TSC News

Alison Young, who started her sailing career here at Trimpley Sailing Club, has been selected to represent the nation sailing in the Laser Radial class at Weymouth in the forthcoming 2012 Olympic Games.

Alison started sailing aged 8 with her dad, Keith, in a GP14 at Trimpley by attending one of our learn to sail courses. She quickly took to the sport sailing an Optimist dinghy, followed by a stint in the Topper class before moving into the Laser Radial. She started competing at youth events locally and nationally, and later internationally, culminating in a Bronze medal at the ISAF Youth World Championships in 2005. In recent years she has been training hard with Skandia TeamGBR in the development squad, and since 2010, the performance squad.

Alison was called up to the Olympic team after a series of consistent performances in the sailing world cup, which sees her ranked 4th internationally. Her inclusion means she will be in the same team as sailing greats Ben Ainslie, Paul Goodison, Bryony Shaw, Andrew Simpson and Iain Percy.

Alison gets to grips with the Laser Radial at Trimpley back in 2002

Speaking after the selection, Alison said: “I was stunned when I found out, but it’s pretty cool to be selected for an Olympic Games, and for a home Games it’s even more exciting. There’s a lot of experience in the team, and a lot of knowledge so hopefully I’ll be able to tap into some of that experience to help me at my first Games.”

“There’s a lot of work to do now that I’ve been selected to push to get into the medals, and that’s what I’m aiming to do, so that I can put in the best result I can. My strengths have always been in the breeze, mostly down to my fitness and now technique as well. But my light wind game and my decision-making are developing as well, so I’ll keep pushing those forward and hopefully the hard work in those areas will keep moving ready for the summer.”

Alison returns to Trimpley for the clubs Laser open meeting in 2006

Everyone at Trimpley is so excited to have a homegrown sailor competing at the Olympics and we all wish her the best of luck for the Games. For a tiny lake in the middle of the country, with only light, fluky winds more often than not, the club has a remarkable history of producing top notch sailors. Of course, Alison’s achievement is the best to date and we hope she can go on to win Olympic Gold. For anyone inspired by Alison’s story, and who wants to get into sailing should get in contact with us. We regularly run learn to sail courses and there are lots of options to cater for all ages. Hopefully we can start building the next generation of Olympic sailors!

Commodore Andy Allan sent Alison an SMS congratulating her from everyone at Trimpley; her reply: “Thanks, lot of work to do to get a medal-bring it on!”

Now available in the members area is a small web app to help you arrange duty swaps with other members. If you need to swap a duty, sign in to the members area and find the “Swap A Duty” box. Fill in the details, click submit, and we’ll send out an email to all members with your request.

Why is this better than the old method? Well there are a number of reasons. Gone are the days of a group email, which often has missing or outdated addresses. It also gives you protection, as your email address is only shared when you make a swap request. In addition, we maintain a list of unarranged (open) swaps online, so you have quick access to everyone who needs to swap their duties in one place. It’s super quick, and easy to use, no more hunting around for all those email addresses.

Another feature in the members area you may not know about is the “Find A Crew” app. This uses exactly the same technology, but is for sending out a request for a crew or helm, or even just another boat on the water.

Alongside this update are some changes to your profile page, where we’ve added some extra fields under the membership section, all to do with doing duties. Now you can record your preferred day to do duties, and which duties you can do. It’d be really helpful if everyone filled out this info, and we can start using to roster duties more effectively.

One last thing along the ‘did you know’ lines: You can rearrange the order of the boxes on the dashboard of the members area, just grab the title of the box then drag and drop! It’s that easy to put your favourite things at the top of the page.

Feel free to leave a comment below, it’d be great to get some feedback on these features!

Things have been ticking away and now we have a few updates as Summer starts. First off, we’ve changed the race calendar a little, bringing the autumn taste of sailing course into the first 3 sundays of August. As no racing was scheduled for these days previously, we can run the training course all day, and it gives us some more races in the summer noon series at the end of September. You can find the updated race calendar in the member area.

Next we have a race training day coming up on the 31st July. This is aimed at our newer members who want to get into racing. Lead by a team of our top club racers, you can get any questions you have about racing answered. The day will primarily focus on starting and finishing the race. To help you get out on the water club boats will be available free of charge for this training session. We kick off in the clubhouse at 10am.

