Saturday May 17th dawned bright with blue skies, with a light breeze and glorious warm sunshine.
What better conditions would you need to have an open day?
The RYA's 'Push the boat out' weekend, coincided with our open day and membership amnesty where for a period of two weeks the administration fee is waived to encourage those that were thinking of joining the club to sign up.
The 'Push the boat out' initiative is a national event that seeks to encourage the general public to visit their local sailing club and try a sail. Our club was the only participating sailing club in South Dorset and so enjoyed a constant stream of visitors.
With the front doors wide open and the carefully crafted posters designed by Geoff and Val Warren inviting people in, visitors were met by the smiling faces of Andreas, Berry, Anne, Josie and Jill who filled out name badges, gave them a RYA 'Push the boat out' badge and escorted them upstairs.
The upstairs had been transformed with information boards, rolling video footage of club sailing activities and presentations by the RNLI and local RYA training establishments.
On hand to offer tea and homemade cakes from Caroline, Sharon, Julie and Angela was Jane and her team, whilst Kathy, Ray and Euan welcomed visitors.
Down in the yard, dinghies were rigged with spinnakers set in the light breeze, these gave the whole area an inviting splash of colour.
Mark, Andy and Ian took the opportunity to carry out some maintenance on the clubs Feva's, whilst Phil took out visitors in his Wayfarer.
Further activity in the yard witnessed the RNLI carrying out lifejacket checks, whilst Steve, Steve and Phil carried out some light pruning at the back of the yard. Opening up an area that had been out of bounds to keelboats during the winter lay up.
We had a visit from Tony Woods who is the RYA's South Western development officer, who took time out from his busy schedule to take tea upstairs and then discuss rig tuning out in the yard. He commented on how well the club looked and thanked us for our efforts in promoting sailing in the area.
Out on the water right in front of the club, with kind permission from the harbour master (thanks Keith) YOB's Alex, Emma, Sam, Harry, Sara, Grace and Matthew, put their boat's through their paces whilst Mick in the safety boat kept a close eye on them.
All in all it was a fantastic team effort and the club was shown off to great effect.
Early reports suggest that 34 new memberships have been signed although as some of those memberships are families the numbers of new faces to be welcomed into the club will be higher.
Many thanks to everyone who helped to make it such a great day and for presenting our club in such a great light.
Submitted on 18th May 2014