As a new initiative to keep our sailing club community informed, here's my top monthly 5 topics for clubs to be aware of. 

I encourage club committees to table these at your club committee and/or sailing committee meetings and ensure your club is 1) aware of these topics, 2) taking advantage of or contributing from the information by taking steps within your club to continually improve your club activities and environment.  If at any stage you would like more information or would like me to make comment on a topic please email me at ben.callard@sailing.org.au or call our office on (07) 3393 6788.

For local inquiries and ground support contact the NT Club Services Officer Claire Hall on Claire.hall@sailing.org.au or 0467 307 234.

1. Working with Children Policies and Templates

Recently, legislation changed regarding the minimum standards and requirements for Child Safety Polices. During the year, when conducting Discover Sailing Centre reviews, I have noticed that the majority of clubs all have very different policies around working with children. As a result, Australian Sailing has worked to develop and improve their own Child Protection policies and provide, for clubs, templates and resources to assist. Every State has different requirements, so it is important to ensure your policies are specific to your State and your requirements as a club. Child Safety has got to be one of the most important issues of our time and has huge consequences in terms of reputation and legislatively if we get it wrong. 

What is Child Safety?

Child Safety is about keeping children and young people safe from abuse and protecting them from people who are identified as unsuitable to work with children. There is no national Child Protection law, however all states and territories have their own child protection laws to keep children safe and to protect them from abuse.

Why is it important?

All children and young people have a right to be safe when participating in sport and recreation activities.
Clubs and Classes must be compliant with the relevant child protection laws of the state/territory they are in. Failure to be compliant may result in punishment under the legislation.

How does Child Safety impact my Club?

Clubs and Classes need to ensure that they are adhering to the Child Protection Laws and requirements of the state/territory it is in. The Child Safety link below provides state-specific resources and information for clubs and classes to assist them to be compliant with the relevant laws. Resources available include;
•    Child Safety Templates for clubs
•    Editable poster relating to Child Safety
•    The state by state requirements for Working with Children
•    Suggested procedure for handling reports of abuse

Who does Child Safety apply to?

Child Safety relates to all clubs and classes who have children or young people (as defined under relevant legislation) involved in their club or class.
Action item for clubs: Check you club’s Child Protection and Child Safety policies and practices and ensure they meet the legal requirements of the Northern Territory.

CLICK HERE FOR FURTHER INFO AND THE RESOURCES
CLICK HERE FOR ALL AUSTRALIAN SAILING POLICIES 

2.    SailPass at your Club

At the request of clubs from around the country Australian Sailing has developed a means by which a non-member can go sailing at your Club – it’s a form of introductory or short-term membership (for a day or days).

•  It offers safe, quick, easy and affordable access to sailing
• It breaks down the perceived barriers to sailing
• It has potential to target new markets and offers you a marketing database
• It’s a massive safety improvement
• It’s compliance friendly
• It’s increasingly popular and successful in clubs currently utilising it
• Mostly – it is a simple way to get more people, having fun in boats at your club

The major benefits to your club

• It’s an attractive proposition
• A flexible introduction to sailing at clubs for people new to the sport
• It’s accessible, welcoming, quick, easy & affordable
• It has potential to target new markets and offers you a marketing database
• It’s a massive safety improvement
• It’s compliance friendly
• It’s increasingly popular and successful in clubs currently utilising it
• Mostly – it is a simple way to get more people, having fun in boats at your club

The major benefits to your club

• It’s an attractive proposition
• A flexible introduction to sailing at clubs for people new to the sport
• It’s accessible, welcoming, quick, easy & affordable
• It’s mobile friendly & integrated
• It breaks down the perceived barriers to sailing - sailing is expensive, inaccessible and unsafe.
• Creation of a marketing database to allow you to communicate with potential members
• Addresses the Australian Sailing racing rules & personal insurance
• It gets a big safety tick
• You know who is on the water
• Improves your risk management
• Allows you to collect participant information including ‘next of kin’ details
• It ticks a number of compliance boxes
• Addresses the use of your clubs by non-members

Action item for clubs: Review how your club caters to introducing non-members to sailing. Consider implementing SailPass at your club.

CLICK HERE FOR INFO AND RESOURCES

3.    OutThere Sailing

Australian Sailing has just launched a new program for teenagers called OutThere Sailing. OutThere Sailing is designed at the request of clubs for a program to increase participation of the 12-17 year old age group.  With fun as its priority, we want to keep friends together out on the water and while learning new sailing skills are great, we want to the enjoyment of the experience to be the priority. 

The program is designed to keep friends together. So, a person on OutThere Sailing 1 and OutThere Sailing 2 can sail together.  There are two skills sets to develop in the form of helming and crewing. Ideally getting a balance between both is great but if you would prefer to do one over the other there is plenty of ways to have fun. OutThere will also focus on the social element of a club environment, simply enjoying time spent with peers whether that be on the water, on the beach or in the clubhouse.

The program has been piloted in Victoria over the last 12 months and all of the clubs delivering the program have experienced a significant increase in retention and transition of participants to club members over their traditional delivered programs. Some to the extent of 70% transition from course to club membership. 

Action item for clubs: If your club is interested in delivering this program please contact Claire Hall for more information. It would be great if all the clubs in the NT could promote the Learn to Sail Options available and the programs being delivered to increase sailing participation in the NT. 

CLICK HERE FOR INFO 

4.    The Australian Sports Foundation has a new grassroots grant round opening

Grassroots sports clubs across Australia will have the opportunity to purchase new equipment or fund other programs aimed at getting more young people playing sport following a new $500,000 grants program conducted by the Australian Sports Foundation.

The grants program initiative will be launched on Monday June 17.

Cash grants will be available to grassroots not-for-profit clubs to help those under 20 years of age play sport, whether it’s $3,000 for bats and balls, $5,000 for uniforms, or larger sums to help youngsters travel to participate and compete.

https://asf.org.au/news/500000-of-cash-grants-to-boost-grassroots-sport/  

To find out more about how to apply for grants people should contact info@sportsfoundation.org.au  

Action item for clubs: Consider if you have a need worthy of this funding opportunity. Best to start your planning and preparation as early as possible. 

5.     Governance for Clubs

Ensure your clubs policies and other required documentation is available on your website for public access.  

The NT Government is tightening their belts and as a result is looking closer at organisations applying for grants.  It is a good idea to take a look to ensure you have all the required policies in place and that they are easily available to the public on your website.  There is not much point in having them if nobody else know that they exist and it will be the first place the people assessing the applications will look.  If you need help with some of the policies, there are a number of places to access templates that can then be amended to suit your club.

Australian Sailing has number of policies in place that can be replicated to suit as well as templates.

CLICK HERE FOR THE AUSTRALIAN SAILING POLICIES

YNT has the following policies that can be used as templates:
•    Healthy Eating Policy
•    SunSmart Policy
•    Smoke Free Policy
•    Alcohol Code of Behaviour
•    Volunteer Policy

CLICK HERE FOR THE YNT POLICIES

Further sources of policy templates and useful information for your clubs:

CLICK HERE FOR THE GOOD SPORTS WEBSITE
CLICK HERE FOR THE SPORTS COMMUNITY WEBSITE

Action item for clubs: Review your policies, best practice to do this at least annually anyway. Consider if you need to develop some new ones or update existing ones.