Lastly for any budding powerboaters, we need more people to volunteer as rescue boat drivers. Obviously there is some skills required for this so we are looking into running some powerboat training courses over the summer. At the club this will be some informal training to give you the basics in boat handling skills. We can also arrange an official RYA Powerboat Level 2 course at a nearby RYA training centre, including instruction, log books and certification.

For any information about these training courses contact our training team, or just leave a comment below.

Time for another website update. I’ve implemented a system for getting email notifications when a new post is made on the website, such as this one. An email will be sent whenever a new post is made, and will contain an excerpt of the post (or the full post if it’s short), and a link to the full post online. This is only available to registered members at the moment, so if you haven’t registered yet you should! When logged in to the members area you can manage your subscriptions too, so you don’t have to get any emails. Obviously we’d rather you did.

Emails are sent in the HTML format so it’s all nicely presented, but if your email doesn’t support this don’t worry, you’ll still get a plain text version. The new email system uses this same template for sending administrative emails too, e.g password resets.

I’ve also implemented emails in our ‘Find A Crew’ feature, only available to registered members. If you need a crew, or a helm, or just some other people on the water you can post a date based request in the members area, which now automatically gets emailed to all the registered members as well.

• Manage your subscriptions
• Update your profile
• Use the Find A Crew feature

We hope you find these new features useful. If you have any comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them, just use the comments form below or send me an email.

Having announced the addition of four new Laser Bugs to our club fleet, we need some names for them, so we are launching a competition. We invite members to submit four names, along with a £4 donation to the club to the committee, who will announce the winning names on 4th April.

The winner will receive 20% of the value of donations received, while the rest of the money will be added to club funds, to help with the upkeep of the new boats.

While we hope to have some great names suggested, if no clear decision is made all donations will be accepted and no prize may be given. The judging shall be done by the committee and commodore, and their decision shall be final. Entries need to be received by midnight 28th March.

We look forward to seeing your entries. Good Luck!

The new Laser Bugs will be a great addition to our training fleet. We anticipate they will be very popular with our youth sailors. They will be used for our Taste of Sailing learn to sail courses, race training courses, and can be hired out by members at any time.

We’ve added a new little app in the members area which will let you go sailing more easily. Sometimes, especially if you’re a new member or still learning the ropes, it’s hard to get out on the water when you need someone else in the boat. Now if you log in to the members area you can use our new app to help you find a crew or a helm and get out on the water.

It’s date based, just choose a day you want to go sailing. You can see current requests in a calendar format or as a list. If you can respond to one, you’ll find contact details to arrange it. It’s easy to add a new request, just fill out the form, optionally leave some more details, and submit. Your request will immediately be added to the system along with details from your profile.

As well as being a crew finder and helm finder, there is a ‘sailing buddies’ option. If you plan on free sailing (typically on a wednesday) there should be at least two boats on the water. You can use the same system to invite others to come sailing with you and get a group together.

This new app uses your info provided in ‘Your Profile’. If you haven’t filled it out yet we recommend you do so. If you haven’t even joined the members area yet, what are you waiting for! Sign up now to access the latest race results, handicaps, duty rota and contact list, with more coming in the future.

Now it’s even easier to go sailing, we hope to see more of you out on the water.

What a start to the New Year. Our traditional hangover cure, The Millenium Trophy races, were cancelled due to the reservoir still being frozen. Instead the Commodore lead a group on a riverside walk, although I’m not sure who the trophies go to in that case. A few hardy souls made it out onto the water this weekend, the first sailing since 19th December. May there be much more in the coming year.

We will of course be running our learn to sail courses – Taste of Sailing, later in the year; if you want some sailing instruction, or know someone who would like to learn, make sure you get in contact with us!

So our first social of the year will be the annual Dinner Dance. Bookings are now being taken, so get yours in. It’s taking place at The Granary, Shenstone, Kidderminster on 5th March. Head through to the members area to get all the details and booking form (if you haven’t already registered online, you should. It’s where you’ll find all the latest results, duty rosters and contact lists).

There will also all the other usual socials, away trips, training opportunities and racing all year long. With one year to go to our home turf Olympics we can be sure there will be lots of enthusiasm about sport throughout the country. Why don’t you get involved and come and join us for a sail.

Last night we launched the all new TSC Members Area. You’ll still find the latest results, contact list and duty rota, along with everything else, but in a brand new layout, so let me take you through it.

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