Organisational structure in SA (Long)

Hello everyone,

There has been some discussion about the role of Windsurfing SA in our sport. I thought I would try and summarise the situation, at least as I see it. Why me? I've been windsurfing since 1983, and have been involved in organising course racing, slalom and long distance races via various committees etc. (mostly in the late 80's,
early 90's). I'm a recent addition to Windsurfing SA, but to my embarrassment haven't contributed anything as yet. Also, I will have a go at any discipline regardless of equipment or ability :-)

First do we need a structure? Windsurfing is a sport that can be fun freesailing alone or with mates. Some people are completely happy with this arrangement. However, organised events add another dimension to the sport, improve skills and promote the sport.

So who is going to organise events? First, there is no "someone" out there who "should" do this or do that. All the events that have been organised in recent times (SA speed series, SASWS) and in the past have been organised by a person or group who put in time and effort for the benefit of the sport. We should all applaud their efforts and do the best we can to enter any events put out there. It not an easy job - it takes time and comittment, and maybe missing out on some sailing yourself. The local shops have always but on events too, and this has been a great part of our sport.

What is important is protecting the people who put their hand up to run an event. Hopefully nothing will go wrong and usually it doesn't. The "clubs and associations" system ( http://www.recsport.sa.gov.au ) evolved as a way of running sports and hobbies to limit the liability of the people running events. This should be seen as important in organised windsurfing too. The idea is to have a safety net for rare but catastrophic events - say, dropping a rig in a carpark and hitting someone on the head, running over a swimmer or putting a hole is a boat (don't laugh, once I completely mounted a moving LazyE sailboat with my raceboard. They weren't happy!). In a worst case scenario, the organisers of an event could be held liable for an accident of this sort.

There are two levels of protection. First, by running events from an incorporated association or club. The second is an insurance scheme for members. Boring stuff, but necessary. In windsurfing, the organisational (goverance) structure goes like this:

At the national level there is the Australian Windsurfing Association (AWA). They organise a nation wide insurance policy via negotiations with insurance companies, and allocate sail numbers.

At the State Level is Windsurfing SA Incorporated, who has a representative in the AWA. Windsurfing SA collects membership fees and information for AWA so that members can have insurance cover. Windsurfing SA can also lobby on behalf of the sport (and did so in it's former name, SA Boardsailing Association). Beach access was a problem in the early days, when windsurfers were the bad boys on the beach endangering the public. Fortunately, we handed this baton (batten?) over to jet skis and then kitesurfers. Also having a state association is the only way we could expect to get government funding of any sort (like the big dollars poured into footy and cricket) in the case of pigs flying.

Under the Windsurfing SA umbrella are various clubs, who have traditonally been the people running events rather than Windsurfing SA. However, most of the clubs that operated in the past (like the Adelaide Boardsailing Club) are to my knowledge dormant now.

Windsurfing SA has more or less been run single handed by John Rohde. He has collected memberships, liased with and sat on the AWA committee, and been the webmaster for some great websites. We owe him a great debt for doing this. John does not run events - the expectation is that this will happen at the club level. I haven't seen JBR on the water for a while, but he has a few significant windsurfing achievements under his belt - including a number of long distance races.

So what am I trying to say? As always, events won't happen unless people step up and organise them. There has been a shortage of people who have the time and/or inclination to do this. It is great that this is happening more of late and thanks to those putting their hands up. John already gives as much to the sport and anyone, and we can't look to him to organise events too via Windsurfing SA. Windsurfing SA is only as strong as the club structure underneath it - maybe this needs to be revisted. It makes a lot of sense to organise events under the Windsurfing SA umbrella and tap into the incorporation and insurance scheme.

I'm not saying things are perfect. I guess a reasonable debate is whether this is too many levels of administration, and whether Windsurfing SA should be directly organise events if it had a bigger committee. John has made moves to increase the size of the committee. The system of having clubs under the state association is the same as the system in QLD & NSW. But I suspect it would still be the same people doing things regardless of what label you gave them.

Some of my best windsufing experiences have been in competitions. We shouldn't forget that SA has produced multiple national and world champion windsurfers in the past. Something these individual sailors can all be proud of, but also a product of a strong organisational structure run by volunteers. It would be great if we can build
this up again. If you windsurf, I would encourage you to join Windsurfing SA. It will cost you $40 for 3rd party liability insurance that covers you for all your sailing.

Personally, I would love to see a long distance race like the Ledge to Lancelin in SA - the Seacliff to Semaphore? Sellicks to Semaphore? Now that I'm not "Mr Mum" on the weekends so much, it is something I would like to work towards via my new role in Windsurfing SA.

Any thoughts or comments?

Regards,

Richard Upton

As I have got more involved in the sport since last year. I think $40 is a small price to pay for piece of mind when on the water. As I got some gear earlier in the year and am keen to get more involved in events. I would be interested in doing a long distance event. I sail mainly at Goolwa on the lake or Mouth and I have seen a number of near misses and always thought the good old what if..?.

