Bala SC Commodore Bulletin 20

Published 01:00 on 4 Oct 2025

Well can you believe that we are now almost at the end of the 2025 season! It does not seem that long ago that we were planning the calendar and looking forward to a packed season and here we are again planning the shutdown.

We have just finished our annual AGM. Firstly, I would like to welcome the new committee members who have come forward this year to join us. It is always great to have new people and ideas, as we continue to develop the direction and offering of the club. Secondly a few committee members stand down after serving for various durations and I would like to thank them for their contribution. Hopefully you can continue to enjoy your sailing time and it would be great to see you back on the committee if you ever fancy rejoining us.

We have the shutdown working party planned for Saturday 1st and Sunday 2ndNovember. For those of you who have not been involved before, this key activity puts the club to sleep for the winter, ensuring all the club boats are stored above the flood plain and the water drained down in the facilities etc. Due to the huge help, we normally get, this tends to get done on the Saturday (with the Sunday just ringfenced as contingency). If you are available (especially on the Saturday) please let us know by registering your support on Dutyman, it allows us to see how many people we have turning up so we can schedule the work. Hopefully once again, we will get everything done on the Saturday!

Once the club is shut down, a reminder to all members that ALL boats must be removed from the club by Sunday 9th November without fail. This includes all boats on moorings, tenders, kayaks etc etc. This year we will continue to closely monitor this to ensure all members support this approach. To remind people why this is important, we have a duty to ENP under our lake licence to ensure that over the winter period we do not negligently introduce debris into the lake during times of flooding. Should this happen, we could be liable and therefore would pass that liability and any costs incurred over to the owner of the boat, whether they remained as a member or abandoned the boat.

Quite a few people are considering keeping their sailing activities going over the winter and as well as a few people sailing out of Leigh and Lowton, a reminder that Shotwick Sailing Club, hold an open Frostbite Series for 7 consecutive Sunday from the 2nd November (another reason to get the working party wrapped up on the Saturday…..). I understand the cost is £20 for the series and you can leave your boat there until the series is completed. For more information, visit the Shotwick SC website.

https://www.shotwicksailing.org/events

Over the closedown period, I will continue to write some Commodore Bulletins, probably reflecting on what an incredible season we have had and feeding in some new ideas and updates for the 2026 season but certainly a few things to call out are:

1. Youth sailing what can I say! The team have done an incredible job here and it has been great to see so many young people out on the water enjoying themselves, having a great time and getting involved in club life more, especially out in the racing program. Many thanks also to the parents who have been key to supporting this
2. Club racing this is always a mixed bag but it has been great to see large numbers out on the start line and new people joining racing as well as some juniors mixing it up. The sight of Toms RS Tera in front of Kens SB20 during the start sequence was something not to miss and probably is the reason why Tom has bought himself a nice Catamaran for 2026 to truly get his elbows out!
3. Galley duties we have had an incredible season of opens and have had several fleets join us and this has put a lot of pressure on the galley team. A HUGE thankyou to everyone who has come forward to support Sheila this year. We could not have done it without you!

In case you may have missed it, as part of the AGM we review the fees for the following year and have reduced several membership types following a benchmarking review, targeting areas where we have poor retention or declining membership groups. The key highlights are as follows:

• All memberships and services will continue to have a cost-of-living increase of between 3 and 4% rounded to the nearest pound 
• Student membership will be removed and a more open generic membership of young adult will be created for 18- to 25-year-olds. This will be set at approx. £98 (junior is currently £57 and full adult is £189) 
• Family membership where we have two types (one sailing and both sailing) will be merged into a single-family membership which will cover 2 adults and up to 3 children residing in the same house. Any child in the family about the 3rd child will need to be added as an additional junior membership. The cost will be set at the residing price of 1 adult + 1 junior so as a comparison against 2025 cost it would be £246 vs current cost of £261 (single adult) and £379 (both adults). This offers a significant reduction for families and we hope this will aid retention and attract more families to the club. It also brings us better in line with other clubs 
• OAP Couples will be reduced from the current cost which equates to two OAPs down to a cost like one OAP and one social membership (although both members of the couple will be treated as sailing members). As a comparison for 2025 this would reduce the cost from £284 to £214 
• We are changing the first-year discount for new memberships (applied only to sailing types) down from a 50% discount to 30% meaning new members will pay 70% of the full fees in their first year at the club not 50% 
• We have clarified that those members who attend a Learn to Sail course get free membership during the year of their course (as part of their course fees) and in the subsequent year after attending the course may use the first-year discount option 

I just want to close this bulleting to say that 2026 will be my last year as Commodore as at that point I would have completed 3 years so I am looking forward to continue to drive the club forward but also set the club up to hand it over to the next in line to jump into this role at the next AGM. It has been a great 2 years and I cannot wait to get back to seeing the club open in March but let us not wish that away yet! We still have a few more weeks of this season to go!

Thanks

Rob

Last updated 20:15 on 14 October 2025