UKLA Chair blog #28
Patience while we grow…..
The ILCA class in the UK is vibrant and growing at all levels from the British Sailing Team to club activities, from young teenagers to Legends (over 75s). UKLA have launched several new initiatives in recent months:
UKLA virtual winter training – we have run two sessions so far with the first video having over 1,400 views. The second session last Wednesday had 250 registrations and the video has been viewed over 740 times in less than four days
Our Female Participation Survey is underway (we will close it on Wednesday) with over 100 responses to date
Our National Training started in Oct to complement Regional training and it has been very successful.
You will see our published strategy on the ilca.uk website. We are working hard to ensure you have the information you need - hopefully it is easier to find it on the website as well. Thank you to those who have been coming forward to volunteer. UKLA is now at a size where many roles are too big for one person and we are working through how to manage that.
But with the growth comes pain. Our policies are made with the best interests of the class as a whole but invariably not everyone is going to agree with everything – that just the way it is as we get bigger. We will always look for input on changing polices but that doesn’t mean we adopt all input.
UKLA is a member organisation that exists to support our members and is run by a volunteer committee and our class secretary Ellie who works part-time. Ellie and the rest of us are all working incredibly hard to support members, but at certain times of the year are very busy – in February and March we have eight continuous weekends of activity – three qualifiers, four weekends of UKLA training and the Dinghy Show. Hopefully we are getting most of it right, but we are going to make the odd mistake and responses time will be slower, so please be patient with us as we cope with all with extra demand.
Snippets:
Session #2 Virtual winter education/training programme for ILCA club/master sailing with Daisy Collingridge and Matilda Nicholls (British Sailing Team) - ILCA technique for upwind / downwind in light air and heavy air
Here is a reminder about the Female Participation survey
Featured podcast of week is Tim Hulse, UKLA Training Officer