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Chester Sailing & Canoeing Club is Volvo RYA Champion Club

by Sarah Alexander 11 Nov 2011 15:08 GMT 8 November 2011
RYA High Performance Manager Chris Blackburn, Chester Sailing Club’s Peter Hadfield and club Commodore Mike Kneale as they are awarded Volvo Champion Club status © RYA

On Tuesday 8th November Chester Sailing and Canoeing club, located on the river Dee, Chester was presented with the prestigious Volvo RYA Champion Club award. The Sailing club has been recognised for this award due to its active youth racing programme including the RS Feva and Topper classes. The club encourages and supports talented young sailors to develop and progress throughout the Royal Yachting Association’s youth and Olympic programmes.

The award was presented to Mike Kneale, club Commodore by Chris Blackburn, RYA High Performance Manager. Mike understands the importance of developing the club’s youth sailors “We are delighted to be presented with the Volvo RYA Championship Club Award. It is fantastic for the club that the team of coaches and instructors here at Sandy Lane have been recognised for all the excellence in our junior racing and training programme and youth development. We look forward to continuing our winter training programme for our existing youth sailors and look forward to welcoming our new intake of aspiring sailors in the spring.”

Chris said of Chester’s success “I am delighted to be presenting this award in recognition of the great work that Chester has done to help young sailors to develop their racing skills. It really is an exciting time to be involved in the Volvo RYA Champion Club Programme and the incentives are there for every club to take full advantage of. The easier we can make it for more clubs to do that then the quicker the sport of sailing will benefit.”

The Volvo RYA Champion Club Programme aims to encourage young sailors and windsurfers at grassroots level to stay in the sport and learn to compete, while encouraging clubs to introduce youngsters to the sport and help develop their skills. The key challenge for the programme is to encourage more young people to start participating in sailing and then progress with their racing careers.

Now that Chester has been awarded Volvo RYA Champion Club status, the sailors will see increased levels of development advice and professional coaching including support from the RYA. Chester will also have access to the recent commitment from Sport England of £1.1m to the RYA’s flagship youth sailing initiatives, to further enhance club coach and volunteer development across England over the next three years.

The Club is currently re-evaluating their adult training for new members and is actively recruiting those who wish to learn to sail and participate in the sport. For more information visit www.chestersailingclub.com

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