

The Class still needs more volunteers as at the moment too much burden is falling on too few people. I’m really talking about the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. ILCA-UK is the swan (I like to think) moving serenely forwards which under the surface is paddling like fury.  Yes we need people on rescue boats and mark laying and recording finishers et cetera. But we also need more volunteers to do the prep work. In particular the Women’s group could do with more helpers so please if you think you can help do get in touch with Christine (Women@ilca.uk) or Claire (office@ilca.uk). We are making some decent progress with hiring more admin support – news on that soon I hope – but the Class is far more active than it used to be and with that comes more to get done. And now that NO5 and 6 are open for entries please have a think about whether you can get stuck in at WPNSA. You don’t need prior experience – there are plenty of us around who will happily show you the ropes. Maybe talk to your sailors; I know for a long, long time (like forever) mine have been far happier having me busy elsewhere than fussing around in the boat park. Maybe that’s just me!

Elsewhere I find myself dealing all too often with various volunteering issues where the time spent isn’t really adding a great deal to what the class does. It tends to be clearing up a misunderstanding, calming things down or occasionally worse. Sometimes we have literally lost volunteers from the Class who understandably aren’t prepared to put up with abuse.

If as a Class member you feel aggrieved about race management decisions, jury calls, protest decisions and the like remember those who have made such decisions have done so in good faith. Our volunteers are unpaid. If you want to challenge them then please follow the appropriate rules process. Seek redress if its available, appeal a decision if there are valid grounds but please do so with good grace. I’m sure no one would want the sport to become like football, whether that be parents on the touchline down on Hackney Marshes on a Sunday morning or supporters or players at the Emirates or London Stadiums abusing a referee. Even I admit it happens at West Ham – it shouldn’t.

Similarly if you want something doing that we don’t already do, you need to be prepared to volunteer and do it yourself. Why? Because, Claire aside, the Class is entirely volunteer run. On the whole if your motivations align with what the Class’s committees decide are in the interest of the Class your efforts will be welcomed. It’s quite rewarding too. And if you leave it to others to fix please don’t complain if the outcome you get isn’t exactly to your liking.

As we roll in to NO5 and 6 and then the Inlands I can also vouch that a little thankyou goes a long long way. We love it on the finish boat when we get a little wave (of appreciation, not the other sort) and this last weekend a leading 7 sailor coming alongside the Committee Boat to have a constructive chat rather than to tell us that the most recent race was lopsided and too short (both of which were undoubtedly true, but which we already knew) went a long way to lifting spirits on the boat where we knew we’d served up something substandard.

We have a wonderful sport and a great Class within it so let’s all try to pull together to making it better still!

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