Cheer Pittsy

Nice summary Richard. I hope I am representative of most of the people involved in SASWS - please correct me if not.

As a small group of wavesailors trying to get some interest and participation in the sport in South Australia it would be great to be able to work with Windsurf SA and encourage membership. There has been some resistance to joining the association and I am unsure if it relates to cost or politics or its just too hard to get the monies to the association.

Some organised calender for SA windsurfing - wave, speed, slalom, race would be great (including social) and it would be great to get all parties together and to look at the year year ahead and possibly go along to a Windsurf SA committee meeting.

The ongoing viability and organisation of SASWS (SA Social wavesailors) is dependant on the group involvement of and success of events . when we loosley formed it was on a 12 month try out. The small group that have been involved so far have had agreat time at Robe, family day and womens event and are looking forward to more wave events - even though we are aware mother nature may not always smile upon us.

I think getting more people involved in the future would be fantastic - even seeing a couple of heated wave events - SA Wave tiltles - there are some great wavesailors in SA and seeing them compete would be awesome. In speaking to some of the long time wave sailors many were over sitting on a beach waiting for a heat and then getting crap conditions when it was going off earlier - this will be a limiting factor for some getting of our best known wave sailors involved - and making SA windsurf membership compulsory may be a stumbling block. (even though most of us would spend $40 on fluid entertainment on a weekend)

The begginer days and womens events tied in with a wave/speed or slalom event at one of the flat water venues would also be great. (if we get water - sea or fresh)

We look forward to your involvement in SA windsurfing and thanks for your suppport of the SASWS at the events, emails re organisation and even while you were OS.

Cheers

RH

Thanks everyone for your comments.

It seems to me that there are 2 tribes at the moment:

The SA Speed Demons that has evolved out of the gps team challenge. gpsteamchallenge.com.au. It's great to see the south aussies doing well as a team, and some national top 10 individual like Chris Dimond, Tim Hemer and Sam Doeke. Chris has organised some great speed sailing events outside the challenge - thank you Chris. I now has a KA sails cap for every day of the week

The SASWS (Russell, Sue, Dave and others) which has done some great work getting newbies fired up and getting some wave-sailing back on the event calender.

It's all good. But how about this for a dream? With a bit of extra effort SASD and SASWS could become affiliated clubs of Windsurfing SA.

The first priority is to avoid a system where there are endless boring committee meetings that takes time away from sailing. I also know from experience that clubs with a lot of infrastructure like boats and club-rooms just take up too much time for maintenance.

John Rohde tells me it could work like this (and this is the model pushed in NSW & QLD):

- The clubs pay an annual affiliation fee and also forward $20 per member
to the State Assoc (Windsurfing SA) for Insurance, etc.

- for an event to be covered by the insurance, it must be run as a "State Association" event hosted by "?? Club", and be conducted under event risk management strategies stipulated by the State Assoc (via the insurer I suppose).


Then we would have a state structure that:

1. Provides as much protection as possible to the people organizing events.

2. Gets individual sailors their public liability insurance, even if they don't realise they need it .

3. We have a hierarchy potentially good enough to declare state champions (speed, slalom, waves whatever). Sponsored sailors take note!

4. We no longer look like a state that is too disorganized to host a nationals (wave, slalom, whatever) should we one day get a critical mass together prepared to take it on.

5. The clubs would now have a structure for receiving money from bodies like the AWA, gov or whatever (see thread on Boardsailors Ball for example).


What I would propose doing from here is informing myself on exactly would be required and how such a system would work in detail. Then having a chat to the people driving SASD and SASWA and taking their thoughts on board. I've sort of got a foot in both tribes, so it's something I feel I can do. Nothing is compulsory, and no-one is trying to take over anything!

Now is the time put these ideas out there as the new membership year for Windsurfing SA starts July 1 (correct me if I'm wrong John!) and it would make sense to form a club by then. I don't think it would be too much extra work on what is already happening in SASD and SASWA, but let me check that out. If I need to be the treasurer for both clubs, then I will do that.

Regarding a long distance races along the coast - maybe I could take this on as project for SASD if there is a will to forge it into a club? It would be a natural extension of what is already happening really. I have a plan for a sort of training event, which I will post soon.


Regards, Richard
See you on the water sometime.


Also, go Allison Shreeve! http://rushtrac.com/live/?a=event_map&e=310. I have an old old newsletter summarising the long distance crossings done in SA in the early days. I might try to post it. Some heroic stuff.

Thanks for all your efforts Richard, I don't get on to Seabreeze much.
I have all the old newsletters back to.. "stone ages", so have a lot of info about the old marathons - need to scan the articles. Don't think we will be doing the Goolwa - Meningie in the forseeable future, and the Milang - Goolwa could involve a lot of tacking.

Allison got over halfway in her Bass Strait crossing - amazing.
windsurfingsa.org.au/2009/04/04/bass-strait-challenge/

- John