On Saturday 3rd July Australian Sailing hosted the annual Tasmanian Club Conference at the Derwent Sailing Squadron. 37 club personnel attended the conference, which was filled with several insightful presentations from various parts of the sporting community. Thank you to all who attended and those who took the time to speak, it was a great day.

Richard Bevan, Regional Advisory Committee Chair, provided an update on RAC activities including the alignment with AS Strategic Plan and supporting AS by building stronger relationships with Tasmanian sailing clubs.

Garry Langford, Director of Australian Sailing, presented the Australian Sailing Strategic Plan, Club Fees Review as well as an update on Stakeholder engagement and World Sailing representation and appointments.

Chris Jones provided National update including the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, the development and progression of the Club Pathways initiative and a data analysis on membership and retention around the nation. Chris also provided a State update on participation rates, membership statistics and the impact of SailPass on the state in the past season.

Amy Potter, Australian Sailing's recently appointed Tasmanian Events Coordinator provided a State update on SheSails and the upcoming ‘Steering the Course Festival’ in October. Amy also updated clubs on the upcoming State Awards in September, upcoming Australian Sailing courses and Youth Sail TAS being held at RYCT in October.

The afternoon welcomed Rachel Siely from Communities, Sport and Recreation Tasmania. Rachel presented the topic of Child Safety, providing clubs with insight into The National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. This presentation provided great background into how clubs can protect children within their organisation, and the importance of holding a Registration to Work with Vulnerable People.

Teresa Badrock, PDYC and LYC, delivered a super engaging presentation on the ‘Ripple Effect’ she has noticed since getting involved with SheSails at her clubs, providing insight into how other clubs can get started. Teressa touched upon her sailing experience, Women on Water days, the Women’s Keelboat Regatta, and other great events she found successful in the north of the state.

Australian Sailing's Chris Jones and Amy Potter presented on ‘Simplifying Technology for Volunteers’. Chris and Amy introduced over 30 technology platforms that are readily available for clubs to use, with the aim to reduce the workload on volunteers.

Andrew Moore, Club Tasmania discussed services that help increase food security, the benefits of cashless clubs, and provided an overview on how Clubs Tasmania can help our local sailing clubs in a variety of ways. Finally, we welcomed Verity Shugg from SBSC to be involved in a Q & A session on a membership retention. Verity provided her opinion and experience on the barriers, positives and potential improvements clubs should look at when trying to retain members past initial learn to sail programs and for members who aren’t traditionally from a sailing background.

The highlight of the day was hearing from local guest speakers, who provided interesting and engaging presentations about opportunities and changes Clubs in Tassie can make to further improve in the coming season.

Below is a link for the Communities, Sport and Recreation Tasmania monthly email ‘Actively in Touch’. This email newsletter is used to publish all Communities, Sport and Recreation Tasmania news, as well as being used to submit anything exciting happening at your club. Sign up HERE

Here is the link to become your clubs She Sails Representative. A description of this role can be found HERE. A reminder, the more the merrier (as long as the individual has been approved by the club)! Sign up HERE . Any questions please email events.tas@sailing.org.au.

Any feedback on how the conference can be improved in the future, fill out this survey. This feedback really helps us continue to build upon this annual event.

A copy of the slides from the day can be found HERE