Dinghy sailing: ideas wanted on how to increase new sailor involvement
I'm volunteering with a club to increase their youth engagmenet. The club is cheap, less than $500/year, and youth classes are very affordable (and free if you say that you can't pay). I also happen to be a market/demographics consultant, so my career is all around helping companies understand who their customers are, where they live/work/play, and what customers expect from their products. I want to leverage that thinking to get more people here out on the water, and beyond the "I grew up sailing and I want to get back into it and get my kids sailing" crowd.
Just starting out, I had some theories about why our youth engagmenet hasn't been stronger.
- cost: this turns out not to be a factor. You don't have to be a club member to join, and you can do an entire 3-month session for $85 (roughly the same cost as eating at a Tex-Mex restaurant for 2, with 2 margaritas). As mentioned, it's free for those who can't pay. As the scholarship request rate is less than 1%, this hasn't been a barrier to entry. Even $500 to join later on is dirt cheap when you compare it to the popular sports around here (roughly 15 country clubs with initiations starting at $50K up to $325K, all with multi-year waiting lists, or $85 plus $15 for green fees/bucket of balls at most of the public courses). Even running will get you to $500 by your 3rd pair of shoes, and a full frisbee golf setup is $250. So again, it's not a cost thing. It isn't like the people who join a $200K initiation and $1,200/month are joining our sailing club, even though they are 3 miles apart.
- convenience: this might be more of a factor, but their is no more of a time commitment than most any other after-school activity, whether it is band or sports. Plus, sailing is 1-2X a week, vs. many sports which have 4-6 practices/week and plenty of weekend travel. So if people were to say "convenience" and then I find out they are on a regional baseball team or watch TV/play video games for 5 hours/day, what they are really saying is "I'd rather not prioritize my time with sailing".
That being said, I think there is something to this when it comes to low income kids that may have parents (or single parent) working at odd hours and no transport. It was no big deal for people like me, who had a mom for a teacher, as her day at school ends at 4:15 and she can grade papers on the docks. So that may be something to look into.
sense of camraderie. Now we are onto something. Most of the people we get here in the youth program come with friends. Rarely to people just "stumble in" looking for something to do. It happens, but usually that's a case of a parent who sailed, just like it's often that kids in junior summer golf camps have parents that are golfers. So growing the sailing community at schools, and getting kids interested so that they bring their friends out, is a potential way to grow.
introduction to the sport: sailing isn't a sport that you accidentally fall into. If you didn't grow up around sailing, it can feel as foreign as piloting a plane. I often mention to people that I sail and they step back and say "you SAIL?" Where did you learn that? But when I talk to people from the upper Midwest, a very high % (comparitavely) grew up sailing or know how to sail. Same with people in parts of the NE and mid-Atlantic. It's a normal thing elsewhere, so why can't it be here?
If you're new to the sport, it can feel very intimidating, in the same way that tracking a car or joining a race-pace group bicycle ride can. Riding a bike solo at 18mph is one thing; jumping into a peloton where suddenly you're doing 24mph and a crash could send you and others to the hospital, are 6" from another wheel, and expected to pull through and move seamlessly, is very intimidating. Randos just don't show up without being introduced and shown the ropes.
I think somehow, getting over that intimidation hurdle is key, and that can start at a young age. A boat is like a car with no brakes. But you can see just how well small kids sail once they become comfortable with the gear, the technique, as we have the brainpower to adapt very quickly.
I'd also like to be able to work with boys and girls clubs and whatnot to get more low-income kids out here. Sailing, like rowing, comes across as a "rich kids" sport, even though it's not. My grandfather and his buddies founded their yacht club during the Great Depression and built all of the fleet boats in his basement on his woodworking equipment, with wood salvaged from the lumber yard scrap pile. That's also how they built the docks. Anyone can sail, and anyone can have a boat. I think to do that, we need to work to get people here, get them interested, make sure it's viewed as a fun thing to do, rather than just assuming they'll want to sail because they can for no charge.
Anyways, I'd love your thoughts on what has/hasn't worked for you or any other ideas. (and sorry for the weird spacing: Reddit formatted everything automatically)
