AGM 2024 - Training and Development Officer's Report

2024 AGM Training report

Training income so far for 2024 is £11.3k, compared with £22k last year and about £19k for 2022 on a like for like basis - some of this will be shown as membership income in the final accounts, where course participants receive a retrospective discount when they decide to join the club. We experienced bad weather for a lot of the first half of this year, and sailing course interest and bookings have been down compared to normal. Well done to the SUP instructors, who now have more people on the team, and have introduced twice as many people this year compared to last. Interest in all courses is still coming in during October, and we'll continue to offer what we can if the weather remains mild and the wind manageable.

This has been the first year that the club has employed 3 Watersports Assistants. Hopefully you've found Peter and the 2 Matthews to be friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. The intention of this new role was to give the club more flexibility with its staff, in support of both the club activities and finances. They have helped us to deliver a lot more sailing taster sessions than previous years, utilising the quieter times at the club. They have also covered safety helm at weekends, which continues to help the club to provide a good standard of reliable safety cover and reduce the total duty requirement for members. The staff wage bill for this year is forecast to be around £3k less than the total for last year, which represents a saving of around £4.5k if you were to apply a pay increase to last year's wage bill.

6 club members are undergoing Dinghy Instructor training at the end of October. We are also aiming to run a SUP Instructor course in the spring. With membership numbers showing a slow decline for the past couple of years, it's vital that we can provide a good number and quality of training courses to support potential new members to the club, help current members to progress, and bring an important source of income into the club.

Phil Dickinson.
Training Principal.