Ripon Sailing Club sets sail for the 2017 season
by Jennie Clark 19 Mar 2017 18:07 GMT
19 March 2017
Family & Commodore's Weekend at Ripon © Ian Smith
The clubhouse was put to good use on Saturday 11 March with the annual Fitting Out Supper attracting members to come and celebrate the start of the club's 60th anniversary year. Followed by a quiz which certainly encouraged some head scratching with its questions on the 2017 PY numbers, the curry themed supper provided by Advent Catering was a huge success with young and old alike.
The Fitting Out Supper was just one part of a very busy weekend which saw the club's Icicle series draw to a close, and also the launch of the new SCM based website, mailing and membership data system. A small team have been working behind the scenes to drive forward the introduction of the Sailing Club Manager package and it's integrated features and the system finally went live on Friday night.
Demand for access to the new system from members was high – so high that they managed to crash the server – but with over 500 hits in just a few hours it is clear that this has been a great move forward. Having launched the system at 6pm on Friday night there were already a raft of bookings, and payments for bookings, by the time the admin team logged on on Saturday morning. The club will manage membership data, the boat park and all it's social, training and coaching events through the system which introduces integrated on line payment for the first time.
With the main season of racing starting on Sunday 19 March, the final day of the winter 'lay off' saw the club hosting a 1 day Race Officer Training Course. Led by the regional Rules Guru, Henry Wright, and the Club's Commodore, Bernard Clark, the day saw 16 club members taken through the skills of race management and mark laying. This 1 day highly interactive and participative programme is something which was designed to provide a good introduction to the skills needed for good club race management, and will hopefully encourage some of the participants go on to achieve recognition through the RYA Race Officer certification schemes.