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Waitara Boating Club

Regional Roundup - the bottom of the north

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The Regional Roundup from my perspective this month should be more appropriately named My Life and Times Around the Home - Again, as I’m sure it is for many of you.

How we all have longed to get out and meet with our colleagues, family, friends, employees or employers. Instead we have been sitting in endless video meetings and making phone calls to keep some sort of social interaction, despite the restrictions of the alert levels.

I started my new role at Yachting New Zealand on March 30. It was me, my laptop, our dog Frankie and my home office located in our rumpus room. Part of the reason for me taking on this role was to get out of the house more often as I have been working from home for the past four years in my own business and, yet, here I am still sitting here. I haven't even been into the Yachting New Zealand offices yet to meet my new colleagues.

Ian Darby
Ian Darby working at home with his assistant Frankie.

Anyway, I am really pleased to be working alongside such a great bunch of people and I am looking forward to getting out and meeting many more of my fellow boaties and helping out my clubs as our restrictions lift.

I must say, it has been tough talking to many people I have never met before about their clubs and the position each club are in since the lockdown began. Having many conversations about how this may affect each club in the future is a bit like crystal ball gazing at the moment, as none of us have been through a similar experience before in our lifetime to learn from.

What has really pleased me, though, is how every person I have spoken to is so passionate and adamant their club will survive. Many older clubs (some over 100 years old) have been through many similar tough times throughout their history and survived, so the spirit from every club member I speak to is, 'we won’t let that happen on our watch'.

Now is the time to upskill

Race officials

As the new kid in the office (not really office yet, still home) I have been having to learn everything from scratch as you can imagine. One of the many useful tools available free to all Yachting New Zealand affiliated club members is our Embark online learning platform.

Currently there are two courses available with more to be added later in the year:

Introduction to Race Officiating - if you are one of the many kind volunteers in your club wanting to upskill and become a race official of some sort, then we have an officiating course covering:

  • race signals
  • visual signals
  • vital rules
  • organising races

Coaching 101 - if you love getting out on the water and want to help the next generation of sailors, we also have a coaching course covering:

  • code of conduct
  • safety requirements
  • quality coaching

So why not take this time while we are all housebound and get started on upskilling yourself so you can be even more valuable to your club as a volunteer once we can get back out on the water?

Click here to get started or to find more information.

Grass Roots Sailing NZ on Facebook

Waitara Boating Club

With all clubs experiencing unprecedented times at the moment, it is more important than ever to come together as a sailing community to share ideas, initiatives, good stories, historical moments, old photos and events that are happening across all our clubs in New Zealand.

With this in mind, we have now created a new Facebook page run by the regional support officers called Grass Roots Sailing NZ. Check it out here.

We hope you can follow this page and stay across what is going on for all clubs around the country and can help contribute to making sailing even better than ever.

Be kind, be patient and stay safe out there.
See you on the water soon.
Ian