AGM 2024 - Social Team Report

This year, the social team has held nine Saturday night social events, regular Friday social watersports and pizza nights, and has experienced recent growth with the addition of five new members to the team.

At the start of the year, a questionnaire was circulated to members to ensure the social events are tailored to what members want, and to gain insights into what members think of the social events and any barriers to attending Friday social watersports and pizza nights. The responses from this questionnaire informed the calendar of social events for the year.

As usual, all social events have been publicised by posters around the clubhouse, Facebook posts and in the Enews, and have been aligned, where possible, to Youth and Junior and trophy days to maximise attendance.

We kicked off the Saturday night socials in April, with a smartphone quiz accompanied by a pie and pea supper, which was kindly hosted by Chris Armstrong and friend. We had a great turnout considering that the weather was poor during the day.

Next, we had a Eurovision party with a bring-and-share buffet. This had a smaller turnout, but we are aware of the lovehate divide for Eurovision. We live-streamed Eurovision on a huge screen in the clubhouse, distributed bingo cards and also had a sweepstake.

Next up was the karaoke event with barbecue, which was a big hit! Members of all ages sang their hearts out to their favourite songs and the Spicy Buoys made their debut appearance. It was great to see so many people having fun, giving it a go, and just having a laugh it generated a real 'club' feel. The performances went on until the early hours of the morning and there was great feedback from all; one to repeat for next year!

In June, we brought the barn dance back for the second year running based on the glowing feedback from the previous year. A live band got everyone up on their feet to take part in fun and energetic group dances. We also had a party buffet and some superb fancy dress efforts. The barn dance was very well attended, and everyone had great fun.

To mark the start of the Olympics, we hosted Scaling's own take on the much-anticipated sporting event, consisting of our very own spectacular opening ceremony and an evening of traditional sports day activities like egg and spoon, sack race and tug-of-war which was a great hit with all, especially the youth and juniors. The evening was accompanied by a barbecue to fuel the competitors.

This year, the regatta was a washout with very strong winds and poor weather; however, a few brave souls attempted the Scalathon, which consisted of a run along the dam wall and a short sailing race, finishing on a slip and slide.

In September, we streamed and placed token bets on a series of horse races in the clubhouse; you could hear the cheers egging on the horses from the petrol station! We also had sticky sausage buns, and the Spicy Buoys surprised us all with their spectacular blow-up horse outfits and their own horse race around the clubhouse.

Save the dates for the two remaining social events for this year: bonfire night on 2nd November and the dinner dance with prize-giving on 30th November at Cleveland Golf Club. We hope to see you all there and tickets for the dinner dance are now available to purchase online.

One of the challenges we have faced is the low turnouts on Friday nights, despite paddleboard lessons being held on a Friday night and a publicity push for Friday nights. Due to the low turnouts, we tried changing the format slightly to a once-a-month Friday night where members can try something new or invite a friend up to the club; however, this has had no effect on turnout. The low attendance may be due to the poor weather or just that it is not feasible for many people to finish a long week at work and then come up to the club for watersports. During our planning meeting for 2025, Friday nights will be discussed to see whether to keep them as a club offering.

One of the key changes we have made this year is to make all events ticketed where necessary to allow planning for catering and reduce food waste. Although this creates extra admin, we have been able to track attendance and cater efficiently so this will continue into 2025.

I also wanted to mention the Solstice event organised and hosted by David Keep. This was a great event with a very relaxed atmosphere which I hope will run again next year. Thank you, David for organising this.

And finally, a massive thank you to everyone involved in the social team for bringing the social ideas to life for our members. It takes a lot of hard work to organise, run and cater for these events so I am very grateful that you gave up your free time to make it all a success. Here's to more of the same next year!

Jessica Pound
Social Secretary