York Black 2022 competing at Birmingham
Our project
We're raising money to allow us to compete in University Sailing competitions around the country, and to improve training opportunities for our sailors. We really want to make this sport accessible to everyone, no matter the cost!
Who are we?
York University Sailing and Windsurfing Club (YUSWC) is made up of a combination of sailors, windsurfers, and yachters. We support two racing sailing teams which we send to events, and we run beginners sessions for newer members or those who just want to sail recreationally! We also have a windsurfing team who will be attending some later events this year, and a yachting group who are liaising with Bridlington Yacht club to organise some training days for our new yachters!
Windsurfing beginners session
Our story
Sailing can be a particularly difficult sport to get started in outside of a university environment. As a university club, we are thrilled to offer a range of sessions for students, and be involved in so many events and competitions.
Our club has been struggling recently as we’ve been trying to get our windsurfing and yachting back up and running after a couple of difficult years through the COVID pandemic. We’ve also been starting to organise new friendly training sessions with nearby universities such as Leeds and Lancaster, as this is a fantastic way to practice and improve ready for our national competitions at BUCS and Roses. However, it has added additional transport and training costs to our day to day running of the club, and unfortunately, our club isn’t in a position to help our members out. This is where we need your help!
We really want to minimise the financial burden on our members to make this sport accessible to everyone, regardless of cost. We already take every measure possible to offer affordable sessions to beginners, such as providing all equipment and transport, and many of our members rely on this to be able to join in. We really don't want anyone to miss out because of financial issues or concerns. We would love to be able to further subsidise sessions and events, to get more people involved and grow our club!
We also are really keen to offer powerboat qualifications for our members. Not only are these mandatory for instructors, but they are also invaluable for increasing the safety of our sessions and our sailors themselves. Any reduction in those costs would be fantastic to get more people eager to get training, and this is a huge focus of ours currently.
Some of our sailors training at our club, Ripon SC!
What will the money go towards?
Whatever money we raise will help cover expenses for events, including transport and event entry. Our goal is to make events more accessible to people who might otherwise struggle to afford them. We also want to put some money into upcoming PB2 training courses, to reduce the costs for beginners and instructors who want to get qualified.
We normally attend 6 university events per year, from around the country. So far this year we've attended events at Sheffield, Leeds and Birmingham, and most recently Nottingham. We also compete in the national sailing competition (BUCS) every year!
Here's a breakdown of the costs:
Event entry: £300 per team, 6 people per team
Total for 6 events, 2 teams = £4680
PB2 course cost per person: c.£100, approx. 10 people interested
Total PB2: c.£1000
Grand total: £5680
We understand this is a large amount of money; this total would be for eliminating all event and PB2 fees for our members. To really make an impact, we would like to halve the cost of the PB2 course for each member, and reduce the entry tickets for events by 25%. This minimum impact totals to about £1170 which would be a fantastic target to hit! Any contribution to this would be massively appreciated.
If we are blown away by donations, and can afford to spend any extra money on other club targets, we would be really keen to help subsidise our beginner sessions to improve their training and facilities.
A sunny day on the water for our beginners
Rewards
We're so grateful for the contribution towards our fundraising! We have several tiered rewards, including invitations to our club annual event, the Ripon Rumble (previously Beaver Bash) in the summer, or a sticker on our boats! Thank you to everyone who donates, whatever you can give!
Our social media
Website: yuswc
Facebook: York University Sailing and Windsurfing
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2956367391268071
Instagram: yorksailing
https://www.instagram.com/yorksailing/?hl=en
Go check out some of our videos of our training sessions!
Follow us to keep updated with how we're doing!
Please Help us succeed!
We really appreciate anyone who can help us with our fundraiser! Please donate if you can, it would be amazing to hit our target! However, if you don't feel that you can donate, please share this with your friends and family or social media so we can reach as many people as we can.
Thank you!
YUSWC
One of our teams celebrating qualifying at BUCS!
