Is your club the best in the UK? 

Entries for the RYA Club of the Year 2013 open in September at the PSP Southampton Boat Show.

The RYA Club of the Year celebrates clubs that excel at promoting sailing, encouraging people on the water, and in making their activities varied and accessible to their local community.

The 2012 winner

Hollowell Sailing Club in Northamptonshire was crowned this year’s winners, with the five strong finalists including Chichester Yacht Club, Leigh and Lowton Sailing Club, Salcombe Yacht Club and Staunton Harold Sailing Club.

Want to enter for the RYA Club of the Year 2013?

Entries for the RYA Club of the Year 2013 open in September at the Southampton Boat Show.

Five clubs will be selected to receive awards and an overall winner will be announced next March at the RYA Dinghy Show 2013.

If you think your club is successful and forward-looking we want to hear from you. For more information visit www.rya.org.uk/cluboftheyear or call Sport Development on 023 8060 4192. Entries must be received before 19 November 2012.

Staunton Harold Sailing Club Commodore, Nick Waters, tells us what the award has done for his club…

Has being a Club of the Year finalist had an effect on your club?

It’s been really helpful in enabling us to get the message round locally about what a great sport sailing is, and why Staunton Harold is the club to join. We’ve been able to display the fact that we are a finalist on our web-site and also stand out to the local media (both Commodore and Vice-Commodore have been interviewed by Radio Derby and also we’ve had good coverage in the local papers).

I think it’s also given our members a good feeling – we know we’re an excellent club and it’s really positive to have this acknowledged.

What have you done this year to improve your club and increase your membership?

We’re continuing with our development plans. We are delighted to have won grants to extend and refurbish the changing rooms (from Sport England) and improve our jetty/slipways (from Derbyshire County Council). We have also won the “Green Thinking Club of the Year” from the Community Sport and Recreation Awards which are open to all kinds of sports clubs across the country.

Our junior training courses have been better integrated with our junior training squad and we’ve been running more improvers’ activities and courses to encourage beginners to become more confident in their sailing, so they will continue for the long term.

Do you think 2012 is an important year to engage with the local community?

2012 is a great opportunity as sailing will, we hope, be one of the most successful sports for the UK this summer, and this will generate interest in the sport. We have run a number of activities to help encourage local participation as part of RYA Sail for Gold, along with the activities we already run with the local community (such as the Disabled day, RYA OnBoard and local college membership at the club).

What advice would you give to other clubs applying for the Club of the Year Award?

Filling the form in gives you a chance to reflect on what your club does, all the successes you’ve had in the past year and prompts you to think about other things you can do. Getting through to the final was a great experience, as it gave us a chance to talk to other very successful clubs and share ideas and best practice.

Jayne Morris from finalists Salcombe Yacht Club…

Being named as an RYA Club of the Year finalist has been very positive for our club and very exciting. It has really helped us to think to the future.

We had 20 members of Salcombe attending different RYA workshops at the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show and we came away with fantastic information and the confidence to apply for a funding to buy new training boats which we were granted. We are thinking of naming these after Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark who presented our RYA Club of the Year Finalist Trophy at the show!

Being a Club of the Year finalist gave us a wonderful opportunity to learn from the other finalists and we will continue to look forward to our future and to share our own experiences with others.