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TEAM15…
WHAT NEXT?
WORDS AND PICS: RYA
TEAM15 HAS BEEN RUNNING FOR OVER
A DECADE AND HAS GONE THROUGH
CHANGES IN RECENT YEARS TO REFINE
THE PROGRAMME. Chris Blackburn, RYA
High Performance Manager and Team15
lead, talks through the windsurfing
initiative:
For those unaware of Team15, the RYA run programme is
an initiative to introduce young people to windsurfing and
develop core skills of junior windsurfers throughout the
country.
In its most basic form, Team 15 is a junior ‘get in to
windsurfing’ programme and is offered to support clubs
running fun introductions to windsurfing, to continue
sailing and then on to competing.
Team15 has been running for over a decade and in its
infancy saw a rapid growth. However in recent years the
numbers had started to decline, so a decision had to be
made about the programme and its effectiveness. The
decision that was made was to alter the programme and
focus resources in a different way.
Thankfully the decline in numbers was halted with the
changes made and the programme is now seeing growth
once more in terms of both amounts of clubs offering
windsurfing and of participants within those clubs.
On the whole the programme is looking healthy. More
clubs have signed up to Team15 in the last year and more
are anticipated in the year ahead, which goes to show the
initiative is working.
But to move forward you have to learn, adapt and
improve. This is what Team15 is looking to do throughout
2018.
The interclub programme is very important to Team15’s
success. Club attendance at the events give figure based
data, and that feedback helps to shape the programme. If
club attendance is good and on the rise, things are working.
If numbers aren’t rising, it’s time to tweak and refine.
Interclub participation has shown an increase from 2016 to
2017 and we are looking to continue that trend in 2018.
The interclub programme planned for 2018 has four events
in each region, and the south west region has even been
split into two sub-sections to accommodate the demand.
uk
WIND
SURFING